Current Signature Analysis to Diagnose Incipient Faults

in Wind Generator Systems

Lucian Mihet Popa*, Birgitte Bak-Jensen**, Ewen Ritchie** and Ion Boldea*
*
Department of Electrical Machines and Drives, Politehnica University of Timisoara, 1900
Timisoara - Romania
**
Institute of Energy Technology, Aalborg University, 9220 Aalborg-Denmark

Abstract This paper focuses on the experimental investigation for incipient fault detection and
fault detection methods existing in the literature, suitably adapted for use in wind generator
systems using Doubly Fed Induction Generators (DFIGs). Three main experiments (one for
stator phase unbalance, one for rotor phase unbalance and one for turn-to-turn faults) have
been performed to study the electrical behaviour of the DFIG. The article aims to provide
further documentation for an advanced condition monitoring system for wind generators, in
order to avoid undesirable operating conditions and to detect and diagnose incipient electrical
faults. A description of the measurement system and experimental investigation are presented
and stator currents and instantaneous power spectra of the DFIG are analyzed.

I. INTRODUCTION (DFIG), with slip rings, rated at 11 kW, provided with a

gearbox, as described in the appendix. The wind turbine
The reduction of operational and maintenance costs is rotor is emulated by use of a drive system scaled for
continuously required of modern wind generators. In driving the DFIG. The drive system is composed of a 15
particular, with plans for extending wind farms at sea kW squirrel cage induction motor and a 22 kVA-
(making the generators more inaccessible), it is required frequency converter. Two back-to-back PWM-VSI
to increase reliability and production time, converters, with a dc link including a dc capacitor filter
simultaneously with an increase of service interval. An are used to control the rotor current, active and reactive
important factor enabling this is to provide wind power flow, as can be seen in Fig. 1.
generators with advanced condition monitoring systems
and monitoring the generator during operation. This will
help to avoid undesirable operating conditions, and to
detect incipient faults in the components to detect sensor
and actuator faults. Machine current signature analysis Freq. Conv. COND. MONITORING
SYSTEM
(MCSA) is a non-invasive, online or offline monitoring 3~
technique for the diagnosis of problems in induction IM Gear Back to back
machines [4, 5, 6]. [4, 5, 7, 8, 9] use spectrum analysis of IG
Converter
machine line current (MCSA) to detect broken bar faults.
The presence of static and dynamic eccentricity can also Model of Wind Turbine Model of Generator System

