Thermal Analysis of an Induction Motor Subjected to Inter-Turn Short-Circuit Failures in the Stator Windings

As the main workforce of the global industry, it is fundamental to clearly understand all failures modes that may potentially deteriorate induction motors. Condition monitoring methodologies based on the thermal analysis of induction motors have tremendous potential as a health monitoring tool of any electric motor technology. In addition to the intrinsic benefits related to a non-invasive diagnostic technique, thermal analysis provides suitable information for the early detection of a plethora of fault scenarios. One of the fault modes which remains fairly unexploited in the literature is the short-circuit fault between turns of the stator windings. To assess the effects of such faults in the temperature of the stator windings of an induction motor, this paper develops a thermal model of the induction motor under study, resorting to the Finite Elements Method (FEM). To develop the FEM model, the simulation tool Flux2D (Cedrat) is employed. Distinctive fault severity levels are considered through the variation of the short-circuit resistance.