Root-cause diagnostics of generator service failures

Root-cause diagnostics of generator service failures has become a major problem in the industry, particularly during the last 20 years. Generator maintenance specialists from OEMs and independent generator repair companies are trained to be proficient in a specific assignment-repairing of generators. Typically these specialists do not have the technical background to perform diagnosis of the root cause of a failure, nor have they been educated for such diagnostics. As a result, misdiagnosis is often occurring and these errors in diagnosis have been resulting in major expenditures for incorrect or insufficient repairs. This paper is directed toward industry generator owners. It is intended to give guidance to user maintenance personnel on obtaining better diagnostics of failure root cause. It is hoped that through better understanding of the difficulties of obtaining accurate generator diagnostics, maintenance costs can be reduced and generator reliability improved. The paper will illustrate many typical failures, and will discuss the difficulties in root-cause analysis of the failure. The paper will also offer suggestions on means of obtaining necessary technical assistance to assure accurate assessment of root cause.