Impact of Propagation of Fault Signals on Industrial

Diagnosis Using Current Signature Analysis

Alireza Gheitasi, Adnan Al-Anbuky and Tek Tjing Lie
Sensor Network and Smart Environment Research Centre
Auckland University of Technology
Auckland New Zealand
Alireza.Gheitasi@aut.ac.nz


Abstract Diagnosis of the significant events in electrical
equipments is a challenging research area. Motor current
signature analysis provides good results in laboratory
environment. In real life situation electrical machines usually
share voltage and current from common terminals and would
easily influence each other. This will result in considerable
amount of interferences among motors and doubt in identity of
fault signals. Therefore, estimating the mutual influence of
motors may ease out identifying the original signal from the
environmental noise.
This research aims at modelling the propagation of signals that
are caused by faults of induction motors in power networks.
Estimating the propagation pattern of fault signal leads to a
method to discriminate and identify the original source of major
events in industrial networks.

Keywords-Motor current signature analysis; signal
interference; decision making
I. INTRODUCTION
Various types of faults are associated with Electrical drives
and rotating components. Many methods have been published
and are commercially available to observe the behaviour of
electrical motors.
Motor current signature analysis is one of the recent
diagnosis approaches proposed for rotating components. This
strategy utilises pattern recognition over current signals of
electrical motors to estimate the presence of pre-recorded
faults. Recently there have been number of research works that
reported successful applications of motor current signature
analysis for several types of induction machines [1-3]. The
main challenges in diagnosis of motor faults using signature
analysis are interferences among components of power systems
and strong presence destructive noise in industrial area. There
are some strategies recently proposed to monitor several
signals and in order to increase the diagnosis reliability [1].
These strategies are more expensive than the normal diagnosis
and still there are doubts about their reliability in a complex
industrial site. Reliability and viability concerns, demonstrates
a need to develop a strategy that utilizes necessary technology
for effective and less expensive fault tracking and diagnosis in
power systems.
This research targets inexpensive technology to monitor
travel of those significant signals that are referred to as events
of electrical appliances. The main challenge in modelling the
signal attenuation is to estimate the behaviour of complicated
power systems within variable frequency environment. Figure
1illustrate typical spectrums that may be part of signal content
within individual and parallel operation of motors.
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600
-16
-14
-12
-10
-8
-6
-4
Frequency
A
m
p
l
i
t
u
d
e


Data 1 alone
Motor one while paralleling with Motor 2

Figure 1. Individual and parallel operation of a set of induction motors
feeding from the same bus
Also it is difficult to extract all necessary information of
present appliances within various frequency bands. As a
solution, rough modelling of significant frequency bands has
been proposed to negotiate the ownership degree of present
significant faults and then a collective decision making may
then provide more reliable outcome.
In order to verify the strategy, combination of real life
experiments and MATLAB models has been utilized to have
the main focus on signal attenuation.
Theory of Motor Current Signature Analysis (MCSA) is an
established tool for predicting major events in electrical
motors. MCSA based strategies compare the frequency
spectrums of real time signals with known patterns to
distinguish the type and intensity of significant events in
industrial sites using pattern recognition strategy.

A. Formulations of fault tracking
Diagnosing the nature and detecting the location of events
in power systems is always associated with reliability issues
caused by unwanted noise signals. This is a common diagnosis
problem especially in power system protection strategies.
There are a number of successful strategies to model the
attenuation of fault signals and hence identify the main
problem in the network such as [13, 14]. These methodologies
may lead to a set of reliable recommendations for protection
issues in industrial sites [15].
Most fault locating strategies work based on the fact that
attenuation of the significant signals in power systems is
relevant to the distance of source of events from the point of
measurements. Relations between fault location and
attenuation coefficients for short circuit faults have been
estimated using the following formula below [16, 17].

_
I
u
i
I
b
i
I
c
i
_ = _
I
u
I
b
I
c

_ J _
Zl
uu
Zl
ub
Zl
uc
Zl
bu
Zl
bb
Zl
bc
Zl
cu
Zl
cb
Zl
cc
_ _
I
u
I
b
I
c
_ (5)

J =
v
cr
I
]i
- v
ci
I
]r
A.I
]i
-B.I
]r
(6)

Where
V
a
a-phase voltage;
I
a
a-phase current;
V
a
a-phase voltage at fault point;

Z
l
line impedance matrix;

d fault distance;


This formula has been suggested for single frequency
models and power networks have been considered linear and
ohmic. Some modification required to build up an appropriate
index for multi frequency and nonlinear environments of
significant fault signals.

