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00009359
00009359
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Abstract Stator windings from three generators and one motor were
subjected to a wide variety of diagnostic and destructive tests prior to
the rewind of the machines. Diagnostic tests included insulation Nondestructive diagnostic tests of the insulation system are
resistance, polarization index, capacitance, dissipation factor tip-up, required by maintenance engineers since, by definition. the insulation
partial discharge magnitude and discharge inception voltage. The remains serviceable once such tests are completed. The credibility in
destructive tests included breaking down individual coils with either ac, estimating the insulation's condition using these diagnostic tests should
dc, or impulse voltages. The remaining life of the stator insulation is as- be well correlated to results of breakdown tests and dissections. How-
sumed (correctly or incorrectly) to be a function of the breakdown volt- ever, by their nature, experiments to establish a correlation between non-
age. Since the results of the diagnostic tests did not correlate with the destructive and destructive tests are very costly and require availability
breakdown voltages, it seems that remaining life can not be predicted on of a machine for an extensive length of time. Because of the cost and
the basis of diagnostic tests alone. Equations and other relationships limited availability of machines for destructive testing, most authors
recently developed in Japan to predict the remaining life of the stator have evaluated the capabilities of different nondestructive diagnostic
groundwall insulation system could not be confirmed. Diagnostic tests methods with little experimental verification of any correlation with the
are most useful to indicate the trend in insulation aging in a particular measured strengths of the machines [ 1.21.
machine.
The only extensive work on comparing diagnostic tests to
Keywords: Stator insulation, diagnostic tests, remaining life remaining life, as determined by breakdown strength, has come from
several Japanese investigators during the last fcw years [3-6,9-121.
These authors reported a correlation between the breakdown strength
INTRODUCTION (expressed as a percentage of the value for new coils, or residual
strength) and various combinations of the results from diagnostic
Forced outages of generators and motors in critical applica- measurements eg, partial discharges, capacitance, dissipation factor,
tions can cost users millions of dollars in repair and outage costs. Reli- resistance, etc.
able operation of a rotating machine depends critically on the integrity of
its stator winding insulation, which is aged by exposure to a combination Recently Ontario Hydro researchers [7] also performed many
of thermal, electrical, mechanical and environmental stresses. There- diagnostic tests and measured strengths of coils in a 542 MW gcnerator
fore, utilities have a keen interest in diagnostic measurements to assess winding. Contrary to work reported in [3-61, the results did not show any
the condition of the stator insulation in these machines. Such measure- correlation between the nondestructive and destructive measurements.
ments help in planning maintenance and repair schedules. Minor repairs Subsequently, tests partly funded by EPRI were performed on three
could be made in time to prevent forced outages with associated ex- more machines of different designs to verify the existence or nonexis-
pensive major repairs, enabling the utility to use its fiscal and human tence of a similar correlation. The combined results from these ex-
resources most effectively. tensive tests on four machines are given in this paper.
0885-8969/88/1200-0833$01.0001988 IEEE
834
Table 1
Measurementson Machines Tested
Rating 4 pole, 6.6 kV, 4 pole, 24 kV, 48 pole, 13.8 kV 72 pole, 13.8 kV,
11,ooohT 542 M W 80 MW 60 MW
Motor Turbine Generator Hydro Generator Hydro Generator
Insulation Epoxy resin bonded Shellac bonded Epoxy resin bonded Polyester resin
System mica paper micafolium mica paper bonded mica split.
tings
Operating'Time 56,000 hours 12 years 13 years 20 years
DestructiveTests
1
After completing the diagnostic tests on individual coils, the
groundwall insulation of each coil was subjected to gradually increasing
dc, ac, or lightning impulse voltages, until the insulation punctured. The
dc or 60 Hz ac voltage was manually increased at about 1kV/second. A 0.4
power transformer was required for the ac breakdown tests. since the
resonant test supply could not sustain resonance at high voltages due to
discharging in the coil. The impulse voltage was a negative 1/40 ps o'5
0.3
surge. Three impulses were applied at each voltage level, with the volt-
age raised in 5 kV increments until breakdown occurred. Obviously, any
particular coil or bar could be tested to breakdown with only one type of
voltage.
In some cases, flashovers occurred between the exposed coil
copper conductors and the stator frame. By insulating the exposed con-
ductors and spraying SF6 in the vicinity, such flashovers were often pre-
vented. However, in several cases surface flashover still occurred in 0 1
spite of the above measures, and the true breakdown voltage could not 0 0.2 0.4
be determined. Details of the destructive tests are given in Tables 1 and A T a n b (X)
5.