be detected using motor current signature analysis -

MCSA [2, 10, 13]. Diagnostic media other than the
current include the input power and estimated torque [15-
16]. In place of the stator current, the instantaneous
power may be used as a medium for the machine
signature analysis oriented towards mechanical and
electrical faults detection in a drive system [7, 15, 16].
The objective of this paper is to develop and test methods
of condition monitoring, existing in the literature,
suitably adapted for implementation in wind generator
systems. This should contribute to increasing the time in
which the generator will produce energy, by reducing the
time spent in operating in undesirable load or fault
conditions.
II. DESCRIPTION OF THE EXPERIMENTAL
SYSTEM
The experimental system is a model of a wind generator
system. The generator is a doubly fed induction generator
Model of Wind Generator System
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the laboratory model of a wind generator
system.
The most important feature of the measurement system is
a complete condition monitoring system, which
comprises many subsystems like transducers, signal
conditioning boxes and data acquisition devices.
A. The Condition Monitoring System
A complete condition monitoring system could comprise
many subsystems, each monitoring a particular part of the
wind generator. This study includes the design and
commissioning of a measuring system comprising the
AD Card - ICS 645, signal conditioning boxes and
transducers. The Rogowski Current Transducer-RGF 75
was selected to measure stator and rotor currents because
of its merits compared to other transducers, such as: have
a very wide bandwidth, provide an isolated measurement
at around ground potential, can measure large current
without saturating, accuracy typically 1% and linearity
0.05% full scale / 0.1% actual reading. The stator
voltages were measured using a High Voltage
Differential Probe-P5200. The P5200 provides a safe
means of measuring circuits with floating potentials up to
1000 VRMS from ground and up to 1300 V (DC + peak
AC) differential.
A1. The Signal Conditioning
Signal Conditioning provides the interface between the
signals/sensors and the measurement system. It improves
the performance and reliability of the measurement
system with a variety of functions, including: signal
amplification, attenuation, isolation, filtering,
multiplexing, linearization, sensor conditioning,
offsetting and noise reduction.
In our set up it was imperative to adapt the signals from
transducers as the DAQ ICS 645 accepts the input
signals with peak amplitudes of 1.03 V with an input
impedance of 500 Ohms. Voltage signals, acquired by
high voltage differential probes, required attenuation of
the signal while the voltage signals obtained from
Rogowski coils required filtering and offsetting of the
signal, as can be seen in Fig. 2.
BNC
TRANSDUCERS Connect. Signal Conditioning
R0 C1 R2
+
R1
C0 - -
COIL VOUT
R1 + Vo= 1V
Rogowski Current Transducer
R1 R2
OSCILLOSCOPE
Fig. 2. Single channel block diagram of current sensors conditioning.
A2. The Data Acquisition Device
The Data Acquisition (DAQ) device ICS-645 is designed
for high frequency, high precision, high-density data
acquisition and high-speed test and measurement
applications. It combines the ultimate in analog and
digital technologies to provide up to 16 channels and
sample rates of up to 5 MHz/channel. The AD Card
ICS 645 is able to convert 16 channels simultaneously at
up to 5 MHz sampling frequency, and with 16 bit
conversion. All recorded data were processed using the
MATLAB software package to plot the currents and
voltage spectra and then to perform the FFT analysis. For
each variable, 216 values were recorded, with the
sampling frequency of 2.5 MHz and with the amount of
data points of 32 768.
III. EXPERIMENTAL ARRANGEMENTS
Methods for the prediction of electrical behaviour in
deteriorating induction machines allow for an arbitrary
number of winding deterioration processes to be
simulated on the stator and / or the rotor. Forms of
deterioration might include high or low impedance
between phases, between coils in a single phase, or
between a phase and ground [1].
LV=(15 & 50) mH
A
A
Switch on / off
Switch on / off
B
B DFIG
DFIG
C
C
a1). a2).
b) c)
Data Acquisition
Device Fig. 3.a1) One stator phase inductive unbalance; a2) One stator phase
resistive unbalance;
b) One rotor phase resistive unbalance c) Turn-to-turn fault.
ICS - 645
Three experimental investigations were performed to
study the electrical behaviour of the induction machine:
one stator phase unbalance using a variable resistance and
inductance in series on one phase, one rotor phase
unbalance using a resistance of the same value as the
rotor phase resistance inserted in series on one rotor
phase, and a turn-to-turn fault using an inductance in
parallel on one stator phase, as depicted in Fig. 3.
The stator of the three-phase induction generator (DFIG)
was connected to the star connected power source, also in
star (wyes) connection. The procedure, which was used in
creating an unbalance in one stator or rotor phase,
consisted of increasing the impedance of that phase using
a variable resistance (inductance) connected in series, as
can be seen in Figs. 3a1, 3a2 and 3b. For instance, when a
variable resistance of 10 Ohms was inserted between the
grid and the stator phase terminals on one phase, the
stator impedance became 7 times larger than in the
balanced case. Placing an inductance and/or a resistance
in parallel with one phase, as shown in Fig. 3c),
simulated deterioration of the turn-to-turn insulation. The
procedure consisted of decreasing (weakening) the
impedance of one stator phase by inserting a variable
resistance and/or inductance in parallel on that phase.
To achieve this goal, on-line or off-line strategies that
measure current and voltage may be utilized.
IV. CURRENT SIGNATURE ANALYSIS TO In addition the Figs. 4 make clear that the difference
DETECT INDUCTION GENERATOR FAULTS between balanced operation and under turn-to-turn fault
cases follows the phase angle of stator current - Is1. For
instance the phase angle is changed around 125 Hz (under
Machine current signature analysis (MCSA) is a non-
turn-to-turn) where a new faulty component exist as well.
invasive, online or offline monitoring technique for the
diagnosis of problems in induction machines, such as
turn-to-turn fault [5, 6, 14], broken rotor bars [4, 5, 8, 10,
12], static or / and dynamic eccentricity [2, 7, 11, 12, 13].
Due to its powerful technical merits in diagnosis and
detection of faults the MCSA monitoring technique was
chosen as a fault detection method for further
investigation.
The stator and rotor currents monitoring system that has
been developed consists of three main sub-systems.
These include: signal conditioning, data acquisition and
data analysis. Data acquisition and data analysis sections
are accessed by MATLAB software package run from a
PC. The controlling software allows the operator of the
125Hz
system to store the data in data files for future processing.
The data will first be processed to synthesise suitable
indicators. The indicators will then be resolved into
spectra, showing the frequency content of the indicators a)
such as stator and rotor currents. For Condition
Monitoring, Fourier analysis has been employed using
the coefficients of the current spectrum or the power
spectrum as an indication of how the harmonic content of
a signal varies. If the variation of the harmonic content
can be related to specific faults then it may be useful as
an indicator.
A. MCSA to Diagnose Stator Turn-to-Turn Faults

