International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Technology (IJEET)

Volume 8, Issue 1, January- February 2017, pp. 5767, Article ID: IJEET_08_01_008
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ISSN Print: 0976-6545 and ISSN Online: 0976-6553
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IAEME Publication

BROKEN ROTOR BAR FAULT DIAGNOSIS OF

INDUCTION MOTOR BY SIGNAL PROCESSING
TECHNIQUES
Kuldeep R. Sanap
Performance Optimization Group, MSPGCL, Khaperkheda TPS, Maharashtra, India

S.R. Paraskar
Department of Electrical Engineering, S.S.G.M.C.E, Shegaon, Maharashtra, India

S.S. Jadhao
Department of Electrical Engineering, S.S.G.M.C.E, Shegaon, Maharashtra, India

ABSTRACT
Induction motors finds application in almost every kind of industries all around the world.
Although, Induction motors are extremely consistent, they are vulnerable to many types of faults.
There are many methods available for detection of faults in Induction Motor but most of the
methods require expensive sensor or specialized tools whereas current monitoring out of all does
not require additional sensors. The Motor Current Signature Analysis uses the current spectrum of
motor for locating characteristic fault frequencies. In the present paper, Matlab software is used to
diagnosis the broken rotor fault of induction motor. Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) and Wavelet
Transform (WT) are the two signal processing techniques which are used for diagnosis of the
broken rotor fault in induction motors. The results and observations obtained are discussed and
then final conclusions are made.
Key words: Detection of faults, current monitoring, motor current signature analysis, Fast Fourier
Transform, Wavelet Transform.
Cite this Article: Kuldeep R. Sanap, S.R. Paraskar and S.S. Jadhao. Broken Rotor Bar Fault
Diagnosis of Induction Motor by Signal Processing Techniques. International Journal of Electrical
Engineering & Technology, 8(1), 2017, pp. 5767.
http://www.iaeme.com/IJEET/issues.asp?JType=IJEET&VType=8&IType=1

1. INTRODUCTION
Considerable efforts have been devoted to induction machine fault identification during the last two
decades and numerous techniques have been proposed [1]. Various techniques include vibration analysis,
acoustic noise measurement, torque profile analysis, temperature analysis, and magnetic field analysis [2-
3]. These techniques need sophisticated and exclusive sensors, extra electrical and mechanical
installations, and repeated repairs. The use of sensors for detection of fault leads to lower system reliability
as compared to other fault classification systems that do not require additional instrumentation. This is due

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 Kuldeep R. Sanap, S.R. Paraskar and S.S. Jadhao

to the vulnerability of the sensor to fail, which may cause failure of induction motor, whereas as electrical
monitoring or current monitoring provides more reliable and economical way to detect induction motor
faults [4].
Current Parks Vector, Negative Sequence and current signature analysis are the electrical or current
monitoring methods. This method uses stator current to detect various faults in induction motors. In most
application stator current is readily available and it can be easily taped from the protection system of the
motor. Therefore current monitoring is sensor less detection technique that can be implemented without
any additional hardware. Electrical signature analysis is the process of obtaining the motor current and
voltage signals, performing signal conditioning and analyzing the resultant signals to classify the various
faults. Specifically, a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) of the current is taken. The Fast Fourier Transform
(FFT) method is effectively used for the rotor fault diagnosis purpose in the induction machine. This
procedure has been effectively used with Motor Current Signature Analysis (MCSA) technique for last
three decades [5-8]. However, the FFT is suffered from some serious drawbacks; it is applicable only for
loaded condition. It is not suitable at the no-load or light load condition of the motor. At no load, it is not
capable to distinguish between healthy and faulty motor because the characteristic of broken rotor bar fault
frequencies appears near to the fundamental component of the signal and also their amplitude are small in
comparison. Seeing this it can be concluded that, detection of the fault and classification of the fault
severity under light load is practically not feasible using FFT [9].
Wavelet based detection techniques shows good sensitivity, short detection time and also can be used
for online detection of the faults. Wavelets can be used for decomposing the signals; the way Fourier
transforms uses complex sinusoids to decompose the signals. The characteristic of computing inner
products of the analyzed signal and the family of wavelets along with the feature of localized in both the
time and frequency domain makes the wavelet transform magnificent technique for processing those
signals, whose spectral content changes over time. The properties of wavelets and the flexibility of
selecting wavelets from the wavelet family makes wavelet signal processing a useful tool for feature
extraction applications. Just as the Fourier transform decomposes a signal into a family of complex
sinusoids, wavelet analysis means breaking up a signal into scaled and translated versions of the Wavelets
- special functions called mother Wavelets. Each wavelet has a special waveform of limited duration and
an average value of zero. The Wavelet is scaled to fit the original signal shape. A high scale wavelet is the
approximation of the signal the low Frequency part of the signal. A low scale denotes the details the high
Frequency part of the signal. The selection of the particular wavelets depends upon its shape and ability to
analyze the signal in particular application. Thus Wavelet analysis can be used for gathering high
frequency and low frequency information both, which makes it a very useful and powerful tool for signal
processing application [10-12].

