Thermal Lifetime Evaluation of Electrical Machines Using Neural Network

This paper proposes a surrogate approach which utilises an supervised neural network to significantly shorten the time required for thermal qualification of electrical machines’ insulation. The proposed approach is based on a feedforward neural network trained with Bayesian Regularization Back-Propagation (BRP) algorithm. The network predicts the winding’s insulation resistance trend with respect to its thermal aging time. The predicted insulation resistance is evaluated against experimental measurements and an excellent match is found. Its trend is used for estimating the sample’s time to failure under thermal stress at various temperatures. The temperature index of the insulating material, predicted by the neural network, matches with an error of just 0.4% margin against the experimental findings.