Condition Monitoring of

Rotating Electrical Machines

Insulation Ageing Mechanisms

 Introduction
 Insulation in service is exposed to high temperature,
high voltage, vibration and other mechanical forces, as
well as some adverse environmental conditions. These
stresses can act together or individually to degrade
insulation materials or systems.
 The two main functions of insulation systems in
electrical machines are (i)avoid short circuit between
winding turns and winding turn to ground (iron core);
(ii)prevent winding movement in the rotor and stator.
Insulation system for different types of electrical
machines like wound-field synchronous machines,
permanent-magnet machines etc., can be divided in to
two categories, i.e. stator winding insulation and rotor
winding insulation.
 Aging Stresses
 Before dealing with the individual stresses, it is
important to consider that the stresses can be constant
or they are transient.
 Constant stresses include the operating temperature,
the 50- or 60-Hz AC voltage, and the 100- or 120-Hz
magnetically induced mechanical stresses.
 In general, if failure is caused by a constant stress, the
time to failure is proportional to the number of
operating hours for the motor or generator.
 Transient stresses include those such as motor starting,
out-of-phase synchronization of generators, and
lightning strikes.
 If deterioration is primarily due to these transients, then
the time to failureis proportional to the number of
transients the machine experiences.
 Thermal Stress
 The operating temperature of a winding causes thermal stress. This
temperature results from I2R, eddy current, and stray load losses in
the copper conductors, plus additional heating due to core losses,
windage, etc.
 In modern insulations, the high temperature causes a chemical
reaction (oxidation in air-cooled machines) when it operates above
a threshold temperature.
 To a first approximation, the oxidation process is a first-order
chemical reaction in which the rate of the reaction is governed by
the Arrhenius rate law.
 The life of the insulation (L, in hours) is related to the temperature
𝐵
𝐿= 𝐴𝑒 𝑇
where A and B are assumed to be constants
 The life of the winding will decrease by 50% for every 10∘C rise in
temperature often approximates this equation
 Thermal Stress Contd..
 The equation is an approximation for two reasons.
 First, it is only valid at relatively high operating
temperatures. Below a threshold, which is different
for each insulation material, no thermal aging will
occur. For thermosetting insulating materials, the
threshold is close to the glass transition temperature.
 Second, more than one chemical reaction usually
occurs at a time.
 Clearly, the higher the temperature is, the shorter is
the expected life of the insulation and, thus, the
winding. This equation is the basis of all accelerated
aging tests that are used to estimate the thermal life
of a winding, and is also used to define the insulation
thermal classes, for example,A, B, F, and H.
 Thermal Stress Contd..
 A variation of thermal stress is thermo-mechanical stress. It is primarily
applicable to very large machines. Changing machine load will cause the
winding temperatures to change.
 Modern insulations have a lower coefficient of thermal expansion than
copper and, in a transient situation, are cooler just after a load increase.
 In stator windings, after many thermal (i.e., load) cycles, the bond between
the insulation and the copper may break.
 No simple relationship has been developed to relate the number of cycles
to failure as a function of temperature. However, the higher the
temperature difference between the insulation and the copper is, the fewer
will be the number of cycles to failure.
 In some cases, operating windings at high temperatures can be beneficial.
High temperatures tend to prevent moisture from settling on windings,
and thus reducing the risk of electrical tracking failures.
 In addition, if the groundwall of stator coils/bars is delaminated from either
poor manufacturing or thermal deterioration, then operation at high
temperature will swell the insulation somewhat, reducing the size of any air
pockets in the insulation and decreasing the partial discharge (PD) activity.
 Electrical Stress
 Power frequency electric stress in conventional 50/60-Hz motors
and generators has little impact on the aging of the electrical
insulation in stator windings rated at less than about 1000V.
 In conventional 50/60-Hz stator windings rated above about 1000V,
the thickness of the insulation is primarily determined by the
electric stress:
E = V/d (kV∕mm)
 Power frequency voltage can contribute to the aging of the
insulation if PDs are present.
 The PDs are small electric sparks that occur within air pockets in
the insulation or on the surface of coil insulation. These sparks
contain electrons and ions that bombard the solid insulation.
Organic materials such as films, polyesters, asphalts, and epoxies
degrade under this bombardment because of breaking (scission) of
certain chemical bonds such as the carbon–hydrogen bond.
 With enough time, the PD will erode a hole through the organic
parts of the groundwall, leading to failure
 Electrical Stress Contd..
 If PDs are present, then the effect of the stress level E (in
kilovolt/millimeter) on the life of the insulation (L in hours) is most
often represented by the inverse power model :
L = cE−n
where c is a constant and n is called the power law constant
 As with thermal aging, below a threshold electrical stress, there is
effectively no aging. This threshold is the partial discharge
extinction voltage (DEV).
 Sometimes, E in this equation is replaced by E−Eo where Eo is the
threshold stress below which aging does not occur.
 If electric stress versus time to failure is plotted on log–log graph
paper, the slope of the line according to the equation would be n.
 The power law “constant” is usually reported to range from 9 to
12 for machine insulation systems. If one assumes n to be 10, then a
two-time increase in electric stress will reduce the life by about
1000 times. Thus, the electric stress (voltage) has a very powerful
influence on service life if PD is occurring. Although n is referred to
as a constant, some have reported that n may change with stress
level.
 Electrical Stress Contd..
 Thus, sometimes, an exponential model is used to model the influence of stress on life. For
example:
L = aebE
where a and b are constants. However, this model is rarely used in rotating machine
insulation applications.
 Another important way that electric stress can age the insulation occurs when many repetitive
voltage surges are impressed across the turn insulation in random-wound stators or
synchronous machine rotors.
 Inverter-fed drives (IFDs) using voltage source invertors with pulse width modulation (PWM)
can create many thousands of short-rise time surges per second. These surges can impose
relatively high voltages across the first few turns in a stator winding or a wind turbine rotor
winding.
 In random-wound machines in which the insulation is thin and air pockets are plentiful, PDs have
been detected on machines rated as low as 440V during IFD operation. These discharges
gradually erode organic film insulation, leading to failure.
 On synchronous machine rotor windings in which the DC is obtained from a “static excitation
system” that uses thyristors or other electronic switches, the voltage surges created have been
reported to cause aging by a PD mechanism.
 Thus, just as the power frequency AC stress can age the insulation in form-wound stators, the
voltage surges caused by electronic switching devices can also age the insulation in stators,
wound rotor induction motors, and very large synchronous rotors.
 Environmental Ageing
 Ambient stress refers to a collection of factors, which come
from the environment surrounding the motor or generator
that can lead to failure. Some of these factors are:
 Moisture condensed on the windings
 Oil from the bearings or seal oil system in hydrogen-cooled
machines
 High humidity
 Aggressive chemicals
 Abrasive particles in the cooling air or hydrogen
 Particles from brake shoe wear (if fitted) or carbon brush
wear (if fitted) within the machine
 Dirt and debris brought into the machine from the
environment, such as insects, fly ash, coal dust, and powders
that are by-products of associated industrial processes
(cement, pulp, chemical residues, etc.)
 Mechanical Stress
 There are three main sources of mechanical stress:
 On a rotor, the insulation system is exposed to high centrifugal
force. This is a non vibrating force that tends to crush or distort
the insulation.
 For the most part, the insulation either has or has not the
capability to endure such forces. Various short-time mechanical
material tests can evaluate this. There is little aging involved,
although some materials may “cold-flow” or “creep,” that is, slowly
creep away from the high stress areas, eventually leading to a fault.
 The second common mechanical stress is caused by the power
frequency current, which gives rise to a magnetic force oscillating at
twice the power frequency.
 The force, F, acting on the top coil at 120 Hz for a 60-Hz current in
the radial direction for 1-meter length of coil is given by:

 where I is the rms current through the Roebel bar, or I = nIo with
Io being the rms coil current times the number of turns in the coil;
d the width of the stator slot in meters; and c = 0.96
 Mechanical Stress Contd..
 If the coils are loose in the stator slot, the force
causes the coils to vibrate, and the groundwall
insulation is abraded. A similar magnetic force occurs
in the end winding. If the coils/bars are free to vibrate
relative to one another or against blocking or
support rings, the insulation may again abrade.
 Unlike thermal and electrical stresses, there are no
well-accepted models to describe the relationship
between vibration amplitude and life.
 A form-wound stator coil or bar in the end winding
can be modeled as a laminated cantilevered beam and,
in principle, a relationship between the number of
cycles to failure and the vibration amplitude (referred
to as the SN curve) can be established.
 Mechanical Stress Contd..
 Transients cause the third important mechanical stress: switching-
on of motors or out-of-phase synchronization of synchronous
machines. Both give rise to a large transient power frequency
current that may be five times, or more, greater than normal
operating current in the stator.
 The result is that the magnetically induced mechanical force is 25
or more times stronger than normal service.
 The “DC” component of this above equation transient force tends
to bend the coils/bars in the stator end winding. If the force cannot
be withstood, the coil/bar insulation cracks.
 If many transients occur, such as frequent motor starting, then the
end winding may gradually loosen over time, allowing relative
movement between the end winding components, and insulation
abrasion under normal power frequency current,
 No model exists to relate the transient level to the number of
transients that can be withstood. Instead, manufacturers calculate
the forces that could occur under various transient current
situations, and determine if a single transient can be withstood.