2. BROKEN ROTOR BARS EFFECTS

The squirrel cage of an induction motor consists of rotor bars which are short circuited with the help of end
rings. A broken bar can be partially or completely cracked from the two numbers of the end rings. Such
bars could break or crack because of built-up defects, frequent starts at rated voltage, thermal stresses or
mechanical stress caused by bearing faults and metal fatigue.
A broken rotor bar of induction causes several effects. A well-know effect of a broken bar is the
emergence of the so-called sideband components. These sidebands are found to be appeared on the left and
right sides of the fundamental frequency component in the power spectrum of the stator current. The basic
reason for appearance of the lower side band component in the power spectrum of the stator current is
electrical and magnetic asymmetries in the rotor cage of an induction motor, whereas the right sideband
component is due to consequent speed ripples caused by the resulting torque pulsations, the frequency of
so called side bands can be expressed as fb = (1 2s) f1, where f1 is the supply frequency and s is the slip
[5].

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 Broken Rotor Bar Fault Diagnosis of Induction Motor by Signal Processing Techniques

3. EXPERIMENTAL SET UP
Experimental studies have been performed on 2 H.P. three phase, four poles, 415 volts; 50 Hz squirrel cage
induction motor. Experimental setup for the same is shown in Fig. 1. It consists of a 3 phase induction
motor coupled with DC generator. The speed of the motor is measured by digital tachometer. A data
acquisition card is used to acquire the current samples from the motor under load. In order to test the
system in practical cases, several measurements were made, where the stator current of a machine with
broken rotor bars was read. Current measurements were performed for a healthy motor and also for the
same machine having broken rotor bar. The rated data of the tested three-phase squirrel cage induction
machine are: 2HP, 415V, 3.08A and 1380(FL) r/min, Eff-76%, Mfg by leading Indian industry. Tests
were carried out for No Load and On Load with the healthy motor, and with similar motors having six
numbers of broken rotor bars. Induction motor under test has 24 rotor bars, to carry out rotor broken bar
test, 6 rotor bars are broken at both side of end rings as shown in Fig. 2.

Figure 1 Experimental setup

Figure 2 Broken rotor used for experiment

4. OBSERVATION AND DISCUSSIONS

4.1. Broken Rotor Bar Fault Diagnosis Using FFT
The Time Domain Plot of healthy three phase induction motor & broken rotor bar three phase induction
motor for No Load condition are shown in Fig. 3 & Fig. 4. It can be seen from time domain plot that, it is
not possible to differentiate between the healthy & the faulty condition. Hence the measured current
signals were processed using the Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT) in the MATLAB for healthy as well as
broken rotor bar condition for no load and on load condition. Frequency range is selected from 30 Hz to 70
Hz, as it contains the fundamental frequency and almost all visible side band frequencies.

