Letting The Smoke Out - What To Do If Your Motor Fails

In the course of experiencing a failure of a large electrical machines, it is prudent for operations to bring the equipment back into service as quickly as possible. However, from the standpoint of long-term reliability it is best to attempt to understand the failure, its cause, and corrective action to prevent recurrence. Motor failure mechanisms can be associated with four general categories: Thermal, Electrical, Ambient, and Mechanical. These categories encompass issues with loading, power systems, lubrication, contamination, and more. The aim of this paper is to provide the end user or service technician with a guide and checklist on what information or operational data to gather, which testing to perform, and generally, how to initiate the investigation of common failure mechanisms.