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This paper presents an innovative concept for the online application of Frequency Response Analysis (FRA). FRA is a well known technique that is applied to detect damage in electric machinery. As an offline technique, the machine under testing has to be removed from service—which may cause loss of production. Experimental adaptations of FRA to online operation are usually based on the use of passive high pass coupling—which, ideally, should provide attenuation to the grid voltage, and at the same time, allow the high frequency FRA signals to be injected at the machine. In practice, however, the passive coupling results in a trade-off between the required attenuation and the useful area obtained at the FRA spectra. This paper proposes the use of an active coupling system, based on power electronics, in order to cancel the grid voltage at the terminals of FRA equipment and allow its safe connection to an energized machine. The paper presents the basic concepts of FRA and the issue of online measurements. It also presents basic concepts about power electronics converters and the operating principles of the Modular Multilevel Converter, which enables the generation of an output voltage with low THD, which is important for tracking the grid voltage with minimum error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The condition of synchronous generators (SGs) is a matter of great attention, because they can be seen as equipment and also as fundamental elements of power systems. Thus, there is a growing interest in new technologies to improve SG protection and maintenance schemes. In this context, electrical signature analysis (ESA) is a non-invasive technique that has been increasingly applied to the predictive maintenance of rotating electrical machines. However, in general, the works applying ESA to SGs are focused on isolated machines. Thus, this paper presents a study on the condition monitoring of SGs in bulk electric systems by using ESA. The main contribution of this work is the practical results of ESA for fault detection in in-service SGs interconnected to a power system. Two types of faults were detected in an SG at a Brazilian hydroelectric power plant by using ESA, including stator electrical unbalance and mechanical misalignment. This paper also addresses peculiarities in the ESA of wound rotor SGs, including recommendations for signal analysis, how to discriminate rotor faults on fault patterns, and the particularities of two-pole SGs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work proposes a new statistical index, based on hypothesis tests, to be used on frequency response analysis (FRA) of electric machines. This index is, particularly, interesting on the detection of early failures (which appear as small deviations from the baseline spectrum), even when the measurements have high variability (such as the case of online measurements in rotating machines). The majority of the indexes proposed so far in the FRA literature only compares two spectra at a time and mix data from the measurements at different frequencies. The index proposed in this paper calculates one hypothesis test for each frequency (in order to assure randomness, independence and normality) in the spectra of several measurements (in order to take into account the variability on the measurements) and performs the normalized sum of the individual tests. Experimental results are presented on a synchronous generator (both offline and online) to validate the proposed index. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work presents some guidelines in order to achieve a more reliable diagnosis using the frequency response analysis (FRA) technique. Conventionally, this technique relies on comparisons between spectra obtained at different stages of the machine lifespan. A difference between the spectra may indicate the onset of a failure. However, these comparisons are very subjective to the experience of the analyst. To achieve a more objective diagnosis, statistical indexes have been introduced in the literature of FRA. This work presents a survey on these indexes and also compares them using experimental data. Another contribution of this work is the proposition of a trend based diagnostics. Thus, even if the FRA measurements are obtained at different temperatures/humidity or other external factors, the trend curve of the indexes is able to provide a more reliable diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]