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 Kuldeep R. Sanap, S.R. Paraskar and S.S. Jadhao

Figure 3 Time Domain Plot of Phase Current of healthy motor at no load

Figure 4 Time Domain Plot of Phase Current of broken rotor bar motor at no load

4.2. FFT Analysis on No Load

The power spectrum of healthy three phase induction motor & broken rotor bar three phase induction for
No Load condition are shown in Fig. 5 & 6. At No load the side band frequencies are very close to
fundamental frequency and the amplitude of side band is also very small or negligible as shown in Fig. 6.
It can be observed that the detection of searched frequency at no load is too difficult as the amount of
current in rotor bar is small.

Figure 5 FFT of phase current of healthy motor at no load

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 Broken Rotor Bar Fault Diagnosis of Induction Motor by Signal Processing Techniques

Figure 6 FFT of phase current of broken rotor bar motor at no load

4.3. FFT Analysis on Load

The power spectrum of healthy three phase induction motor & broken rotor bar three phase induction for
Load condition are shown in Fig. 7 & 8. It is observed that side band frequencies for faulty condition on
load are visible as shown in Fig. 8. These frequencies are marked as fault frequencies (FF). The complete
observation from power spectrum analysis for faulty rotor motor is given below in Table 1.

Figure 7 FFT of phase current of healthy motor at load

Figure 8 FFT of phase current of broken rotor bar motor at load

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 Kuldeep R. Sanap, S.R. Paraskar and S.S. Jadhao

Table 1 Power spectrum analysis of broken rotor bar at no load and load condition
Fault
Frequencies
Load (FF)
Figure No. Slip Observation
condition
LSB USB
(Hz) (Hz)
6 No Load 0.01 49 51 Not Visible
On Load
8 (75% of 0.06 44 56 Visible
Rated Load)
Based on the results obtained it can be stated that FFT analysis for detection of broken rotor bar fault is
suitable for load condition only.

4.4. Broken Rotor Bar Fault Diagnosis using Wavelet

It is clear from the experimental results that fault diagnosis using FFT is significantly dependent upon the
loading condition of the motor. At no load, it is not capable to distinguish between healthy and faulty
motors because the characteristic of broken rotor bar fault frequencies appears near to the fundamental
component of the signal and also their amplitude are small in comparison. Hence at No load it is very
difficult to diagnosis broken rotor bar fault using FFT, to overcome, a more advanced tool that is Wavelet
Transform is applied here. Discrete Wavelet Transform is used as powerful tool for fault detection,
identification and classification. The detailed information of wavelet analysis has been documented in [9-
10].
An experiment with same set up has been performed to diagnosis broken rotor bar fault using DWT
analysis. The same motor has been used for the experiment. The sampling frequency is set at 1 KHz and
number of samples N=1000 has been chosen. The original signal is decomposed at the 4th level of
decomposition. The signal is decomposed in the two signals one is approximation signal and other is
detailed signal. Each signal has its own frequency band.
The first decomposition of the signal gives detailed coefficient d1 & approximate coefficient a1. When
a1 signal is further decomposed, it gives a2 and d2 at level 2 and this process will be continued like this up
to maximum possible levels. A high scale wavelet is the approximation of the signal the low Frequency
part of the signal. A low scale denotes the details the high Frequency part of the signal. The 4th level
Decomposition has been performed here in order to extract low frequency Information.
Many types of mother wavelets are used for analysis of various signals such as Daubechies (db), Harr,
Coiflet etc. A Daubechies (db-6) mother wavelet is used in this paper work which has proved most correct
in [9-10]. The benefit of Debauchees mother wavelet is that it is nearly stable and during reconstruction of
the signal from the wavelet coefficients, it does not loose any information. The 4th level approximation
signal contains frequency band 0 to 31.25 Hz. It is low frequency level and diagnose rotor broken bar fault
correctly. From Fig. 9 to 12, it can be clearly observed that the final approximation signal of the healthy
and faulty motor is completely different. The final approximation signal (a4) can be easily used for
detection of the fault. Figure 9(b) & 10(b) shows the approximation signal (a4) for healthy and faulty rotor
condition on no load, similarly Figure 11(b) & 12(b) shows the approximation signal (a4) for healthy and
faulty rotor condition on load.
The experiment performed and results obtained shows that wavelet analysis achieves good results in
the field of fault diagnosis of induction motor. In this paper, low frequency approximation signal (a4) is
much more relevant for fault detection. This paper presents that approximation signal (a4) can be used as a
reference for detection of fault in induction motors.

