Oil Whirl Fault Detection in Sleeve Bearing of Induction Motor by Using Instantaneous Power Harmonics

Harmful impacts of oil whirl fault in sleeve bearing can be avoided by early detection of the fault. In this paper, after describing the oil whirl fault, an analytic approach is applied to determine frequency of the harmonics produced by the fault in instantaneous power waveform of induction motor. Then, using appropriate air gap function, winding function approach is used for simulating squirrel cage induction motor with bearing oil whirl fault. The instantaneous power spectrum, plotted using simulation results, approves creation of the proposed harmonics. These harmonics are also evident in instantaneous power of an induction motor that operates on oil pipe line, where vibration analysis shows presence of oil whirl fault in its bearing. Finally, the most appropriate harmonic as the oil whirl fault index is selected using simulation by considering their relative amplitudes as well as their sensitivity to the fault type, fault degree, motor load level and three-phase unbalance of the stator voltages.