II. MULTI FREQUENCY MODELING
Power networks are a collection of several load nodes that
are physically connected to each other via electrical
connections with a range of attenuation coefficients. Induction
machines are the dominant load in most industry sites.
Therefore modelling and full understanding of all industrial
motors is necessary to estimate the attenuation pattern of
electrical networks.
In order to estimate the attenuation of one significant signal
in power networks several issues should be considered:
Most significant signal related to fault diagnosis is
current signals and theoretically there is no
attenuation on current signals while travelling on a
power line. This current signals cause voltage loss
on electrical buses that results in derivative
current.
Level of current is not necessarily equal for
different electrical motors. As a result, high power
motor may generate a stronger signal while low
power motor causes weaker signal in an
equivalent significant event. As a result, we may
not discriminate faulty drives just by looking at
the magnitude of the acquired signals.

Figure 2. A typical model of an industrial system with three busbars and
electrical drives are connected to power buses.
Assume Figure 2 is taken as example of power system
model. In order to estimate the attenuation, we suppose to have
a major event and its related signals in Motor 1. Motor 1 is
connected to Motor 2 and 3 in parallel. Current of Motor 3 then
will be delivered to the main busbar and the supply via busbar
B1. Propagation of fault signals to the main bus, influence the
entire network by causing some voltage drops in busbar B1 and
then the main busbar. Therefore:

V
B1-1
=I
1
.Z
1
(1)

Where

V
B1-1
: Resultant voltage in B1 that is caused by Motor1

I
1
: current of Motor 1

Z
1
: impedance of the connection between B1 and Motor 1

V
B1
= V
B1-1
+ V
B1-2
+ V
B1-3
for a known frequency

Therefore, within a fixed frequency band the resultant
voltage of busbar Bj would be
V
Bj
= I
B]-
(2)
I
B]-
= The voltage generated by the fault current of Motor
i flows in the cable that connects motor i to Bj.

Then Mirror current caused by Motor 1 and observed in
current of Motor 2 will be:
I
2-1
<
v
B1-1
z
2
+z
M2
(3)

This influences the main bus as well.
V
main-1
= V
B1-1
+ I
1
.Z
B1
(4)


Where:
V
main-1
: Voltage caused by Motor 1 observed on main
busbar
Z
main-Ba
: Equivalent resistance between Bus a and the main
Bus
Also the voltage drop in the main bus originally caused by
a machine originated in the second subsystem.
Z
main-B2
= Z
main-B2
+((Z
4
+ Z
motor4
)

(Z
5
+ Z
motor5
)

(Z
6
+
Z
motor6
)) (5)


And then by suing ohm law we may estimate the current in
lines.

I
(main-B2)-1
=
vmun-1
zmun-Bu2

(6)
And if the supply voltage and impedance of the connecting
line is known we may calculate the voltage in another side of
the cable.

And V
B2-1
=V
main-1
-(I
(main-B2)-1
Z
main-B2
) (7)

Voltage of buses may perhaps be considered as an index
that can demonstrate presence of frequency orders in the
network. However this index may perhaps be manipulated by
several appliance in power system effectively; thus, it is not
reliable enough for purpose of diagnosis individually.

The resultant voltage then causes current with the same
frequency on neighbour equipments that feed from the same
bus. For example for Motor 2
I
2-1
=
V
E1-1
z
2
+z
M2
(8)

Where
Z
2
= Total impedance of connection between bus 1 to Motor
2 in the given frequency
Z
M2
= Total impedance of Motor 2 in the given frequency

I
2-1
is the indirect

influence of motor 1 in current of motor 2.
This influence is unavoidable that usually would be
considered as an environment noise or may be utilized as an
early indication of an imperfection in unidentified
equipment(s). Applying the proposed principle ease out
tracking the propagation of fault signals that may leads to a
strategy that discriminate original events and ease out process
of diagnosis. Estimation of static drive impedances at given
frequencies
In order to Estimate machine impedances at given
frequencies, full understanding of machine models is
necessary. Modelling information is available for most
electrical appliances. However for most industrial systems
practical model to explain their behaviour against variable
frequency current signals is not yet identified. Impedance
estimation by looking at the nominal power and voltage may
perhaps be a practical approach in estimating the behaviour of
industrial systems.
Z =
v
ncmincl
2
3 P
ncmincl
(9)

Estimated impedance is valid for signals with nominal
frequency (i.e. 50 Hz). But assessment of motors impedance in
other frequency bands needs full understanding of the
characteristics of equipments. On the other hands, environment
of almost all electrical motors are inductive and most frequency
components of significant signals related to motor faults are
higher than the fundamental frequency. As a result, it is
expected to have a higher value of impedance for current
signals that are related to fault occurrence. Accordingly:

I
2-1
<
V
E1-1
z
2
+z
M2(ct ncmincl ]rcqucncj)
(10)

