A New Bearing Fault Detection Method in Induction Machines Based on Instantaneous Power Factor

Fault detection and diagnosis of asynchronous machine has become a central problem in industry over the past decade. A solution to tackle this problem is to use stator current for a condition monitoring, referred to as motor current signature analysis. This paper argues that bearing faults would have a negligible effect on motor currents and instead argues that the more likely reason why the faults can be detected in currents is because they entail a fluctuating resistive torque which acts immediately, in contrast to the radial displacement which takes time to integrate to a perceptible displacement even in response to a step change in velocity. In this context, we propose a new method for detecting bearing defects based on the exploitation of the instantaneous power factor that varies according to torque oscillations. Experimental results show the good performances of the proposed method which will be compared with the instantaneous power method to highlight the feasibility and advantages of this method.