1

Time stepping Finite Element analysis based

simulation study of air gap ux distribution for
misaligned rotor cage induction motor
Subimal Bikash Chaudhury, M. Sengupta, K. Mukherjee
* Tata Steel Ltd, Jamshedpur 831001
email: s.chaudhury@tatasteel.com, bckiit@yahoo.co.in
Bengal Engineering and Science University, Shibpur,
Howrah - 711103, W.B., India
email: msg@ee.becs.ac.in, km@ee.becs.ac.in
AbstractThe industries come across major problems in
induction motor due to asymmetric whirling motion. In steel
industry, induction motors experience a wide range of mechanical
problems, created due to whirling motion. The use of power
electronic converters makes the issue further involved.
The purpose of this research work is to study and compara-
tively analyse the air gap non-uniformity across the periphery of
the rotor in an induction motor under healthy and misaligned
condition of motor. This work focuses on using a nite ele-
ment technique for numerically solving the eld equations and
analyzing the air gap ux behavior. This paper, introduces a
novel concept for transient nite element analysis of motor by
introducing the rotor dynamics by fusing the FEM model of
air gap and MATLAB for rotor motion. This transient analysis
will consequently yield sufcient data repository which can be
further used for extracting the characteristic features of an air
gap ux distribution to predict the motor condition. The motor
under study is a 3HP, 415V, 50Hz, 4-pole I.M.
Index TermsInduction Motor, misaligned rotor, Air Gap ux
density, FEM, fault diagnosis.
I. INTRODUCTION
Induction motors used in industry, experience a wide range
of electrical and mechanical faults. Most of the mechanical
problems start with motor misalignment. The misalignment
of rotor shaft causes non-uniform air gap between stator and
rotor. Many of the classical papers have concentrated on the
calculation of the airgap eld as a function of eccentricity
[1] and others have identied the principal factors causing
unbalanced magnetic pull (UMP), [2][4]. The design of
rotor assemblies, critical speeds, slot combinations, winding
distribution, vibratory force generation and acoustic noise have
all been researched upon in relation to the air gap eccentricity
and UMP [5][7]. All these papers have concluded that the
eccentricity in induction motors causes the generation of asym-
metric electro-magnetic force on rotor, causing asymmetric
whirling motion of the rotor. This leads to an asymmetrical
operation, vibration, and electromagnetic noise, which are the
major concerns of the industry in general and steel industry
in particular.
The non-linearity of magnetic materials, the current induced
in the rotor bars, the rotor dynamics and air gap eld,
distribution need to be considered simultaneously, to analyse
the misalignment and associated problems. However, precise
modeling of motor, air gap, need to be analysed for healthy
and faulty (mis-aligned) condition. This study is also essential
to understand and dene the algorithm for on-line diagnosis
of motor misalignment and predicting the severity of the
problems.Different approaches are available in literature for
modeling and analysis of air gap eccentricity. The analytical
approach are based on permeance harmonic analysis [8]
[12], winding function theory [3], [13] and modied winding
function theory [14]. Compared to other methods of induction
motor modeling [15] those based on numerical magnetic eld
computation are adopted for similar studies [15][17], as this
one. The advantage of FEM over traditional circuit theory
based analytical techniques is that the complex structures such
as rotating machines can be modeled accurately, representing
the material properties and non-linearity.
The purpose of this research work is to use a nite element
technique to simulate motor misaligned condition, in order
to comparatively analyze the healthy and faulty condition.
This paper introduces the concept of merger between eld
and rotor motion models. The main objective of this fusion
is to formulate the analytical approach to study the effects of
asymmetrical whirling motion on air gap ux distribution of a
cage induction motor under transient condition. The analysis
will also allow to generate the sufcient data bank which can
be used further for extracting the characteristic features of air
gap ux distribution to predict the motor condition. Though the
mis-alignment problem is most severe for motors of 50HP and
above, for experimental studies on a 3HP, 415V, 50Hz, 4 pole,
36 slot, delta connected motor has been fabricated specially
where mechanical adjustments can be made to either on the
rotor as used or to set it with a calculated eccentricity. Since
it is a fabricated machine the entire design data is available
to the authors. The comparative simulated results for aligned
and mis-aligned motors are presented which will be basis for
predicting the motor mis-aligned condition.
