Simulation of emerging faults in electric machines

Abstract The article presents simulation based on finite element technique of the most common faults in three-phase squirrelcage induction motors. Faults examined in this paper are: rotor broken bars and inter- inter turns short-circuit in stator windings. Fault in rotor broken bars was simulated taking two consecutive bars to see how the flux density is affected. Interturn short-circuit faults was simulated taking 40% inter-turn short-circuit of the windingin one phase. Simulations were performed using finite element software FEMM to obtain the flux density waveform in the airgap and in the electromagnetic core. Results from simulations were exported to MATLAB for further process and analysis. Flux density waveforms were plotted and processed by FFT analysis to observe harmonic distribution.