Fault injection capable synchronous generator for condition based maintenance

This paper presents the design specifications of an experimental setup capable of injecting faults in a synchronous generator to develop and test algorithms for condition based maintenance of aerospace applications. A 3 kVA alternator is designed to inject faults in the stator winding and field windings. The system is capable of injecting open and short circuit faults in the stator and rotor windings using a fault injection unit and record current, voltage and vibration signals from the respective sensors, with programming capability. The response of the synchronous generator during normal condition and faulty condition are discussed. The work reported in this paper will help other researchers develop low cost experimental facility to pursue research in machine condition monitoring.