Figure I : Comparison of diagnostic quantities ACICo VS Atan6
RESULTS measured at 1 kV and 8 kV (stator I )
3
Results of Diagnostic Tests
0
W
zl
tor (Atans) from 1kV to operating voltage for machine 4 are highly cor- a
related (Figure 1 and Table 2). Physically both parameters are a measure 5
0 1 -
of the void content in the insulation and we would therefore expect such a
a high correlation. Other parameters such as peak partial discharge U
levels (Q") at operating voltage and discharge inception voltage
(DIV) show little correlation with CO, ACIC, or Atan6 (Figure 2 and
Table 2). The discharge levels are a measure of the largest void dis- 0 ~ , 1 , , ( , , , , ( , , , , ,
charging at a given applied voltage and may not be correlated with
ACIC, or AtanS, which are quantities averaged over the whole coil. Maximum Discharge Magnitude (1000 pC)
Table 2
Correlation of Diagnostic Tests for Four Machines.
ACICo Atan 6 IR
:ator 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
ACICO
DIV -0.31 -0.36 -0.23 -0.22 -0.31 -0.23 -0.15 -0.23 0.05 0.22 0.07 0.05
+ The numbers in the table are the correlation coefficients between different diagnostic tests for each stator. R
number close to either fl.O indicates that the two diagnostic tests are well correlated. If the number is between
about -0.5 and t0.5, they are essentially uncorrelated.
__ No measurements taken.
836
Due to the higher electrical stress on line end coils, degrada- Table 3
tion of the semiconductive paint and possible void growth due to dis- Correlation of Non-Destructive Tests Results with Coil Position
charge erosion would be expected to be more severe in line end coils. In
Figure 3, the capacitance at 1 kV is plotted as a function of coil position
in the winding for stator 3. As expected if electrical aging were occur-
Stator 1 Stator 2 Stator 3 Stator 4
ring, the capacitance shows a slight decrease towards the line end. Fig-
ure 4 shows the change in capacitance with applied voltage which tends ACICo -0.2 0.44 0.27 -0.1 1
to increase slightly as we move toward the line end thereby indicating
higher void content in the line end coils. However in both cases, the Atan6 -0.12 0.42 0.64 -0.12
scatter in the data is larger than any measurable trend and only a weak
correlation of capacitance with coil position exists for any of the ma- -0.09 0.27 0.46 0.22
chines tested (Table 3). No correlation between coil position and maxi-
mum discharge magnitude or discharge inception voltage was found DIV -0.38 0.10 0.11 0.66
(Table 3).
IR -0.36 -0.15
PI 0.15
8
I
2o
15 1 _ j h
100
-Z 10 j
z o o - u
al
2
t:
80 -1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
3 70 - O D
g 8 0 - o
-1
$ 50 -
$
W 40 -
U 30 -
P
-
Nleutral 5 7 D 11 13 IS 17 ID 21
20
Line LO -
End Coil Location End
0 , , , ( , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , (
DC Breakdown
Average 66 >I16 75 98
Minimum 45 105 56 56
No. of Coils Tested 9 14 22 21
0
0
AC Breakdown
Average 38 >49 38 51
Minimum 29 24" 13 35
No. of Coils Tested 10 5 23 21
eo
-
3
2
50
0
0
0
h
v
00 0
M
W 40 0 0 0
0 0 0 Q o 0
cl
3
3
0 9
30 J
20 -
0
z 20
0 0 & o n
l0i
0
4
U 10 -
0 ~ , , , , , , , , , ,
0 2 4 6 8 IO 12 14 16 18 20
0 1
0 2 4
I
Maximum Discharge Magnitude (1000 pC) Discharge Inception Voltage (kV)
Figure 8: AC breakdown voltage vs maximum discharge magnitude at Figure 9: AC breakdown voltage vs discharge inception voltage
operating voltage (stator 3) (stator 3)
eo
' 30 -
P
2 0
2 20 -
0 0
2 10 -
0
0
0 2 4 8 8 3
Table 6
Correlation of Diagnostic and Destructive Test Results
Stator 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
ACICo 0.5 -0.24 -0.43 0.20 0.04 -0.19 -0.52 -0.31 0.22
A t an8 0.46 0.04 -0.38 0.16 0.22 -0.13 -0.38 -0.24 0.11
DIV -0.007 -0.19 0.46 -0.15 0.18 -0.22 00.30 0.34 -0.07
70
COMPARISON WITH OTHER STUDIES
70
One possible difference is that the prior studies are primarily
00 laboratory-based with the testing done on individual coils which were
usually removed from the slot. In our studies, all coils were tested
within the stator core, as would be the situation for diagnostic tests on
50
normal machines. In the work presented in this paper, the electrode sys-
tem was composed of the copper conductor - composite insulation -
40
stator core iron. The contact between the stator bar surface and the core
iron is facilitated by a semiconductive coating. The integrity of the con-
30 tact is dependent upon the condition of this coating, and how well the