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 Broken Rotor Bar Fault Diagnosis of Induction Motor by Signal Processing Techniques

Figure 9 (a) Wavelet decomposition of healthy motor signal at no load

Figure 9 (b) Approximation Signal of healthy motor at no load

Figure 10 (a) Wavelet decomposition of faulty motor signal at no load

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 Kuldeep R. Sanap, S.R. Paraskar and S.S. Jadhao

Figure 10 (b) Approximation Signal of faulty motor at no load

Figure 11(a) Wavelet decomposition of healthy motor signal at load

Figure 11 (b) Approximation Signal of healthy motor at load

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 Broken Rotor Bar Fault Diagnosis of Induction Motor by Signal Processing Techniques

Figure 12 (a) Wavelet decomposition of faulty motor signal at load

Figure 12 (b) Approximation Signal of faulty motor at load

5. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, for diagnosis of broken rotor bar in induction motor, the effects of rotor fault on stator
current spectrum of an induction motor has been investigated through experiments. Experiments are
performed using two signal processing techniques such as Fast Fourier Transform and Discrete Wavelet
Transform. An experiment shows that rotor fault affect mainly two side bands near the fundamental
component of the stator current. Under no load condition, it is almost impossible to detect broken rotor bar
faults, because the associated frequency is very close to the fundamental frequency. It has been observed
that the FFT was not able to detect rotor broken bar fault at the no load conditions whereas FFT can be
perfectly used for detection of broken rotor fault in case of loaded condition.
It is seen from the experiment and analysis there after that the frequency component related to broken
bar clearly recognize in the frequency spectrum. The experiment performed and result obtained shows that
wavelet analysis can be successfully used for the rotor broken bar fault diagnosis purpose in induction
machine for no load and loaded condition. It has been observed that the final level approximation signal
can be used efficiently for rotor broken bar fault detection purpose. The analysis clearly shows that the
final approximation signal of healthy & faulty motors are completely different. This paper has validated
application of wavelet transform for diagnosis of broken rotor bar fault in non-constant load induction
motor applications.

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 Kuldeep R. Sanap, S.R. Paraskar and S.S. Jadhao

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 Broken Rotor Bar Fault Diagnosis of Induction Motor by Signal Processing Techniques

AUTHOR DETAILS

Kuldeep Ramesh Sanap has received his B.E. in Electrical Engineering from VNIT
(Deemed University) Nagpur, in 2003 with Distinction and M.E in Electrical Power
System from S.G.B Amravati University, India in 2015 with Distinction. He is ISTE
life member. He is having 10 years of Industrial Experience. He is currently working as
Additional Executive Engineer at Khaperkheda TPS, MSPGCL. His present research
interest includes online condition monitoring of Induction Motors.

Dr. S.R. Paraskar received his B.E. and M.E. from the S.G.B. University of Amravati,
India in 1992 and 2001 respectively in Electrical Power system Engineering and Ph.D.
from the S.G.B. University of Amravati in Transformer protection. He is IEEE, IACSIT
and ISTE member. In 1995, he joined S.S.G.M.College of Engg. Shegaon, where he is
Professor and Head of the Electrical Engg. Department. His present research interest
includes Digital protection of Transformer, FACTS and Power Quality.

S.S. Jadhao received his B.E. and M.E. from the S.G.B. Amravati University of
Amravati, India in 2009 and 2012 respectively in Electrical Power system Engineering
and pursuing his Ph.D. from the S.G.B. University of Amravati, in Power Quality
Enhancement. In 2011, he joined S.S.G.M. College of Engg. Shegaon, where he is a
faculty in Electrical Engg. Department. His present research interest includes power
quality monitoring and signal processing technique.

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