Incipient Fault Diagnosis in Ultra-Reliable Electrical Machines

Early detection of incipient faults in AC drives is one of the most difficult challenges for condition monitoring, especially for faults related to insulation degradation of the windings. In low power motors, the insulation degradation is principally due to the steep voltage variations caused by the voltage source converters (VSCs) that drive the machines. In the last years, with the coming to market of new no-Si based power devices, which achieve great values of dv/dt, fast tracking of electrical fault has became a topic of primary importance. In this paper a new method to detect the presence of incipient faults in ultra-reliable electric machines is presented and compared with a previous solution. The different methods were extensively evaluated, by means of experimental results. It is shown that potential winding faults can be detected at an early stage of fault inception and thus measures can be taken to limit propagation.