Advances in Motor and Generator Rotor Health

Novel Techniques for Continuous Monitoring of Field Winding Insulation Resistance and
Rotor Thermal Conditions

Clyde V. Maughan

John M. Reschovsky

Maughan Generator Consultants

Schenectady NY, USA
cmaughan@nycap.rr.com

Accumetrics Associates, Inc.

Schenectady NY, USA
jreschovsky@accumetrix.com

AbstractUntil recently, power plant operators have had very

limited options for on-line monitoring of the health of motor and
generator rotors, particularly those with brushless excitation
systems. Degradation of field winding insulation can lead to
ground faults or shorted turns, with little or no warning.
Moreover, the capability to monitor local hot spot temperatures
on rotor windings in service has not been available even though
monitoring of stator windings with Resistance Temperature
Detectors (RTDs) has always been commonplace.
In the past decade, digital rotor telemetry technology has come of
age, offering new options for rotor condition monitoring on
motors and generators. This technology involves placing
electronic modules on rotors that perform direct measurements
of electrical signals and sensor inputs, digitizing the information,
and using wireless technology to pass the data off the rotor. This
allows continuous monitoring and long term trending of field
voltage and current, insulation resistance to ground, average
winding temperatures and hot spot temperatures. On brushless
machines, it detects ground faults, issuing an immediate alarm
when a ground occurs.
This paper discusses application of this new class of rotor
condition monitoring options using digital rotor telemetry
technology to continuously monitor the health of rotor insulation
systems in large motors and generators.

I.

INTRODUCTION

Rotor telemetry addresses the challenge of acquiring

measurement data from rotors. For a number of years,
telemetry has been used by manufacturers of rotating
machinery for testing new designs through applying strain
gages, thermocouples and other sensors to their rotating
components to characterize and validate their designs. These
techniques were generally used for short term and experimental
purposes and were often primitive and awkward. With the
explosive growth of telecommunication technology, rotor
telemetry has now advanced to the stage where robust,
sophisticated systems are being used for continuous monitoring
of the health of rotor components. Typically, these systems
employ closely coupled rotating and stationary antenna
structures to transmit data off the rotor and also pass sufficient
radio frequency energy to the rotor to power the rotating
electronics, even when the machine in not operating. Small
electronic modules fabricated in a manner to withstand the high

978-1-4244-6301-5/10/$26.00 @2010 IEEE

centrifugal forces are mounted on the rotor. These modules

combine sensor and measurement signals and digitize them
into high speed digital data streams for wireless transmission
off the rotor.
On electrical machines, this technique is most frequently
used to monitor the condition of insulation systems.
Techniques have been developed to measure insulation
resistance to ground (including instantaneous and continuous
ground detection) as well as local temperatures. On brushless
exciter systems, winding voltage and current can be read,
thereby giving average winding temperature.
II.

DETECTING FIELD GROUND FAULTS

On synchronous motors and generators, field ground faults

(also referred to as earth faults) are perhaps the most dangerous
common defect that can occur on rotors. Insulation breakdown
can cause shorts between the field winding and the rotor
forging. When two grounds occur at different locations on the
windings, excitation current will be diverted into the rotor
forgings, which can lead to serious damage or even complete
destruction of generator, and in the worst case, extensive
damage to the power plant. But a single ground can be equally
dangerous, as it may be the result of a coil-to-coil short or a
break in the copper turns and connections. These faults are
quite common and typically are accompanied by severe arcing
with serious damage to the insulation as well as field forgings.
During a recent ten-month period, one of the authors observed
five grounded fields. One was a double ground, with minor
burning of the field forging. Fig 1.
The other four would be classed as single grounds, and in
each case, significant-to-dangerous forging burning was
occurring. One of these resulted from a coil-to-coil short
(bypassing 2 coils in the excitation circuit). The resulting
burning of the retaining ring is shown in Fig 2. The other three
burn damage situations resulted from broken turns or pole-topole connections.
Because field grounds can result in such serious
consequences, it is preferable to continuously monitor the field
winding for ground detection. This is easily and uniformly
done on brush/collector fields by simply applying a bias
voltage on the field excitation circuit (which is designed to
operate ungrounded); the resulting current flow into the field is

Most synchronous machines are protected from field

ground faults with simple protective relays that detect grounds
faults using the classical DC bias voltage injection technique
mentioned above. This approach yields a go/no go alarm when
a fault occurs, but gives no information on the severity or
location of the fault. Moreover, the severity of the fault at the
threshold of alarm detection is not fixedit is influenced by the
fault location. With low side injection, a fault near the negative
side of the winding will need to be typically an order of
magnitude lower in resistance before detection than a fault near
the positive winding terminal.

