Author : Rakesh A. Patel and Md Aftab Alam

Condition monitoring of induction motor has become a necessity in today’s competitive world of industries. Stator inter-turn fault is one of the most common faults occurring in the induction motor, not predicting it before it becomes severe, may lead to breakdown and loss of production. The stator current can be continuously monitored in order to predict any fault brewing in the stator windings. This paper presents a simple way of predicting the stator inter-turn fault by analyzing the spectrum of stator current. A mathematical model of three-phase induction motor is prepared in MATLAB – Simulink software from the well-known modeling equations of induction motor. The model is then run in healthy condition and fault condition of different number of inter-turns shorted. The current signal is acquired and analyzed by performing Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT) to predict the health condition of motor.

Keywords: Condition monitoring, MCSA, FFT, Inter-turn fault

Article published in International Journal of Current Engineering and Technology, Vol.5, No.3 (June-2015)