Where I
2-1
is the mirror significant current of Motor 1
observed in current of Motor 2.
A. Estimating the ownership of significant fault signals using
rough modelling
Fault index is an algebraic combination of spectrum
coefficients. Mirror signals would also be attenuated more than
the estimated impedance in nominal frequency. In other buses
the mirror current may be estimated in the same way. For
example significant current component that caused by Motor 1
and observed in current of Motor 5 could be estimated by
equation 11below:
I
5-1
<
V
E2-1
z
S
+z
MS(ct ncmincl ]rcqucncj)
(11)

This is an unavoidable mirror current and would appear in
current of Motor 5 beyond doubt. Based on (10) and (11) we
define an index as a threshold mirroring index (MT) to estimate
the originality of the signal.
MT=
V
taget bus-ognaI bus
z
linc c]
+z
M(ct ncmincl ]rcqucncj)
(12)

We may continue calculating the mirroring influence for
motors with more than two buses away from the original target.
These influences usually are very low and influence of far
appliances (appliances with more than two buses between them
and the faulty motors) could be neglected.
The above method shows a strategy to figure out rough
magnitude of mirror signals in power systems. This
information is useful to clarify the original signal from
neighbour events and identify the ownership of signals caused
by industrial faults.

III. CASE STUDY
A typical power system consists of few motors and other
electrical components that run parallel to each other are
simulated to verify the proposed method described earlier. The
test bed is combined of several motors connected together via
electric busbars and inductive connections and feed by a
generator (See figure 3).

7.5 KW, 400 V, 1440RPM, induction motor













Figure 3. Model of a typical 4-bus system. There is one induction motor in
any substation
MATLAB software package has been used to model the
environment of industrial sites and machine faults. As
described in section II, internal motor faults are associated with
a set of frequency components; therefore, these events are
modelled by a set of frequency generators with different
amplitudes and damping coefficients.
Initially a single frequency signal is injected to current of
the motor in substation 4. Then a multi frequency signal that
represents a fault has been inserted to observe the behaviour of
other electrical motors against the injected signals. (See figure
4 and 5)

Figure 4. Propagation of 200Hz signal that originally generated in subsystem
4 is observed in current of all induction motors that are connected to the main
bus via a local bus.


Figure 5. Proportional magnitude of fault indices versus resistance to the
target bus

As shown in figure 5, there is a reverse relationship
between amplitude of fault indices and resistances of the cable
that connects the motor to the bus of the faulty motor.
Therefore as explained, maximum amplitude of caused signals
in other motors are predictable.
Magnitude of the mirroring signal in the bus compare
to the main signal (Percentage)
3
6
9 12 15 18 21
0
0.01
0.02
0.03
0.04
0.05
Resistance from the main bus (Ohm)
Central Power
Supply
Subsystem2
Subsystem 3
Subsystem 4
Subsystem 1
0.06
Now, we apply a multi frequency signal to Motor 4 and
observe the behaviour of all other motors in the model.


Figure 6. Multi frequency fault caused at Motor 4

As shown in figure 6, almost for all significant signals of
measuring point, some abnormalities can be observed in
spectrum of other measuring points. We may discriminate the
ownership of any significant signal by modelling the
propagation pattern and estimating the boundary of mirroring
signals in current of all electrical motors nearby the target
motor and examine if the signal generated locally or it is
resulted by an external event. We may start from the motor
with highest level of nominal current as and continue with the
following motors.

A closer view to the significant frequencies in subsystems
1-4, demonstrates the mutual influence of electrical machines
in subsystem 1-4.
50Hz, 92Hz, 105Hz and 118Hz are identified as significant
frequencies. As shown in figure 7, in most situations the
significant signals followed by other motors in the network.
The next stage is to identify the ownership of all frequency
points. Using propagation modelling as explained earlier, we
may calculate a threshold level for any possible destination. If
the measured signal is smaller than the threshold, the signal
originated by an external source.
As shown in figure 7 using propagation modelling, it is
concluded that: Motor 4 is responsible for causing a significant
frequency points at frequency at 117Hz. But the rest of
frequency components are originally caused by motor 2.
This case study shows a successful implementation of
propagation modelling to identify the original source of fault
signals. Propagation modelling expected to have a definite
answer for major faults in induction motors. Discriminating the
identity of individual frequency components of current
waveform of electrical motors ease out process of diagnosis in
the target motor.


Figure 7. Discriminated frequency spectrum of current of induction motors
in the system. (Threshould mirroring index(MT) and dominant motor is
shown).

IV. CONCLUSION
This paper demonstrated and formulated the presence of
interference among electrical motors that works together in an
electrical network. This leads to a simple strategy to identify
the ownership of significant signals and hence having a more
accurate diagnosis results. Appling the proposed approach
requires a collective decision diagnosis of a set of industrial
drives that originally are set to work independently. Further
developments in modelling the propagation of fault indicators
emerged to improve the reliability and efficiency of fault
diagnosis in industrial systems.
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0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
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-3
-2
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0
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Frequency Hz
M
a
g
n
i
t
u
d
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data1
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: Threshold mirroring index (MT)
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