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Frequency Spectrum Analysis of Partial Discharge Activities in WBG-based AC

Machine Drives

Conference Paper · March 2023

DOI: 10.1109/APEC43580.2023.10131363

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 Frequency Spectrum Analysis of Partial Discharge
Activities in WBG-based AC Machine Drives
Kangbeen Lee Mohamad Saleh Sanjari Nia
Electrical and Computer Engineering Advanced Systems Innovation
Michigan State University Electric Drives
East Lansing, USA BorgWarner Inc.
leekangb@msu.edu Auburn Hills, USA
ssanjari@borgwarner.com
Abstract—High voltage and fast switching speed of wide
bandgap (WBG)-based AC machine drives can aggravate the
insulation stress and cause more frequent partial discharge
(PD) activities leading to premature failures of the dielectric
materials. A particular PD type occurring between the drive
system and the ground (e.g., winding to a core and/or winding
to a housing) shares an identical leakage current conduction
path to that of the conducted common-mode electromagnetic
interference (CM EMI) affecting the CM EMI noise level as
well. To fully understand and prevent the PD activities in the
WBG-based AC machine drives, it is critical to measure and
analyze a full frequency spectrum of the PD activities, which
are often concurrently measured with CM EMI noise. In the
conventional PD measurement systems, the full frequency
spectrum of the PD cannot be captured due to an additional
high-pass filter (HPF) with a cutoff frequency generally higher
than 50 MHz. This HPF is commonly used to segregate the PD
signal from the switching and EMI-induced noises, but the PD
activities produce electromagnetic noises with a wide frequency
spectrum, including less than 20 MHz. In this paper, the full
spectra of PD activities during the switching transition of the
WBG-based AC machine drive are measured with two
different methods without any additional HPF. The measured
signals are analyzed in the time and frequency domain to
identify major signatures of PD activities in WBG-based AC
machine drives.
Keywords—AC machine drive, frequency spectra, high slew
rate, insulation degradation, partial discharge, wide bandgap
device
I. INTRODUCTION
With more electrification and emission-free
transportation trends, propulsion systems in aircraft and
electric vehicles are rapidly changing from fossil fuel-based
engines to electric AC machine drive systems. Due to the
ever-increasing demand for high efficiency and high-power
density AC machine drives, the voltage and switching
frequency are expected to increase as they are the most
effective ways of boosting efficiency while reducing system
mass by reducing the system joule losses and the size of
passive components [1]-[2]. Although high-voltage and high-
frequency drives have several advantages, they are becoming
more vulnerable to partial discharge (PD).
Partial discharge (PD) is defined as a localized electrical
discharge that only partially bridges the insulation between
conductors and can or cannot occur adjacent to a conductor
from IEC 60270 standard. From the definition, the PDs can
occur in electric machines in the forms of internal, surface,
and corona discharges at the inside of the slot, the surface of
the insulation, and end-windings, respectively. The PDs
generally occurs when the electric field overrides the
inception field, and the initial free electron exists in a cavity
Woongkul Lee
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Michigan State University
East Lansing, USA
leewoong@msu.edu
Fig. 1. Repetitive voltage signals from AC machine drives and
high voltage overshoot and ringing at the machine terminal [9].
located in the insulation material for starting an electron
avalanche.
Since the applied voltage at the insulation is proportional
to the dc-link voltage, PD activities can more frequently
occur with the low-voltage insulation system. It was reported
that a pulse width of voltage output provided by the high-
frequency electric drive affects the magnitude and rate of PD
in [3]-[5]. Moreover, it is also validated that the magnitude of
PD can increase as a slew rate of the power switching device
increases [6]-[7]. Since the connecting cable between the
electric drive and the electric machine increase ringing and
overshoot at the machine terminal due to reflected wave, it
was proved that the PDIV tends to decrease as the cable
length increases [8]. It was also experimentally validated that
turn-to-ground PD activities in AC machine drives affect
common-mode electromagnetic interference (CM EMI) noise
[9].
The PD measurement and analysis have become more
challenging under repetitive voltage pulses with a high slew
rate as the PD and switching transition occur simultaneously
[10]. Several different methods using ultra-high-frequency
(UHF) antenna, coupling capacitors, and radio-frequency
current transformer (RFCT) have been developed to detect
PD activities and predict the lifetime of stator winding [11]-
[14]. However, those methods require a high-pass filter,
commonly used to separate the PD signal from the switching
(i.e., overshoot and ringing) and EMI noises [5]-[6], [15].
