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Condition Monitoring of Rotating Electrical Machines 6

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23 views12 pages

Condition Monitoring of Rotating Electrical Machines 6

Uploaded by

ujjal dey
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Condition Monitoring of

Rotating Electrical Machines

Temperature Monitoring
Introduction
The limits to rating of electrical machines are generally set by the maximum permissible
temperature that the insulation can withstand.
There are three basic approaches to temperature monitoring:
1. To measure local temperatures at points in the machine using embedded temperature
detectors.
2. To use a thermal image, fed with suitable variables, to monitor the temperature of what is
perceived to be the hottest spot in the machine.
3. To measure distributed temperatures in the machine or the bulk temperatures of coolant
fluids.
These approaches demonstrate the fundamental difficulty of thermal monitoring, which is
resolving the conflict between point temperature measurements that are easy to make, but give
only local information, and bulk temperature measurements that are more difficult and run the
risk of overlooking local hot-spots.
Local Temperature Measurement
This can be done using thermocouples, resistance temperature detectors or embedded
temperature detectors.
To monitor the active part of the machine they are usually embedded in the stator winding and
in the stator core or in the bearings to detect hot running.
Choice of location requires careful consideration during the specification stage of the machine:
Temperature detectors embedded in the stator winding need to be located close to its hottest
part, which may be in the slot portion or end-winding portion, depending on the thermal design
of the machine.
For a machine with an asymmetrical cooling arrangement they should be located at the hottest
end of the machine.
Location Of Temperature Detectors (a)

Embedded between conductors in the slot portion (T1)


Embedded in core pack laminations (T2)
Mounted on potentially hot components such as pressure plates (T3)
Embedded on conductors in the end winding portion (T4)
Location Of Temperature Detectors (b)

Water or air inlet to the heat exchanger (T1)


Water or air outlet from the heat exchanger (T2)
Re-entry air to the machine from the heat exchanger (T3)
Exhaust air from the machine to the heat exchanger (T4)
Bearing temperatures (T5)
Location Of Temperature Detectors (c)

Bearing temperature (T)


Governing Equation
The weakness of these methods is that thermocouples and resistance temperature detectors
are metallic devices and cannot be located on the hottest active component, the winding
copper, because they need electrical isolation.
On a winding the devices have to be embedded in the insulation at some distance from the
copper itself as shown in Figure (a). As a result, the measured temperature will not necessarily
be that of the winding itself but an image of it, as shown in Figure (b).
The heat flow per unit area, Q, through the insulation system can be described by:

Where t is insulation thickness, T is temperature, k is the heat transfer coefficient through an


insulating material, and h is the heat transfer coefficient from the insulation surface.
Eliminating Ts between the first two expressions gives:

Therefore,

and

So,
Observations:
So the measured temperature Tt will approach the temperature of the hottest active
component Tc if the thickness of insulation, t2, applied over the ETD is sufficient compared to
the main insulation. This problem does not occur for devices embedded in the slot portion
between two conductors, as shown in Figure (c), where there is a low heat flux between the
active copper parts.
But it is an important difficulty when monitoring end-winding temperatures, such that the
thickness of overtaped insulation, t2, needs to be substantial if sensible readings are to be
obtained.
 Following figure shows Effect of embedding a temperature detector away from an active part.
(a) Asymmetrically embedded temperature dectector. (b) Temperature dectection from (a). (c)
Symmetrically embedded temperature detector.
Hot-spot Measurement And Thermal Images
Local temperature measurements give the machine operators considerable confidence that they
knows the operating temperature of key points in the machine, but there is always the nagging
suspicion that temperature detectors may not be located at the hottest point.
This problem has long been recognised in power transformers where it is extremely difficult to obtain
even embedded winding temperatures, because of the need for extra-high voltage isolation and the
great thickness of electrical insulation necessary, so thermal images of the hot spot temperature are
used.
The thermal image consists of a dial-type thermometer with its bulb immersed in the region where
the transformer oil is hottest.
A small heating coil, connected to the secondary of a current transformer, serves to circulate around
the bulb a current proportional to the load current and is such that it increases the bulb temperature
by an amount equal to the greatest winding-to-coil temperature gradient.
The indicator therefore registers an approximation to the hot-spot temperature.
Bulk Measurement
In the electrically active part of the machine, even when hot-spot locations are known or hot-
spot temperatures can be surmised from a thermal image, there is still a desire to obtain a bulk
indication of the thermal state of the machines.
This can be found from the measurement of the internal and external coolant temperature
rises, obtained from thermocouples located.
An increase in temperature rise from such a device would clearly show when a machine is being
overloaded or if the coolant circuits are not performing as they should.
However, the method is insensitive to localised overheating in the electrically active parts of the
machines, therefore considerable effort has been devoted, as an alternative to the thermal
image, to devising methods whereby single indications of high temperature can be obtained
from a device that is embedded in the bulk of the machine.

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