The objective of this method is to identify current

components in the stator winding that are only a function
of shorted turns and are not due to any other problem or
mechanical drive characteristic. The following equation
gives the components in the air-gap flux waveform that
are a function of shorted turns [3, 4, 5, 6, and 14]:
n
f st = f 1 (1 s ) k .(1)
p Matlab software package and acquired via ICS-645.
fst = stator frequency components that are a function of
shorted turns, f1=supply frequency, n=1,2,3
k=1,3,5,p=pole-pairs, s=slip
The diagnosis of shorted turns via MCSA is based on
detecting the frequency components given by equation
(1) in that these rotating flux waves can induce
corresponding current components in the stator winding.
Figures 4 give the line current spectra for all stator phases
under turn-to-turn fault (Fig 4a) and with no stator fault
(Fig. 4b). The obvious change, in Figure 4a), is that
completely new current components exist around 125 and
375 Hz and can only be due to the shorted turn, as per
theory with k=1, n=3 and k=1, n=13 (equation 1).
b)
Fig. 4. FFT of stator currents under turn-to-turn fault in one stator phase
of DFIG (a) and for a healthy machine (b) at PG=2kW, s=-0.016,
VS=390 V, IS=4.7 A. The data were recorded and processed by
B. MCSA to Diagnose Stator Winding Unbalance
Figs. 5 show a comparison between the stator currents
spectrum under one stator phase resistive unbalance
(R=10 ) and one stator phase inductive unbalance
(L=50 mH). The inductive unbalance creates the
occurrence of new components in the stator current
spectrum around 125 Hz (k=1 and n=3) and around 425
Hz (k=1 and n=15) while the resistive unbalance
provokes the occurrence of new components in the stator
current spectrum around 125 Hz (k=1 and n=3), 325 Hz
(k=1 and n=11) and 375 Hz (k=1 and n=13) as well.

a)
b)
Fig 5. Stator currents spectrum under resistive (a) and inductive
unbalance (b) in one stator phase at PG=2 kW. The data were recorded
and processed by Matlab software and acquired by ICS-645.
C. MCSA to Diagnose Rotor Winding Unbalance
Figures 6 show the stator and rotor line currents spectrum
under rotor unbalance in one rotor phase. A clear
difference in the spectrum of the stator currents appear at
75 Hz, as can be seen in Fig. 6a). Another new
component appears at 375 Hz. The rotor current spectrum
exhibits new faulty components around 375 Hz (k=1 and
n=13) and around 125 Hz (k=1 and n=3) too. Sometimes
components appear at 325 Hz (k=1 and n=11), as can be
seen in Fig. 6b). It can be concluded that the rotor line
current spectrum, under rotor unbalance in one rotor
phase, offers more informations about occurrence of this
fault than the stator line current spectrum. Anyway, both
of them may be used as an indicator in detection of
incipient rotor windings unbalance. While, under the
resistive and inductive unbalance in one stator phase and
under turn-to-turn fault in one stator phase, the stator line
current spectrum offers more information.
a)
b)
Fig. 6. Frequency Spectrum of the stator currents (a) and rotor currents
(b) under rotor unbalance in one rotor phase at PG=2kW. The data were
recorded and processed by Matlab software and acquired by ICS-645.
V. INSTANTANEOUS POWER AS DIAGNOSIS
MEDIA
Sometimes, reliable interpretation of the spectra is
difficult, since distortions of the current waveform caused
by the abnormalities in the drive system are usually
minute. In this situation, an alternative medium for the
machine signature analysis, namely the instantaneous
power, is used. It has been shown that the amount of
information carried by the instantaneous power, which is
the product of the supply voltage and the motor current,
as shown by (2), is higher than that deducible from the
current alone [15, 16].
PAB(t)=pAB,0(t)+(m/2)ILVLL{2cos(+/6)cos(0t)+cos[(2
+ 0)t--/6]+cos[(2 - 0)t--/6]}(2)