II. PROBLEM FORMULATION
A. Air gap length computation
The air gap eccentricity is dened as static eccentricity
(Fig.-1), dynamic eccentricity (Fig.-2) or mixed eccentricity
2
depending upon how the stator and rotor centers are placed
with respect to each other.
Fig. 1. Geometry showing different parameters associated with static
eccentricity. The minimum or maximum air gap position remains unchanged
1) Length variation due to eccentricity: The air gap length
[18] under static eccentricity g
s
(0. t ), and dynamic eccentric-
ity g
d
(0. t ) can be expressed as
g
s
(0. t ) g
a
1
s
cos(0)| (1)
g
d
(0. t ) g
a
1
d
cos(o
r
t 0)| (2)
where
s
(D
ge
ga
) denotes the relative degrees of static ec-
centricity,
d
(D
g
d
ga
) denotes the relative degrees of dynamic
eccentricity, o
r
is angular velocity of rotor, g
a
the mean air
gap length without eccentricity, g
e
and g
d
are rotor center
radial displacement due to static or dynamic eccentricity.
Fig. 2. Geometry of dynamic eccentricity. The dotted circle shows the path
of point on rotor, causing variation in air gap.
Generally it can be said that the eccentricity which is of
static nature will not be rotor speed dependent. However, the
dynamic eccentricity will be rotor speed dependent.
2) air gap length variation due to slotting and saturation
effect: The mean ux density line length varies due to slotting
effect. The slotting effect can be approximated [19] as sum-
mation of piecewise linear values. Hence the modied air gap
due to slotting effect can be dened as:
g
slot
D g
a
(k
s
C1
r
Ck
r;s
) (3)
where k
s
,k
r
and k
r;s
are factors due to stator slot, rotor slot
and combination of both respectively and can be treated as
constant. The mean air gap length g
a
increase to g
slot
due
to slotting effect by a factor k
c
(summation of all constant),
called the Carter factor [20], [21]. Hence:
g
slot
D g
a
k
c
(4)
The air gap ux density is no more linear with iron
saturation (especially at stator teeth). This effect can be
approximated considering a virtually larger air gap [22].
g
sat
(0. t ) g
a
1 k
sat
cos (o
r
t 0)| (5)
where g
sat
is the modied air gap length due to saturation,
k
sat
is the saturation factor and can be derived as indicated in
[23]
B. Permeance computation
The specic permeance depends upon the air gap length.
The permeance (z
s
and z
d
) due to static eccentricity (6) and
dynamic eccentricity (7) can be expressed as:
z
s

j
0
g
a
1
s
cos(0)
(6)
z
d

j
0
g
a
1
d
cos(o
r
t 0)|
(7)
Cameron and Thomson [24] has given a classical approach for
computing the air gap permeance in terms of a Fourier series,
accordingly the permeance (z
s
and z
d
) can be expressed as
z
s
D
1
g
s
(z
0
Cz
1
cos 0 Cz
2
cos(20) C....) (8)
z
d
D
1
g
d
(z
0
Cz
1
cos(0 o
r
t ) Cz
2
cos(20 o
r
t ) C....) (9)
Similarly, permeance variation due slotting and saturation
can be dened as
z
slot
D
1
g
a
(
1
k
c
) (10)
z
sat
D
1
g
a
1
X
i D0
z
i
cos 2i(o
r
0) (11)
Finally, total permeance can be dened as,
z D (z
s
)(z
d
)(z
slot
)(z
sat
) (12)
C. MMF computation
The air gap MMF is generated from stator and rotor
currents. Due to the distribution of stator and rotor windings,
space harmonics in the air-gap MMF can take place. The total
air gap MMF can be expressed as the sum of the stator and
rotor MMF. The effect of rotor mmf can be neglected. It has
been demonstrated in [6] that stator MMF can be dened as
given in (13).
