Torsional Vibration Effects on Induction Machine Current and Torque Signatures in Gearbox-Based Electromechanical System

The monitoring of heavy-duty electromechanical systems is crucial for their preventive maintenance planning. In these systems, the mechanical anomalies such as load troubles, great torque dynamic variations, and torsional oscillations lead to shaft fatigue and aging of other mechanical parts such as bearings and gearboxes. In this paper, a gearbox-based electromechanical system is investigated. Initially, a simple gearbox dynamic model is used to show the effects of rotating input, output, and mesh frequency components on the electromagnetic torque and consequently on the stator current signature. By this model, the influence of transmission error, eccentricities of pinion/wheel, and teeth contact stiffness variation is demonstrated for a healthy gearbox. Then, it is shown that the electrical machine can be considered as a torque sensor through electromagnetic torque estimation for torsional vibration monitoring without any extra mechanical sensor. A test-rig based on a 5.5-kW three-phase squirrel-cage induction motor connected to a wound-rotor 4-kW induction generator via a one-stage gearbox has been used to validate the proposed method.