stator bar conforms to the slot shape. It is difficult to sec how some of
20 the electrode strategies in the other studies which employ silver paint
ground electrodes [lo] relate to the real situation. Obviously the use of a
10 conductive paint provides an intimate contact. It is of relevance to note
that stator 3 had undergone severe deterioration of the semiconductive
coating. In the studies which used a simulated slot [12], a coating of
0 I
2W 4W BW BW
semiconductive paint was not applied. Another significant difference in
RC ohm farad some studies [lo] was the omission or elimination of the end winding
grading paint. The distortions due to the influence of the nonlinear
Figure 11: AC breakdown voltage vs the diagnostic quality RC stress control system are well known and was acknowledged [lOj. How-
measured at 1 kV (stator 4 ) ever, although acknowledged, the influence on the results does not ap-
pear to have been explicitly considered.
W 50 - 0 0
0 parable to our study. In addition, the referenced studies made and aged
M 0 some bars specifically for experimental purposes. It is possible that the
=: used coils employed in the other studies were very severely dcgradcd
3 40 -
and very near to the end of their life. On the other hand most of the
d
samples tested by us had given no indication that their dielectric strength
30 - had been significantly impaired in service. Hence, diagnostic tests may
x
-U
best as indicators of remaining life when the insulation is close to fail-
20 - ure. Diagnostic measurements might then be relatively insensitive life
%
I
U indicators for bars which still have significant life remaining.
d 10 -
Discussion This supports the Authors' suggestion that low AC strength of a sample
W. McDermid (Manitoba Hydro, Winnipeg, Canada): from an aged machine would indicate that it would soon have failed in
The a u t h o r s have r e p o r t e d d a t a u s i n g a number of common
service. I would suggest that long-time AC voltage endurance tests of such
samples might be more informative for less advanced deterioration and
d i a g n o s t i c and d e s t r u c t i v e t e s t methods and have made
longer prospects.
some i n t e r e s t i n g comparisons.
It should be emphasized that Direct Voltage tests have the sole purpose of
I t i s r e p o r t e d t h a t measurements of i n s u l a t i o n r e s i s t -
detecting cracks and fissures through the groundwall. Such damage is
a n c e and p o l a r i z a t i o n index may n o t be u s e f u l f o r
usually caused by mechanical vibration or impact, aggravated by localized
p o l y e s t e r windings. T h i s i s c o n t r a r y t o t h e e x p e r i e n c e
heating from discharges, strand faults, or core faults. Direct overvoltage
of Manitoba Hydro.
tests by the Ramp Method give reliable non-destructive indications when
We have twelve 120 MVA 13.8 kV hydro g e n e r a t o r s w i t h
done on a winding which has cooled to ambient temperature while open to
polyester-mica insulated multi-turn c o i l s t a t o r
air of normal humidity, to provide a little moisture to enhance conduction in
windings. On two o c c a s i o n s , i n v o l v i n g d i f f e r e n t u n i t s ,
any fissure. These facts are well known to the Authors, but still not widely
we have e x p e r i e n c e d low i n s u l a t i o n r e s i s t a n c e and low
enough appreciated.
p o l a r i z a t i o n index r e a d i n g s on some, b u t n o t a l l , s t a t o r
These two Papers present very valuable means of assessing the future
c i r c u i t s f o l l o w i n g t h e o p e r a t i o n of t h e f i r e p r o t e c t i o n
trend of a stator winding's reliability, in terms of probable ability to
w a t e r d e l u g e system.
withstand "events" incidental to operation, such as overvoltages and
I n t h e c a s e of U n i t 5, one s p l i t phase had a 1 minute
overcurrents from external causes. There are now two requirements for a
i n s u l a t i o n r e s i s t a n c e o f 714 megohms and a p o l a r i z a t i o n
Utility to realize the economic benefits of such information:
index of 1.5 a t a t e m p e r a t u r e of 22"C, w h i l e most o t h e r
s p l i t p h a s e s had a n I R of12COmegohms and P I of a t 1. Assessment of the probabilities of such events and their probable
l e a s t 4.4. Some c l e a n i n g and d r y i n g was done b u t d i d severities in future periods of time.