Fig. 1 Field forging burning from a double grounded field winding.

A more sophisticated technique for monitoring for ground

faults is shown in Fig. 3. In this figure, a ground fault is
represented by a resistance, RL which connects some location
on the field winding to the rotor forging. The potential at this
location on the winding relative to the negative excitation bus
is K*Vx where K is defined as the Location Factor. K takes a
value of 0% at the negative field terminal, increasing for faults
along the winding to 100% at the positive field terminal. The
advanced ground fault resistance monitor injects a pulsed
voltage between the field negative bus and the rotor ground.
The current flowing from the ground terminal into the
transmitter is digitized with high resolution along with the field
excitation voltage. A computation of the change in current as
the pulse transitions allows the resistance, RL, as well as the
location factor, K, to be independently computed. The total
excitation voltage, VX is used in this computation to enhance its
performance.

Fig. 2 Burning of inside diameter of retaining ring from single winding

ground.

monitored and initiates an alarm immediately if a ground

appears. But on a brushless excitation system, there is no
accessible connection point on the winding to attach such a
monitoring system. Some brushless generators are designed
with a small separate slip ring which is electrically connected
to the winding. Periodically the associated brush is dropped
down on the ring to detect whether or not a ground has
developed. (Continuous brush-ring contact is not common
because of problems associated with brush wear and contact
resistance to the ring.)
Non-continuous monitoring carries a hazard, since a ground
which results from arcing between winding and forging can be
immediately dangerous. This delay problem can be easily
overcome with wireless technology, and a field ground can be
detected instantaneously.
Field ground faults can occur in the slots or end windings of
cylindrical rotor machines or to the pole steel or laminations of
salient pole machines. In addition to damaging insulation and
rotor steel, ground faults can also produce nonsymmetrical flux
patterns that can cause extreme vibration, as well as thermal
growths that can result in rotor bowing and severe rotor
vibration.

Fig. 3 An advanced method for characterizing rotor ground faults.

This more advanced technique allows the characteristics of

the fault (resistance and location) to be precisely determined
and changes tracked over time. This offers users the ability to
trend these characteristics over the life of the machine. Subtle
changes in insulation characteristics resulting from physical
damage, moisture absorption or contamination can be tracked.
This information can be useful in helping operators make
decisions about continued operation and to predict maintenance
needs before they become critical.
III.

USING ROTOR TELEMETRY FOR GROUND FAULT

MONITORING

When applied to generators with brush/collector excitation

systems, rotor connections for ground fault monitoring can be
made through the field excitation brush/collector. However,
ground fault detection on brushless motors and generators is
more challenging because these machines use brushless
exciters with rotating rectifiers to deliver DC field current to
the rotor. As a result, ground fault detection has traditionally
used solenoid driven brushes that are periodically engaged as
described above, and this method is non continuous and less
reliable.
The use of rotor telemetry overcomes these limitations on
brushless motors and generators. When combined with the
advanced methodologies shown in Fig. 3, it provides a
powerful tool for rotor protection and monitoring. It offers
continuous monitoring of the insulation system, even when the
machine is not operating. It also yields quantitative data that
can be used for trending and predictive maintenance rather than
just indicating alarm conditions.
A system of this type called Earth Fault Resistance Monitor
(EFREM) has been offered by Accumetrics for the past five
years. It is installed on a wide variety of motors and generators,
both as original equipment on new machines and as retrofitted
monitors on existing machines. The insulation resistance can be
measured up to 80 Megohms, allowing users to track gradual
degradation of the rotor ground insulation system long before
serious problems occur. These data may be displayed and
archived on the users PC or may be transferred to the plants
Distributed Control System over analog/digital interfaces. It
can also be configured for local archival storage on an SD
memory card in the devices receiver unit, and then be
available for later retrieval.
To accommodate the variety of applications, this
technology has been configured in a variety of packaging
forms. The simplest arrangement, shown in Fig. 4, mounts the
rotating transmitter module at the end of the shaft. Rotating
antenna coils are integrated into this package and communicate
to a small stationary antenna over a small air gap. Signals
containing both power for the rotor module and data from the
rotor module then pass over a cable from the stationary antenna
to a remote receiver enclosure which, in turn, provides alarms
and data outputs to the user.
In applications where access to the end of the shaft is not
possible, a mid-shaft clamp-on collar arrangement is mounted
containing the rotating transmitter module. An example of this
kind of arrangement is shown on Fig. 5.