where pAB,0(t) is the instantaneous power, m is the

modulation index, VLL is the rms value of the line-to-line
voltage, and IL is the line current, while and denote
the supply radian frequency and machine load angle, and
0 is the radian oscillation frequency.
The diagnostic media include the following:
line current iA, in phase A of the supply line;
Partial input power pAB, calculated as a product of
the line-to-line voltage vAB and line current iA.
Total power pABC(t), a sum of pAB and pCB.
Recorded data were processed using the MATLAB
software package. The Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) was
computed and the power spectra were plotted. For each
case, voltage and current measurements were taken for
the generator operating. For each variable, 216 values
were recorded, with the sampling frequency of 2.5 MHz, c)
simultaneously on each channel.

a)
d)
Fig.7. Frequency spectrum of partial and total instantaneous power and
stator current of DFIG for healthy machine (a) and under stator
unbalance (b), rotor unbalance (c) and turn-to-turn fault (d) at 2 kW.
FFT was computed and power and current spectrum were plotted using
MATLAB software and getting via ICS 645.

Spectra of diagnostic media with and without fault are

shown in Figs. 7. The spectrum of instantaneous power
and line current is also presented. The frequency
spectrum of partial and total power under stator
unbalance (Fig. 7b) exhibits faulty components around
425 Hz, while the frequency spectrum of stator current
offers new faulty components around 125 Hz and 375 Hz,
too. In the instantaneous power spectrum under rotor
unbalance (Fig. 7c) appears additional components
around 125 Hz and 425 Hz while in the frequency
b)
spectrum of stator current appears new faulty components
around 75 Hz and 375 Hz, respectively. The frequency
spectrum of partial and total power under turn-to-turn
fault gives new faulty components around 425 Hz. The
stator current spectrum exhibits new components around
125 Hz, as can be seen in Fig. 7c). It is concluded that the
instantaneous power spectra has not bring important
improvement under stator unbalance. Therefore, the
stator current should be maintained as the main medium
for the machine signature analysis, while, when an
abnormality such as rotor unbalance is developed the
stator current seems to offer no advantage over the
instantaneous power.
VI. CONCLUSION
The objective of this paper was to develop different type
of faults and to test detection methods of condition
monitoring, previously reported in the literature, and
suitable adapted for implementation in wind generator
systems. The results presented have shown that the
objective was achieved. An induction machine condition
monitoring system has also been developed to tests these
methods. The software, which controls both the
acquisition and analysis of the signals, is written in
MATLAB and has been developed as a sub-part of the
monitoring system.
The experimental results show the efficiency of line
stator and rotor currents monitoring in identifying the
presence of an unbalance in one stator and rotor phase
and confirm the presence of harmonics as described by
(1). The experimental results have clearly demonstrated
that MCSA to be used to diagnose turn-to-turn faults.
MCSA can also diagnose other problems in induction
generators such as inductive and resistive unbalance in
one stator and rotor phase. Due to the fact that the study
was limited to the simulating turn-to-turn fault, placing [11] S. Nandi, Hamid A. Toliyat and Alexander G. Parlos,
an inductance in parallel on one phase, instead the effect
of real short circuits, more research is certainly needed.
The instantaneous power seems to be a valid alternative
diagnostic medium for the machine signature analysis.
Hopefully, the results presented will form a basis for
diagnosis methods in wind generator systems.
APPENDIX:
TABLE. I.
NAMEPLATE DATA FOR LEROY SOMER 11 kW
WOUND ROTOR SLIP RING GENERATOR.
LEROY SOMER, MOT~FLSB 180 M4 B3, No. 14618900HG01, kg:
220
IP55 IK 1 cl. F 40 C S1
V Hz 1/min KW cos A
690Y 50 1460 11 0.81 IS=13
VR=1700 IR= 6.1
3
DE 6310 15cm 11000 H
[16] Andrzej M. Trzynadlowski and Ewen Ritchie,
50/60 Hz
NDE 6310 15cm3 11000 H
50/60 Hz
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