Adjustable-Speed Drive Bearing-Fault Detection Via.pdf

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT, VOL. 58, NO. 8, AUGUST 2009 2747 Adjustable-Speed Drive Bearing-Fault Detection Via Wavelet Packet Decomposition Kaptan Teotrakool, Student Member, IEEE, Michael J. Devaney, Member, IEEE, and Levent Eren, Member, IEEE Abstract—Adjustable-speed drives perform many vital control functions in the industry, serving in such diverse applications as rolling mills, variable-speed compressors, fans, and pumps. When an adjustable-speed drive fails due to a bearing failure, it is usually catastrophic. Bearing defects introduce vibration anomalies that alter the current characteristic frequencies. This paper addresses the application of motor current signature analysis using wavelet packet decomposition to detect bearing faults in adjustable-speed drives. Index Terms—Adjustable-speed drives (ASDs), bearing-fault detection, induction motors, motor current signature analysis (MCSA), wavelet packet decomposition (WPD). I. INTRODUCTION ADJUSTABLE-SPEED drives (ASDs) are increasinglyused in many commercial and industrial applications, such as pumps, fans, blowers, cranes, and hoists. Since the in- dustry heavily relies on continuous operation of ASD systems, unscheduled down time due to failures of these machines is undesirable and very expensive, particularly when a basic ASD system consisting of an inverter and a motor costs more than twice as much as the motor alone. Bearing faults are the biggest cause of ASD failures since the bearings are continuously rotating and the ASD motors are constantly accelerated and decelerated during their operations. In addition to the fact that ASDs themselves often accelerate bearing failures, high dV/dt in the drive output voltage results in transient currents flowing from the motor windings to ground through the bearings via stray capacitances. Such currents have caused inner and outer race defects in as few as one to six months of operation [1]. To protect the ASD investment, predictive mai