n o t improve t h e c o n d i t i o n of t h e one s p l i t phase and 2. Realistic estimates of the dollar values of reliability levels of given
f i n a l l y two s t a t o r c o i l s had t o be r e p l a c e d . Both machines at future times, whereby the indicated repairs and rewinds can
d e f e c t s were found t o be a t t h e p o i n t a t which t h e c o i l be times for optimum costibenefit ratio.
e x i t s t h e s l o t and appeared t o i n v o l v e a c r a c k o r t a p e
Manuscript received February 23, 1988.
s e p a r a t i o n i n t h e groundwall. Both c o i l s had been
involved i n l i f t s during t h e o r i g i n a l i n s t a l l a t i o n .
I n t h e c a s e of Unit 6 , two p h a s e s were found t o have
a n l m i n u t e i n s u l a t i o n r e s i s t a n c e of between 1 and 2
megohms and p o l a r i z a t i o n index v a l u e s of 1 . 0 a t approx-
i m a t e l y 60"C, w h i l e t h e t h i r d phase had a n I R of 700 G.C. Stone, B.A. Lloyd and B.K. Gupta would like to
megohms and PI of 6.4, The above d a t a were o b t a i n e d thank Mr. McDermid and Mr. Cameron for their interest in our paper. Mr.
a f t e r a p r e l i m i n a r y d r y o u t . Following e x t e n s i v e McDermid's examples of how the insulation resistance (IR) and
c l e a n i n g of o r i g i n a l l i f t c o i l s i n t h e end t u r n a r e a polarization index (PI) tests can be useful to determine the condition of
immediately a d j a c e n t t o t h e s l o t , and f u r t h e r d r y i n g , epoxy or polyester insulated windings are very pertinent. As stated in the
i t was p o s s i b l e t o r e t u r n t h e u n i t t o s e r v i c e w i t h o u t
paper, such tests are useful for any type of insulation to determine if
having t o r e p l a c e any c o i l s .
excessive moisture (such as occurs after a deluge) or major flaws such as
I n a d d i t i o n t o m o i s t u r e , b r a k e d u s t and s o o t a r e
b e l i e v e d t o have been f a c t o r s i n making t h e groundwall cracks are present. These dc tests are also uscful if direct comparisons can
c r a c k s o r t a p e s e p a r a t i o n s f u l l y c o n d u c t i v e [l]. be made, such as the discusser's contrasting a "good" and a "bad" phasc.
Our point is that these tests taken in isolation are rclatively incffectivc for
Reference the more usual types of aging which occur in thermosetting windings. For
example, PI and IR are essentially useless in evaluating the degree of
[ 11 W. McDermid, " I n v e s t i g a t i o n of Groundwall D e f e c t s aging caused by slot discharge.
i n Polyester-Mica", Minutes of t h e 5 0 t h Annual
I n t e r n a t i o n a l Conference of Doble C l i e n t s , 1983, Another variant of dc testing is mentioned by Mr. Cameron.
Sec. 7-301. DC ramp tests to twice the phase-to-phase operating voltage were done on
Manuscript received February 17, 1988 many phases and coils in our test program. Thc dc ramp test results
essentially duplicated the IR and PI data. Since none of the tested bars or
coils failed below the test voltage, we did not have the opportunity to
utilize the dc ramp test's principle advantage: the ability to abort thc tcst
A. W. W. Cameron (Retired, London, ON, Canada): The reported lack of prior to puncture.
correlation between short-time AC breakdown voltage and other experience
or diagnosis of remaining insulation service life may be explained by known As our tests have shown, assessing insulation condition
Voltage Endurance characteristics. The high short time AC strength of an should not be done on the basis of any single mcasurcment. All tests may
insulation sample is determined mainly by the effective thickness of solic yield useful information. when put into perspective with past tcst data,
insulation in it. The droop of any AC voltage endurance curve towards insulation type, prior problems, etc. We believe much more cfforl is
reduced breakdown voltages of identical samples, after long times of
required bcfore objective, reliable estimates of insulation remaining life
stressing, is caused by progressive ionic erosion of voids, by localized
can be determined.
heating by void discharges, and by dielectric heating approaching runaway
in remaining solid insulation. Manuscript received April 15, 1988.