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Undergraduate courses in electrical machines often include an introduction to the air gap magnetic field as a basic element in the energy conversion process. The students must learn the main properties of the field produced by basic winding configurations and how they relate to the winding current and frequency. This paper describes a new test equipment design aimed at helping students achieve these learning goals. The test equipment is designed based on four main elements: a modified slip ring induction machine, a winding current driver board, the DAQ boards, and a PC-based virtual instrument. The virtual instrument provides the winding current drivers with suitable current references depending on the user selected machine operational status (single- or three-phase/winding with DC or AC current) and measures and displays the air gap magnetic field for that operational status. Students' laboratory work is organized into a series of experiments that guide their achievement of these air gap field-related abilities. Student learning, assessed based on pre- and post-lab exams and end-of-semester exams, has increased significantly. The students' opinions of the relevance, usefulness, and motivational effects of the laboratory were also positive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution describes the change in methodology introduced in the subject of electrical technology within the industrial technologies engineering degree at Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería Industrial, Universitat Politècnica de València. The main purpose of the methodology change was to improve the attainment of student outcomes by the introduction of project-based learning supported by flipped teaching. Moreover, a software tool was developed that generates standard exercise statements for the design of electrical installations. Using this tool, students can practice with different problem exercises, enter their solution, and receive immediate feedback on their results, improving the teaching–learning experience. The level of student outcomes attained was improved, and other positive aspects arose from the experience, such as boosting students' responsibility in their own learning (learn to learn), their ability to solve problems, and students' motivation. Furthermore, the instructors' opinions on the methodology change were highly positive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Induction machines (IMs) play a critical role in various industrial processes but are susceptible to degenerative failures, such as broken rotor bars. Effective diagnostic techniques are essential in addressing these issues. In this study, we propose the utilization of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for detection of broken rotor bars. To accomplish this, we generated a dataset comprising current samples versus angular position using finite element method magnetics (FEMM) software for a squirrel-cage rotor with 28 bars, including scenarios with 0 to 6 broken bars at every possible relative position. The dataset consists of a total of 16,050 samples per motor. We evaluated the performance of six different CNN architectures, namely Inception V4, NasNETMobile, ResNET152, SeNET154, VGG16, and VGG19. Our automatic classification system demonstrated an impressive 99% accuracy in detecting broken rotor bars, with VGG19 performing exceptionally well. Specifically, VGG19 exhibited high accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-Score, with values approaching 0.994 and 0.998. Notably, VGG19 exhibited crucial activations in its feature maps, particularly after domain-specific training, highlighting its effectiveness in fault detection. Comparing CNN architectures assists in selecting the most suitable one for this application based on processing time, effectiveness, and training losses. This research suggests that deep learning can detect broken bars in induction machines with accuracy comparable to that of traditional methods by analyzing current signals using CNNs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Skin and proximity effects can cause a non-uniform current distribution in the electrical conductors used in alternating current (ac) busbar systems, which increases resistance, decreases internal inductance, and causes asymmetries in the electromagnetic fields and forces. As no explicit solution for the ac resistance or the ac internal inductance of a rectangular conductor has been found, numerical methods are needed to obtain the distribution of the currents inside the busbars. In this paper, a novel numerical approach, based on the fast Fourier transform (FFT) and the convolution theorem, is proposed to model the rectangular conductors of the busbar system, based on the subdivision of the conductor in filamentary subconductors. This technique is know to lead to a dense, huge inductance matrix, that must be multiplied by the current vector, which limits its practical application. The proposed method replaces this matrix-vector multiplication with a simple element-wise vector product in the spatial frequency domain. The FFT speed makes the proposed method very fast and easy to apply. This approach is theoretically explained and applied to an industrial busbar system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Induction machines (IMs) are a critical component of many industrial processes, and their failure can cause large economic losses. Condition-based maintenance systems (CBMs) that are capable of detecting their failures at an incipient stage can reduce these risks by continuously monitoring the IMs' condition. The development and reliable operations of CBMs systems require rapid modeling of the faulty IM. Due to the fault-induced IM asymmetries, these models are much more complex than those used for a healthy IM. In particular, a mixed eccentricity fault (static and dynamic), which can degenerate into rubbing and destruction of the rotor, produces a non-uniform IM air gap that is different for each rotor position, which makes its very difficult to calculate the IM's inductance matrix. In this work, a new analytical model of an eccentric IM is presented. It is based on the winding tensor approach, which allows a clear separation between the air gap and winding-related faults. Contrary to previous approaches, where complex expressions have been developed for obtaining mutual inductances between conductors and windings of an eccentric IM, a conformal transformation is proposed in this work, which allows using the simple inductance expressions of a healthy IM. This novel conformal winding tensor approach (CWFA) is theoretically explained and validated with the diagnosis of two commercial IMs with a mixed eccentricity fault. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Induction machines (IMs) are essential components of many industrial installations and, therefore, their faults must be detected early. Fault detection using current spectrum analysis is attracting an increasing interest as a condition-based monitoring (CBM) technique. However, its use to detect rotor asymmetries in high-power IMs, which operate at very low slip, is particularly challenging, due to the closeness of the characteristic fault harmonics to the fundamental component, separated only a few MHz. Their reliable detection in harsh industrial environments requires a very high spectral resolution, that is, long acquisition times and a huge number of current samples, which hinders its implementation on embedded, online devices with limited computing resources. To address this problem, this article presents a novel combination of diagnostic techniques, the use of the rectified current as diagnostic signal, and the Goertzel algorithm as signal processing tool. This unique combination allows for an optimized implementation of the Goertzel algorithm, which provides a high spectral resolution in the full load range of the machine, with a low computational cost and a negligible memory footprint. This proposal is validated experimentally with the fault diagnosis of a high-power medium-voltage industrial motor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motor current signature analysis has become a widespread fault diagnosis technique for induction machines (IMs), because it is noninvasive and requires low resources of hardware (a current sensor) and software (a fast Fourier transform). Nevertheless, its industrial application faces practical problems. One of its most challenging scenarios is the detection of broken bars in IMs working at very low slip, like large machines with a very small rated slip, or unloaded induction motors in off-line tests. In these cases, the leakage of the main supply component can hide the fault harmonics, even with a severe fault. Diverse solutions to this problem have been proposed, such as the use of smoothing windows, advanced spectral estimators, or the removal of the supply component. Nevertheless, these methods modify the spectral content of the current signal or add a high computational burden. In this work, a new approach is proposed, based on the analysis of the current with a very fine spectrum, obtained via simple zero padding, followed by the extraction of a practically leakage-free conventional, coarse spectrum. The method is experimentally validated by the diagnosis of a broken bar fault in a 3.15-MW induction motor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fault diagnosis of induction motors through the analysis of the stator current is increasingly being used in maintenance systems, because it is non-invasive and has low requirements of hardware and software. Nevertheless, its industrial application faces some practical limitations. In particular, the detection of fault harmonics that are very close to the fundamental component is challenging, as in large induction motors working at very low slip, because the leakage of the fundamental can hide the fault components until the damage is severe. Several methods have been proposed to alleviate this problem, although all of them increase noticeably the complexity of the diagnostic system. In this paper, a novel method is proposed, based on the analysis of the rectified motor current. It is shown that its spectrum contains the same fault harmonics as the spectrum of the original current signal, but with a much lower frequency, and free from the fundamental component leakage. Besides, the proposed method is very easy to implement, either by software, using the absolute value of the current samples, or by hardware, using a simple rectifier. The proposed approach is presented theoretically and validated experimentally with the detection of a broken bars fault of a large induction motor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to introduce a new methodology for the fault diagnosis of induction machines working in the transient regime, when time-frequency analysis tools are used. The proposed method relies on the use of the optimized Slepian window for performing the short time Fourier transform (STFT) of the stator current signal. It is shown that for a given sequence length of finite duration, the Slepian window has the maximum concentration of energy, greater than can be reached with a gated Gaussian window, which is usually used as the analysis window. In this paper, the use and optimization of the Slepian window for fault diagnosis of induction machines is theoretically introduced and experimentally validated through the test of a 3.15-MW induction motor with broken bars during the start-up transient. The theoretical analysis and the experimental results show that the use of the Slepian window can highlight the fault components in the current's spectrogram with a significant reduction of the required computational resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transient-based methods for fault diagnosis of induction machines (IMs) are attracting a rising interest, due to their reliability and ability to adapt to a wide range of IM’s working conditions. These methods compute the time–frequency (TF) distribution of the stator current, where the patterns of the related fault components can be detected. A significant amount of recent proposals in this field have focused on improving the resolution of the TF distributions, allowing a better discrimination and identification of fault harmonic components. Nevertheless, as the resolution improves, computational requirements (power computing and memory) greatly increase, restricting its implementation in low-cost devices for performing on-line fault diagnosis. To address these drawbacks, in this paper, the use of the short-frequency Fourier transform (SFFT) for fault diagnosis of induction machines working under transient regimes is proposed. The SFFT not only keeps the resolution of traditional techniques, such as the short-time Fourier transform, but also achieves a drastic reduction of computing time and memory resources, making this proposal suitable for on-line fault diagnosis. This method is theoretically introduced and experimentally validated using a laboratory test bench. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a new approach for improving the fault diagnosis in induction motors under time-varying conditions. A significant amount of published approaches in this field rely on representing the stator current in the time-frequency domain, and identifying the characteristic signatures that each type of fault generates in this domain. However, time-frequency transforms produce three-dimensional (3-D) representations, very costly in terms of storage and processing resources. Moreover, the identification and evaluation of the fault components in the time-frequency plane requires a skilled staff or advanced pattern detection algorithms. The proposed methodology solves these problem by transforming the complex 3-D spectrograms supplied by time-frequency tools into simple x-\rm y graphs, similar to conventional Fourier spectra. These graphs display a unique pattern for each type of fault, even under supply or load time-varying conditions, making easy and reliable the diagnostic decision even for nonskilled staff. Moreover, the resulting patterns can be condensed in a very small dataset, reducing greatly the storage or transmission requirements regarding to conventional spectrograms. The proposed method is an extension to nonstationary conditions of the harmonic order tracking approach. It is introduced theoretically and validated experimentally by using the commercial induction motors feed through electronic converters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Induction machines (IMs) are one of the main sources of mechanical power in many industrial processes, especially squirrel cage IMs (SCIMs), due to their robustness and reliability. Their sudden stoppage due to undetected faults may cause costly production breakdowns. One of the most frequent types of faults are cage faults (bar and end ring segment breakages), especially in motors that directly drive high-inertia loads (such as fans), in motors with frequent starts and stops, and in case of poorly manufactured cage windings. A continuous monitoring of IMs is needed to reduce this risk, integrated in plant-wide condition based maintenance (CBM) systems. Diverse diagnostic techniques have been proposed in the technical literature, either data-based, detecting fault-characteristic perturbations in the data collected from the IM, and model-based, observing the differences between the data collected from the actual IM and from its digital twin model. In both cases, fast and accurate IM models are needed to develop and optimize the fault diagnosis techniques. On the one hand, the finite elements approach can provide highly accurate models, but its computational cost and processing requirements are very high to be used in on-line fault diagnostic systems. On the other hand, analytical models can be much faster, but they can be very complex in case of highly asymmetrical machines, such as IMs with multiple cage faults. In this work, a new method is proposed for the analytical modelling of IMs with asymmetrical cage windings using a tensor based approach, which greatly reduces this complexity by applying routine tensor algebra to obtain the parameters of the faulty IM model from the healthy one. This winding tensor approach is explained theoretically and validated with the diagnosis of a commercial IM with multiple cage faults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motor current signature analysis (MCSA) is a fault diagnosis method for induction machines (IMs) that has attracted wide industrial interest in recent years. It is based on the detection of the characteristic fault signatures that arise in the current spectrum of a faulty induction machine. Unfortunately, the MCSA method in its basic formulation can only be applied in steady state functioning. Nevertheless, every day increases the importance of inductions machines in applications such as wind generation, electric vehicles, or automated processes in which the machine works most of time under transient conditions. For these cases, new diagnostic methodologies have been proposed, based on the use of advanced time-frequency transforms—as, for example, the continuous wavelet transform, the Wigner Ville distribution, or the analytic function based on the Hilbert transform—which enables to track the fault components evolution along time. All these transforms have high computational costs and, furthermore, generate as results complex spectrograms, which require to be interpreted for qualified technical staff. This paper introduces a new methodology for the diagnosis of faults of IM working in transient conditions, which, unlike the methods developed up to today, analyzes the current signal in the slip-instantaneous frequency plane (s-IF), instead of the time-frequency (t-f) plane. It is shown that, in the s-IF plane, the fault components follow patterns that that are simple and unique for each type of fault, and thus does not depend on the way in which load and speed vary during the transient functioning; this characteristic makes the diagnostic task easier and more reliable. This work introduces a general scheme for the IMs diagnostic under transient conditions, through the analysis of the stator current in the s-IF plane. Another contribution of this paper is the introduction of the specific s-IF patterns associated with three different types of faults (rotor asymmetry fault, mixed eccentricity fault, and single-point