Although these filters can segregate the PD signals from the
EMI noises, they also filter out a substantial portion of the
PD signatures in the frequency range under cut-off frequency.
Therefore, a new measurement method without any filter is
required to fully capture and analyze the full frequency
spectra of the PDs in AC machine drives. Furthermore, the

Fig. 2. Partial discharge measurement setup for the time and
frequency domain data acquisition and analysis.
frequency domain analysis with the measured full frequency
spectra is required to understand the features of PD in AC
machine drives.
To bridge this knowledge gap, this paper
comprehensively analyzes the PD phenomena of the WBG-
based AC machine drives and provides non-filtered raw data
with time and frequency domain analysis of the measured PD
signals. The experiment results can clearly show the
influence of PD activities at the machine terminal and drive
output voltage. Moreover, the full frequency spectra of PD
during the switching transition (i.e., turn-on and -off) of the
WBG-based AC machine drive are measured with two
different methods (i.e., conducted and radiated) without any
additional HPF. The measured signals from RFCT and
coaxial cable are analyzed in the time and frequency domain
to identify major signatures of PD activities in WBG-based
AC machine drives. The full frequency spectra of the PDs
with the different slew rate are also included in the analysis.
This paper is organized as the following. Section II will
describe the details of the PD measurement setup with WBG-
based AC machine drives. The full frequency spectra of the
PDs will be presented in both time and frequency domain in
Section III. Finally, the conclusion will be drawn in Section
Ⅳ.
II. PARTIAL DISCHARGE EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
A. Twisted Pair Sample
The standardized twisted pair sample (i.e., two insulated
wires are twisted together) is commonly used for the PD
study of a random-wound winding systems since the twisted
pair represents the worst-case scenario of the PD events with
the highest electric field between two conductors. The
electric field between two wires is proportional to the voltage
difference and inverse proportional to the distance between
the wires,
Ecrit < V / d, (1)
where V is the voltage difference between two wires and d is
the distance between the two wire pairs. When the electric
field exceeds the critical electric field of the insulation
system, PD occurs.
Two twisted pair samples are needed for comparative
analysis between the samples with and without PD activities.
One of the samples was made more susceptible to PD
activities at low partial discharge inception voltage (PDIV),
TABLE. 1. Characteristics of twisted winding pair samples for
the PD and EMI estimation.
Type Sample 1 Sample 2
Two fully One fully enameled
Description
enameled wires wire and one bare wire
Wire gauge 34 34
Insulation
Polyamide-imide Polyamide-imide
Material
Estimated
> 600 V < 500 V
PDIV
while the other was made with higher PDIV. Since the
applied voltage to the machine winding is proportional to the
dc-link voltage, the PDIV generated by the power supply is
set to be less than 600 V. The PDIVs can be dependent on
the structures (i.e., round, and rectangular) of the magnet
wire. From Dakin’s equations, PDIVs of rectangular and
round magnet wire can be calculated using
V = √2 × 163 × (2×t/εr)0.46, (2)
V = √2 × 163 × (t/εr)0.46, (3)
where V is partial discharge inception voltage, t is the
thickness of the insulation film, and εr is the relative
permittivity of the insulation film [16]-[17].
For both twisted pair samples, the 34 AWG round magnet
wires are used, which have 11 μm of the thickness of the
insulation film. The first sample is made by twisting two
fully enameled wires, and the PD activities do not occur at
less than 600 V of the dc-link voltage. On the other hand, the
other sample is made with one fully enameled wire and one
bare magnet wire to deliberately reduce the PDIV, and the
PD activities occur under 500 V of the dc-link voltage. The
specifications of the samples are summarized in Table. 1.
B. Partial Discharge Measurement Setup
A partial discharge measurement setup is built to capture
PD signals from the twisted pair samples. To measure both
the high-frequency capacitive discharge current of PD and
the CM EMI noise without any filter in the high-frequency
range, the experimental setup is designed with a 1.7 kV SiC-
based half-bridge inverter with a high-voltage power supply,
measurement equipment (i.e., voltage probe, coaxial cable,
RFCT, and oscilloscope), and the twisted pair samples, as
shown in Fig. 2. One terminal of the twisted pair samples is
connected to the inverter, and the other terminal is directly
connected to the ground to form a capacitive leakage current
path for both CM EMI and PD. Two voltage probes are
connected to the terminal of the twisted pair samples and the
output of the drive to investigate the influence of PD
activities on the voltage waveforms. A regular coaxial cable
with roughly 1 cm of the center conductor exposed is
installed near the twisted pair samples to measure high-
frequency radiated emission from EMI and PD events.