=(0. t ) D =
1
cos(0 o
s

t
) (13)
where is the pole pair and
t
is the rotor angular position
at time t
3
D. Flux computation
Magnetic ux density variation at one point of air gap, can
be expressed as:
T D j
r
= z (14)
where j
r
is relative permeability of air, = is the applied
mmf and z is the specic permeance
The ux density can now be dened by putting the value of
= (13) and permeance (12) value in (14). Thus, the ux density
distribution under static condition and dynamic condition can
be dened as:
T
s
(0. t ) T
1
(1 C2
z
1
z
0
cos 0) cos(0 o
s
t
t
) (15)
T
d
(0. t ) T
1
1 C2
z
1
z
0
cos(0 o
r
t )| cos(0 o
s
t
t
) (16)
Above analysis clearly shows that the change in air gap will
cause the change in air gap permeance (12), which in turn
will cause amplitude modulation in ux density. The static
eccentricity has the amplitude modulation (15), distributed in
phase; whereas the dynamic eccentricity (16) causes space
amplitude modulation, distributed both in space and time-
phase. The time-phase component gives expressions for the
frequency content of the ux density waveform.
The identication of the presence of eccentricity and de-
gree of eccentricity in induction motor depends upon pre-
diction/computation of the air gap ux. To understand the
magnetic eld distribution and later the motor misalignment,
it is proposed to use the nite element method (FEM) as
tool to create the sufcient data bank (as motor signature)
for healthy and faulty cases. This signature data bank will be
compared with actual measurement data for the prognosis on
motor misalignment.
III. APPROACH
The complete simulation is carried out by considering
coupling between a Finite Element computation algorithm
(eld model) and rotor dynamics. This coupling will allow
the electromagnetic eld analysis of induction motor by the
nonlinear time stepping nite element analysis with the pri-
mary 3-phase current source. This will also serve to create
sufcient data bank for time series data mining, and apply
appropriate classication technique for capturing the air gap
ux signicant features. The simplied block diagram of
different stage of coupling is shown in Fig.- 3
Fig. 3. Coupling between eld and rotor dynamics
A. Test motor details
The induction motor data which has been used for simula-
tion is fabricated to meet the total requirement. The provision
is made for creating the misaligned condition in rotor during
online testing. For this purpose two different sets of end covers
are fabricated with 100 micron bearing center offset to create
the eccentricity. The motor detail is given in Table-1. The basic
TABLE I
MOTOR DETAIL
Motor Parameter Value
Motor rating 3HP, 440V, Delta
Stack length 100mm
air gap 0.5 mm (nominal) eccentricity max.
0.25mm radial (allowed )
Slots Stator=36 Rotor=45
Number of poles 2p=2
Conductors per slot Number of conductor nc=80, gauge = 22
motor cross section detail is shown in Fig.-4
Fig. 4. Dimensional detail of motor. A- Stator and rotor slot arrangement,
B- the stator and rotor inner and outer radius detail under normal condition,
C- Rotor slot dimension D-Stator slot dimension
B. Rotor dynamics implementation
The basic scheme for implementing air gap length compu-
tation is shown in Fig-5. The electromagnetic eld analysis
requires the new position of rotor at each time step t . The
time step is computed based on the rotor rpm and desired
eld computational step. The time stepping approach is used
Fig. 5. Algorithm for computing air gap length at different time step
4
for simulating the rotor position and change in geometry. The
new rotor position at each step will be coupled with the
nite element electro-magnetic analysis. The time stepping
algorithm for rotor position change is implemented using
MATLAB. The nite element mesh is moved according to
the rotation of the rotor. Starting from the initial values and
successively evaluating the magnetic elds and currents of the
next time step, the true time variations of the quantities are
evaluated. The time step for computing the stator current and
the change in rotor position are decided based on the electrical
and mechanical time constant of system. In this case electrical
time constant (for current) is considered 1 msec, where as
mechanical time constant is 200msec. This assumption ensure
desired accuracy of computation .