bearing defects) that are theoretically justified and experimentally tested. As the calculation of the IF of the fault component is a key issue of the proposed diagnostic method, this paper also includes a comparative analysis of three different mathematical tools for calculating the IF, which are compared not only theoretically but also experimentally, comparing their performance when are applied to the tested diagnostic signals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Induction machines drive many industrial processes and their unexpected failure can cause heavy production losses. The analysis of the current spectrum can identify online the characteristic fault signatures at an early stage, avoiding unexpected breakdowns. Nevertheless, frequency domain analysis requires stable working conditions, which is not the case for wind generators, motors driving varying loads, and so forth. In these cases, an analysis in the time-frequency domain—such as a spectrogram—is required for detecting faults signatures. The spectrogram is built using the short time Fourier transform, but its resolution depends critically on the time window used to generate it—short windows provide good time resolution but poor frequency resolution, just the opposite than long windows. Therefore, the window must be adapted at each time to the shape of the expected fault harmonics, by highly skilled maintenance personnel. In this paper this problem is solved with the design of a new multi-band window, which generates simultaneously many different narrow-band current spectrograms and combines them into as single, high resolution one, without the need of manual adjustments. The proposed method is validated with the diagnosis of bar breakages during the start-up of a commercial induction motor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fault diagnosis of rotor asymmetries of induction machines (IMs) using the stator current relies on the detection of the characteristic signatures of the fault harmonics in the current spectrum. In some scenarios, such as large induction machines running at a very low slip, or unloaded machines tested offline, this technique may fail. In these scenarios, the fault harmonics are very close to the frequency of the fundamental component, and have a low amplitude, so that they may remain undetected, buried under the fundamental's leakage, until the damage is severe. To avoid false positives, a proven approach is to search for the fault harmonics in the current envelope, instead of the current itself, because in this case the spectrum is free from the leakage of the fundamental. Besides, the fault harmonics appear at a very low frequency. Nevertheless, building the current spectrum is costly in terms of computing complexity, as in the case of the Hilbert transform, or hardware resources, as in the need for simultaneously sampling three stator currents in the case of the extended current Park's vector approach (EPVA). In this work, a novel method is proposed to avoid this problem. It is based on sampling a phase current just twice per current cycle, with a fixed delay with respect to its zero crossings. It is shown that the spectrum of this reduced set of current samples contains the same fault harmonics as the spectrum of the full-length current envelope, despite using a minimal amount of computing resources. The proposed approach is cost-effective, because the computational requirements for building the current envelope are reduced to less than 1 % of those required by other conventional methods, in terms of storage and computing time. In this way, it can be implemented with low-cost embedded devices for on-line fault diagnosis. The proposed approach is introduced theoretically and validated experimentally, using a commercial induction motor with a broken bar under different load and supply conditions. Besides, the proposed approach has been implemented on a low-cost embedded device, which can be accessed on-line for remote fault diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Induction machines (IMs) power most modern industrial processes (induction motors) and generate an increasing portion of our electricity (doubly fed induction generators). A continuous monitoring of the machine's condition can identify faults at an early stage, and it can avoid costly, unexpected shutdowns of production processes, with economic losses well beyond the cost of the machine itself. Machine current signature analysis (MCSA), has become a prominent technique for condition-based maintenance, because, in its basic approach, it is non-invasive, requires just a current sensor, and can process the current signal using a standard fast Fourier transform (FFT). Nevertheless, the industrial application of MCSA requires well-trained maintenance personnel, able to interpret the current spectra and to avoid false diagnostics that can appear due to electrical noise in harsh industrial environments. This task faces increasing difficulties, especially when dealing with machines that work under non-stationary conditions, such as wind generators under variable wind regime, or motors fed from variable speed drives. In these cases, the resulting spectra are no longer simple one-dimensional plots in the time domain; instead, they become two-dimensional images in the joint time-frequency domain, requiring highly specialized personnel to evaluate the machine condition. To alleviate these problems, supporting the maintenance staff in their decision process, and simplifying the correct use of fault diagnosis systems, expert systems based on neural networks have been proposed for automatic fault diagnosis. However, all these systems, up to the best knowledge of the authors, operate under steady-state conditions, and are not applicable in a transient regime. To solve this problem, this paper presents an automatic system for generating optimized expert diagnostic systems for fault detection when the machine works under transient conditions. The proposed method is first theoretically introduced, and then it is applied to the experimental diagnosis of broken bars in a commercial cage induction motor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]