Electrical machines fault diagnosis by stray flux analysis

The stray flux in the vicinity of an electrical machine is inherent to its running. It is tied to the magnetic state of the machine and therefore can be affected by the presence of a fault in the machine. Accurate modeling of the external magnetic field is quite complicated and simple models are required in order to analyze the effect of an internal fault on the stray flux. This paper displays the possibilities offers by the stray flux for fault detection. A simple model of the external magnetic field is presented and a study in healthy and faulty conditions is developed. Two kind of fault in induction machine are considered: stator inter-turn short-circuit and rotor broken bar. Experimental results are in agreement with the theory, they highlight the differentiation between the radial flux and the axial flux.