Fig. 4 End of shaft mounted system. (Photo courtesy of Arizona Public

Service)

Fig. 5 Mid shaft mounted system. (Photo courtesy of Reliant Energy)

Since its introduction in 2005, the Earth Fault Resistance

Monitor system has been supplied for about 80 installations,
and these systems are currently operating on-line on machines
on four continents. The results have been very positive. In
addition to protecting rotors and the building of trending data
bases, some of these devices have demonstrated additional
value. In one notable case, after detecting a ground fault on a
peaking generator, the unit was shut down. The diagnostic
capabilities were used to identify and correct the fault, allowing
the plant to quickly return to service. Another generating plant
located in an extremely humid climate where condensation on
the rotors of several air-cooled generators is a problem, the
Earth Fault Resistance Monitor system is used to monitor
resistance as a condition for start-up.

IV.

THERMAL MONITORING ON ROTORS

Rotor telemetry can also be used to measure thermal

conditions on the rotors of electric machinery. This capability
is well established but is not well known or understood among
designers or users of electric machines. Rotor temperature
measurements on synchronous motors and generators are
generally made only as average winding temperatures.
Average winding temperatures are made by measuring both
the winding voltage and current. Current measurements
generally require that a current shunt be installed between the
exciter and the field winding. Once these two quantities are
known, the average temperature of the entire field winding may
be computed using the temperature coefficient of resistance for
the copper windings. Abnormal changes in the field winding
temperature, particularly when assessed in conjunction with
generator operating conditions and cooling gas temperatures,
can give users valuable information about the overall condition
of cooling features of the rotor. This average temperature
measurement has traditionally only been possible on generators
with brush/collector systems. With the introduction of rotor
telemetry solutions, average field temperature monitoring is
now also possible on brushless machines.
But hot spot temperature is far more important to achieving
high generator reliability. The ability to place RTDs on rotors
can give designers and users particularly valuable information.
On cylindrical rotor machines, field windings have hot
locations which are generally known to the designer. These hot
areas are sometimes evidenced by localized discoloration of
slot liners as shown in Fig. 6.

Operators have never before had an opportunity to measure

actual copper temperatures at these specific locations to verify
that they are below the temperature rating for the class of
insulation used on the machine. Moreover, generator
manufacturers establish reactive capability curves for
generators, based in part on the temperature capability of the
field windings. Users who operate at the limits of these curves
may find it valuable to verify that they are not introducing
excessive temperatures on their rotors.
RTDs could be installed both in the slots and under the
retaining rings. The installation of RTDs at these locations can
be done when the rotor is removed from the machine. During
original manufacture or during rotor rewind, the telemetry can
be packaged in a clamp-on collar on the generator shaft inboard of the bearing, where connection to the sensor leads is
easier. Routing the sensor leads to the telemetry modules would
be a challenge probably requiring input from the OEM.
RTD measurements on rotors are also used on salient pole
synchronous machines. On ac motors, for example, knowledge
of the rotor pole temperatures can be used to optimize the
timing of motor restarts. Starting synchronous motors with
fixed frequency drives causes considerable heating of the rotor.
Generally, it is necessary for operators to wait until the rotor
has cooled sufficiently before restarting, to avoid overheating
of the rotor. By having a direct measurement of temperatures
on the poles, the time delay before starting can be determined
with precision and certainty, and can allow safe restarts without
excessive delay. Likewise, some operators of hydroelectric
generators monitor pole tip and winding temperatures using
RTDs transmitted through telemetry. Knowing these
temperatures allows operators to maximize loads without
jeopardizing insulation systems.
V.

CONCLUSIONS

The use of rotor telemetry technology opens up the

opportunity to significantly improve the condition assessment
of generator and motor field windings during normal operation.
Immediate detection of a field winding ground is also
conveniently permitted on brushless excitation systems.
Combined with advanced techniques for measurement of
insulation fault characteristics and temperatures, this
technology offers operators sophisticated tools for monitoring
rotor insulation systems and offers both designers and operators
a powerful design, operation and predictive maintenance tool.
Fig. 6 Discolored insulation at axial centerline of slot liner. (Inside surfaceof
liner against copper was black.)

REFERENCES
[1]

J. Demcko and J. Reschovsky, Guarding the Health and Availability of

a Brushless Generator Using an Earth Fault Resistance Monitor,
Electric Power Conference, Chicago IL (USA), May 2007.