Evaluating Wind Turbines With Electrical Signature Analysis

Electrical Signature Analysis (ESA) is the method of using the electric machine magnetic field as the transducer as measured through voltage and current.  The method was originally developed by Oak Ridge National Labs in the late 1980s for the expressed purpose of fault detection of gear and bearing wear in driven equipment in addition to…

Understanding the Energy Impact of Lubrication in Electric Machines

It is generally understood that lubrication must, by default, have an impact on equipment efficiency in terms of friction.  These losses, which are lumped into friction and windage in efficiency standards, such as IEEE Standard 112 Method B[1], which is one of the five types of electric machine losses: core losses (15-25%) and friction and…

Reliability Engineering, Data Science, Machine Learning and Bias

When dealing with statistical analysis and probabilities its often the missing information that can be an issue.  This can result in bias when working in areas such as reliability, data science and machine learning that result in incorrect solutions.  We’ve seen that in such things as the percentage of type of motor failures, faulty IoT…

EMPATH Continuous Monitoring Special Applications for Energy Analysis

The EMPATH™ family of Electrical Signature and Motor Current Signature Analysis (ESA/MCSA) systems go well beyond analyzing electric motors, generators and wind turbines.  It provides prognostic and time to failure estimation (TTFE) capabilities for AC/DC electric motors, synchronous machines, servo motors, machine tools, generators – including utility scale, and transformers.  Not only will it identify…

TheRamReview.com Machine Learning Article Part III Addendum – the code

For trying out the method described Mathworks (https://mathworks.com) provides 30 day trials of their personal and business versions of the Matlab and Simulink systems.  The *.csv files created for this article series were developed within Matlab (Figure 2) using the code which follows. *Note: The code in this article is for demonstration purposes only and…

Evaluating Missing Wedges and Coil Movement with ESA IEEE Paper

Two significant issues in wind power asynchronous generators are magnetic wedge loss and coil movement resulting in winding faults.  Most of the time the failures occur unexpectedly or require borescope or visual inspections of the generator stators.  In this paper we will identify how both conditions can be detected during operation through Electrical Signature Analysis. …

Insulation Death Due to Old Age

It does happen, although rarely, in typical industrial environments that an electric machine will die of old age.  The reason is that machines are often exposed to contamination issues, other environmental issues, power issues or a combination of events that degrade the insulation slowly or rapidly. There is also a rule of reliability that should…

Evaluation of Stator and Rotor Interturn Stress with Electrical Signature Analysis in Variable Frequency Drive and Wind Generator Applications

Abstract— Electrical Signature Analysis is the application and analysis of Voltage and Current data collected on electrical machinery systems.  The measurements are converted to amplitude modulated Fast Fourier Transforms that can be evaluated for power, machine and powertrain conditions.  Electrical and mechanical conditions are determined through their effects on the airgap magnetic field.  One of…