For measuring the conducted emission, a radio-frequency
current transformer (RFCT) is used to detect both PD signals
and CM EMI noise. The RFCT (CLCE-438) is compatible
for CISPR, Mil-Std 461, and DO-160 standards since the
measurement bandwidth range from 9 kHz to 400 MHz. The
oscilloscope has a bandwidth of 600 MHz with up to 10 GHz
sampling frequency. The experiments are repeatedly
 (a)
(b)
(c)
Fig. 3. Measured PD signals in time domain (a) at the terminal
of the twisted pair, (b) from the RFCT, and (c) from the coaxial
cable.
conducted with both samples under the identical condition,
while various control variables (e.g., cable length between
the drive and the sample, and slew rate) are changed to
investigate and extract the critical features of PD in AC
machine drives. Since four channels from each measurement
equipment (i.e., two voltage probes, RFCT, and coaxial
cable) are provided, both the time and frequency domain data
of four data set will be presented for more detailed
comparative analysis.
III. PARTIAL DISCHARGE PHENOMENA IN AC MACHINE
DRIVES WITH HIGH SLEW RATE
Since high-frequency and high switching speed electric
drives can generate high voltage ringing and overshoot at the
machine terminal, a detailed time domain data analysis is
needed to investigate the PD phenomena of WBG-based AC
machine drives with a high slew rate. This section
investigates the impact of the various slew rate on PD
phenomena in the time domain.
Fig. 4. Measured voltage at the terminal with high slew rate in
WBG-based AC machine drives.
The experimental setup includes the sample 2, 340 V of
dc-link voltage, and 28 V/ns of slew rate to measure the
ringing voltage at the sample terminal. As expected, the
voltage ringing is generated for over 0.015 ms duration at the
terminal of the sample, as shown in Fig. 3 (a). This leads to
several voltage drops at the terminal when PDs occur in the
insulation. The stiff voltage drops indicate the occurrences of
several PD activities in one turn-on transition. The PD
signals are also captured at the RFCT and coaxial cable to
confirm that the abrupt voltage drops come from the PDs.
The magnitude of the ground current, including CM EMI,
increases at the PD events, as shown in Fig. 3 (b). The
measured data from the coaxial cable also shows that the
increased voltage magnitude is synchronized with the PD
events, as shown in Fig. 3 (c). These measured data indicate
that PDs can occur more than one time during one switching
cycle when there is a high terminal voltage overshoot and
ringing. This is due to the fact that the terminal voltage may
exceed the PDIV several times for the duration of the voltage
ringing.
While changing the gate resistances of SiC MOSFETs
from 2 Ω to 47 Ω with the same experimental setup with
sample 1, the voltage overshoots at the terminal are measured
to verify that a high slew rate system makes the insulation
system more vulnerable to PD when the dc-link voltage is
400 V. The voltage overshoot increases with the increased
slew rate, as shown in Fig. 4. As high as 20% voltage
overshoot was observed with the slew rate of 28 V/ns, which
is measured with the 2 Ω gate resistance. This indicates that
the electric drive with a high slew rate can lead to more
frequency PD activities due to the increased peak voltage
applied to the insulation.
IV. FULL FREQUENCY SPECTRA OF PARTIAL DISCHARGE IN
AC MACHINE DRIVES
A. Time Domain Analysis
The two twisted pair samples introduced in Table I are
used to comprehensively compare measured voltage and
current waveforms with and without PDs in the time domain.
The experimental setup can measure four different
waveforms, which include the half-bridge inverter output
voltage, terminal voltage, ground current with RFCT, and
radiated EM noise with coaxial cable.
 (a)
Terminal Voltage w/o PD
of Twisted Pair
(b)
Measured signal w/o PD
from RFCT
(c)
Measured signal w/o PD
from coaxial cable
(d)
Fig. 5. Measured PD signals in time domain (a) half-bridge inverter output voltage, (b) terminal voltage of twisted pair, (c) RFCT, and
(d) coaxial cable comparison between without PD vs. with PD.
First of all, there is no significant impact of PD on the
half-bridge inverter output voltage, as shown in Fig. 5 (a).
