Premature Wear and Recurring Bearing Failures in an Inverter-Driven Induction Motor—Part I: Investigation of the Problem

Author

De Souza Araujo, Romero ; de Paula, Helder ; De Araujo Rodrigues, Ronaldo ; Maria Rabelo Baccarini, Lane ; Vagner Rocha, Anderson

Author_Institution

Electr. Eng. Dept., Aperam Inox South America, Timoteo, Brazil

Volume

51

Issue

6

fYear

2015

Firstpage

4861

Lastpage

4867

Abstract

This paper provides an analysis about early incipient and recurring failures in three-phase induction motor bearings when driven by pulsewidth modulation (PWM) inverters, focusing on a real industrial process. The potential problems preliminarily defined were first discussed on a theoretical basis and afterward experimentally assessed by means of vibration, stator current, and common-mode current data acquisition and analysis. Over the investigation, it was concluded that the presence of common-mode currents at the verified levels could cause damages to the motor bearings, which was confirmed when the machine stopped working due to another bearing failure.

Keywords

PWM invertors; data acquisition; data analysis; failure (mechanical); induction motors; machine bearings; stators; vibrations; wear; PWM inverters; bearing failures; common-mode current data acquisition; data analysis; industrial process; inverter-driven induction motor; premature wear; pulse width modulation; stator current; three-phase induction motor bearings; vibration; Bars; Harmonic analysis; Induction motors; Shafts; Stators; Torque; Vibrations; Bearing failure; broken bars; common-mode currents; harmonics; vibration;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Industry Applications, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0093-9994

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TIA.2015.2456059

Filename

7155536