C. Stator Current computation
Current source has been considered for dening stator
currents. Each coil in the stator slot has been considered
separately and current is assigned to each coil. Two important
factors have been considered. The rst factor is the winding
distribution and the second factor is the current phase and
amplitude at the same time instant (considered for rotor
motion). Winding distribution concept is adopted from [15]
and modied as required for test motor under consideration.
Scheme for computing the current source is shown in Fig-6.
Fig. 6. Scheme for computing the current source which is to be applied to
different stator coil for different time steps
IV. SIMULATION
The simulated testing is done with two objectives (1) to
establish the concept of coupling as discussed in previous
section and (2) to study the air gap ux distribution under
different misaligned condition. The rotor misalignment is
created by shifting the rotor center in x and y direction with
25% of misalignment. The Finite Element (FE) simulation is
carried out using Finite Element Magnetics Methods (FEMM)
software, which is a powerful public domain software and
allows one to assign the pre-processing values or to extract
post processing parameters through Octave (clone of MAT-
LAB) scripting software. This facility gives the easy coupling
betweeen the FEM software and other powerful tools like
data mining, classier (pattern recognition) etc., available in
MATLAB.
The FEMM used to calculate magnetic eld, is based on
vector potential approach. In a eld problem, the magnetic
elds are required to satisfy suitable conditions on the bound-
ary of the domain. The different boundary conditions are
indicated in Table-II.
TABLE II
COMPUTATIONAL TIME ANALYSIS FOR DIFFERENT TEST CASES
S.
No.
Simulation Test Case
Boundary
condition
Step
Size
CPU time
(in sec )
For aligned (healthy) motor
1
Considering machine
Symmetry 1=4
th
machine is
modeled
Ref note 1
1
0
370
5
0
97
10
0
54
2
Transient operating condition
(considering rotor dynamics) Ref note 2
1 5217
10
0
508
20
0
264
For misaligned (unhealthy) motor
1
Due to air gap length
variation complete machine is
considered
Ref note 3
1 5217
10
0
508
20
0
264
2
Transient operating
condition (rotor
dyn.considered)
Ref note 2
1 7227
10
0
731
20
0
482
note-1 Considering machine symmetry,
1
4
th
part of the machine is con-
sidered. Hence, to connect all four segments, the edges, at D0
0
and
at D90
0
, (four pairs) anti-periodic boundary conditions are applied.
The dirichlet type boundary condition is dened as A
Z
D 0 along the
stator outer boundary. To impose the ux density line to be normal to the
geometry under consideration the numann boundary condition is applied
as
A
n
D0
note-2 The concept of motor symmetry is not considered, since at every
time step the rotor position changes and thereby the edge position. Hence,
no periodic or anti periodic boundary condition is considered. The complete
motor is considered for simulation
note-3 Due to asymmetry of air gap, it is possible to consider the machine
symmetry along any axis. Hence, the complete motor need to be considered
for simulation. Thus, no periodic or anti periodic boundary condition
is applicable. Other boundary (dirichlet or numann) conditions remains
unchanged.
In the present simulation following assumptions are made:
1) Balanced 3 current source with sinusoidal fundamental
frequency is considered
2) The iron lamination of linear materials (BH curve as a
linear curve of constant permeability) are considered in
the model.
3) 2D simulation conducted here, assuming the magnetic
vector potential and current density have only Z-axis
component.
4) The effect of skewness, end winding effect, ring resis-
tance are not considered.
