Broken rotor bar fault monitoring based on fluxgate sensor measurement of leakage flux

Broken rotor bar fault in induction motors significantly affects the motor dynamic performance and increases the mechanical oscillations in torque and speed. Motor current signature analysis has widely been used to detect such fault, yet it has some shortcomings due to motor topology, stator winding and load type dependencies. In this paper, radial leakage flux which contains most critical fault related information is analyzed using a fluxgate sensor to detect broken bar fault in induction motors (IMs). The 2D-Time Stepping Finite Element Method (2D-TSFEM) is used to analyze fault patterns in leakage flux. A 2-Dimensional (2D) finite element analysis and experimental results show that using leakage flux can provide superior and more reliable results than classical motor stator current analysis in IMs.