The inverter output voltages are almost identical to each
other regardless of the PD event. However, the PDs generate
a stiff voltage drop of more than 600 V from the peak voltage
at the terminal of Sample 2, as shown in Fig. 5 (b). This stiff
voltage drop is associated with the abrupt discharge of
electrons through the ground current path when the PD
occurs. The measured peak ground current with PD from the
RFCT (i.e., voltage signal converted from the measured
current) is approximately 2 V higher than without PDs, as
shown in Fig. 5 (c). The coaxial cable also captured the PDs
through the radiated EMI noise, producing roughly 300 mV
higher peak voltage than that without PDs, as shown in Fig. 5
(d). These results show that PDs can generate stiff voltage
fluctuations at the machine terminal and affect CM EMI
noise since the PD conduction path is identical to the
conducted CM EMI path.
B. Frequency Domain Analysis
Frequency analysis from the measured time domain
signals without any additional filter is conducted to find the
full frequency spectra of PDs. Fig. 6 (a) show that the
measured voltage magnitude at half-bridge inverter output
voltages with and without PDs where no significant
Terminal Voltage with PD PD
of Twisted Pair
Measured signal with PD
from RFCT
PD
PD
Measured signal with PD
from coaxial cable
difference is observed as expected. On the other hand, since
PDs cause the stiff voltage drops at the terminal, the peak
voltage magnitude at 4 MHz is 25 V lower, and the
frequency band of the terminal voltage with the PDs is wider
than that without PDs, as shown in Fig. 6 (b). As the stiff
voltage drops are introduced by the PD events, the frequency
spectra of the terminal voltage tend to extend towards the
higher frequency range. Furthermore, PDs change the
frequency spectra of the measured voltage from RFCT, as the
voltage magnitude at 11 MHz is 10 times higher compared to
that without PDs, as shown in Fig. 6 (c). Lastly, the measured
voltage magnitude from coaxial cable in all frequency band
(< 50 MHz) changes with PDs, especially at 4 and 8 MHz.
These results indicate that PDs produce a wide frequency
band conducted emission below the 20 MHz range. Since the
filters, commonly used to segregate the PD signal from the
switching and EMI noises, have a 50 MHz cut-off frequency
for conducted emission, it is confirmed that full spectra of
PDs can only be captured without these additional filters.
C. Full Frequency Spectra depending on a Slew Rate
The ground current, including PD signals, with the high
(28V/ns) and low slew rate (7 V/ns) are measured to verify
which frequency band of the PD signal is changed depending
on the slew rate. The magnitude of the ground current with
 Drive output voltage
W/O PD
With PD
(a)
Measured signal from RFCT
W/O PD
With PD
(c)
Fig. 6. Measured PD signals in frequency domain (a) at half-bridge inverter output, (b) at the terminal of twisted pair, (c) by RFCT, (d)
by coaxial cable comparison between without PD vs. with PD.
Mesured signal with PD from RFCT
High slew rate (24 V/ns)
Low slew rate(7 V/ns)
Fig. 7. Measured PD signals in frequency domain by RFCT
comparison between high slew rate (24 V/ns) vs. low slew rate
(7 V/ns).
the high slew rate is 50 mV larger at the peak than that with
the low slew rate, as shown in Fig. 7. In addition, a 30 mV
increased magnitude of the ground current is observed in a
frequency band ranging from 4 to 6 MHz. It indicates that the
magnitude of PD increases as the slew rate increases, and the
measured voltage magnitude with PDs from RFCT changes
in a frequency band (4 – 12 MHz) as the slew rate changes.
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, critical signatures of PD activities in WBG-
based AC machine drives were investigated by both time and
frequency domain analysis. An experimental setup without
any additional filter was proposed to compare conducted and
radiated emission between two twisted pair samples with and
without PD events. The RFCT measured the conducted
ground current, including PD signals and the coaxial cable is
used to capture the radiated EM noise, including PD signals.
The time domain analysis verified that the AC machine
drives with a high slew rate are more vulnerable to PD due to
the increased peak voltage and oscillation with the increased
switching speed. Furthermore, PD activities generate a stiff
voltage drops at the machine terminal from the PD activities,
Terminal Voltage of Twisted Pair
W/O PD
With PD
(b)
Measured signal from coaxial cable
W/O PD
With PD
(d)
which can affect the CM EMI noise generation as well.
However, there is no significant impact of PD on the drive
side output voltage. The frequency domain analysis presented
the full frequency spectra of PDs, including below the 20
MHz range, without any additional HPF. It verified that the
measured voltage with PDs from RFCT was more than 10
times higher at 11 MHz than that without PD events. Since
these filters generally have a 50 MHz cut-off frequency for
conducted emission, which are commonly used to segregate
the PD signals from the switching induced and EMI noise, it
was confirmed that full spectra of PDs can only be captured
without these filters.
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