V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Field analysis is carried out for aligned and misaligned
motor. The air gap eccentricity (25%) is created as shown
in Fig.-2 by shifting the rotor center. Under magnetostatic and
magnetodynamic condition, the magnetic eld distribution in
5
the air gap and within the motor cross section is analyzed
by energizing the winding with noload current (2A). Fig.-7(a
and c) present magnetic ux distribution under steady state
condition for aligned and misaligned motor. Under transient
condition the ux patterns are different for both type of motors
and the ux distribution is shown in Fig.-7(b and d). It is
found that in the transient condition the distortion of ux
pattern under misaligned condition is more prominent then
steady state condition, although, the amplitude of magnetic
ux density is low.
Fig. 7. Flux contours for aligned (healthy) and misaligned (unhealthy) motor
under static and transient condition
The magnetic potential Fig.-8 has equal symmetry in pos-
itive and negative half-cycles for aligned motor,whereas for
misaligned motor the magnetic potential has asymmetry in
positive and negative half-cycles.
Fig. 8. Magnetic potential distribution for aligned and misalignment motor
Analysis of air gap ux density distribution (Fig.-9) for
aligned motor during steady state or transient operating con-
dition does not change much except the amplitude of ux
density, where as in case of misaligned motor (Fig.-10),
there is signicant change in the ux pattern during transient
condition in comparison to the steady-state condition. During
simulation it was observed that the deviation of ux pattern is
more prominent when air gap is less.
Fig. 9. Flux distribution along periphery of rotor for aligned motor (A)
steady state condition (B) transient condition
(A)
(B)
Fig. 10. Flux distribution plot for misaligned motor (A) steady state condition
(B) transient condition. The dotted line represents the air gap length along
the periphery of motor.
The concluding observation is that, when gap is more, the
magnetic material operates on the knee of the magnetization
characteristic hence, the ux distribution remains symmetrical
but when the gap is less (due to eccentricity) the saturation
affects the ux pattern. However, to reach a nal conclusion,
further simulation is required to be carried out, with the effect
of saturation of magnetic material on the air gap ux pattern.
Fig. 11. Flux pattern under dynamic condition due to slotting effect
The dynamic simulation was also carried out to study the
6
behavior of slotting. The ux density distribution curves per
pole pitch are not identical to each other. The dissymmetry of
the ux curves may be due to irregularities of air gap length.
Fig.-11 depicts ux density variation due to slotting for one
quarter rotation of the rotor.
Fig. 12. High-frequency ux density spectrum (A) and (B) - misaligned and
aligned motor under steady state (C) and (D) same under transient condition
Form above eld computation and analysis it was found
that eccentricity causes asymmetrical magnetic ux density
distribution. The slotting, both on stator and rotor sides,
modies the effective air gap permeance. This will have
additional distortion of air gap ux. Both these effects will
cause for additional harmonic component during eccentricity
condition. The frequency spectrum analysis for magnetic ux
density is shown in Fig.-12. The analysis gives clear indication
of additional harmonic component in the frequency spectrum
of misaligned motor in comparison to the aligned motor. The
additional component will be used as the feature vectors for
fault identication.
VI. CONCLUSION
The behavior of air gap ux distribution under eccentricity
condition is presented in this paper. Using nite element based
analysis of the magnetic eld and incorporating effects of
rotor motion, the ux density patterns have been generated
for a 3HP, 415 Volt, 3-phase 50 Hz induction motor both
under healthy and misaligned condition. The wave-patterns
in the two cases are found to have clear differences. In this
paper the transient mode of operation of both type (aligned
and misaligned) motors are considered. In transient condition
distortion of ux pattern and the harmonic contents are more
prominent for misaligned motor. But due to its vary low
amplitude, capturing these frequencies as feature vectors in
actual industrial environment may be difcult. The ndings
are yet to be veried practically and same will be presented
in next publication.
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