Analytical Approach for Locating Induction Motor Current Harmonics in Healthy and Different Fault Conditions

Motor current signature analysis (MCSA) offers a non-invasive approach to early detect different faults in squirrel-cage induction motors (SCIMs). Every fault normally adds some specific harmonics to the motor current and the MCSA typically proposes the fault diagnosis by detecting these harmonics. Using the rotor–stator mutual-inductance curve, this paper proposes an analytical approach to determine broad sets of harmonics that are presenting in the healthy SCIM current or are adding to the current by broken rotor bar (BRB) fault, mixed eccentricity (ME) fault and combined BRB-ME fault. The broad harmonic sets are attained due to applying exact form of the inverse of the air gap function, using exact form of the stator and rotor turn functions and taking every integer harmonic of the stator current into account. The extensive harmonic sets give higher degrees of freedom to attain the most appropriate harmonics to establish fault diagnosis techniques. Further study shows that many BRB-related harmonics are also present in the healthy state with lower amplitudes and that the ME fault magnifies some well-known BRB-related harmonics as well as the 3rd harmonic. In addition, the combined BRB-ME fault produces harmonics that are sidebands around the harmonics produced by the single ME or BRB fault. Simulation results based on the finite elements method and corresponding experimental test results confirm the analytically achieved results.