A method to reduce partial discharges in motor windings fed by PWM inverter

A new approach for designing ac motor windings free of partial discharges (PD) is proposed. The method consists of adding a thin conducting layer on the outer surface of the enameled wire used for building the machine winding. With this additional layer, PDs occur only in critical zones localized near the wire connections rather than randomly in the residual voids between turns. With such deterministic localizations, it is possible to reduce strongly the PD activity by adding small quantities of varnish in the determined critical zones. After studying the validity of the Paschen’s hypotheses for this application, the Paschen’s law is coupled to an electrostatic finite element analysis, for predicting the Partial Discharge Inception Voltage (PDIV), which corresponds to the electronic avalanche ignition in the air of critical zones.