Abstract

The aim of this study is to design and implement a fault tolerant inverter for induction motor drive. The operations of the induction motor drives are so crucial in some applications that any fault in the drive could result in serious loss to the industry in terms of capital, process and materials not to mention the wastage due to idle labor time. Hence, it is essentials that an induction motor drive should basically be fault tolerant. This study investigates some of the possible faults in the inverter circuits by performing fault analysis on the current waveforms using harmonic spectrum. A fault tolerant system is proposed which can operate even after occurrence of the fault in runtime. A new SIMULINK model for leg swap module is proposed. The simulation studies are done using MATLAB simulation tool and the results are presented. The hardware setup is configured, tested and the experimental results are compared with the simulation results.

Keywords:

Fault analysis, fault tolerant, FFT spectrum, induction motor, leg swap, open circuit, short circuit,

References

1. Alexander, L.J., O. Giovanna and T.B. Stephen, 2010. Operating standby redundant controller to improve voltage source inverter reliability. IEEE T. Ind. Appl., 46(5): 2008-2014.
   CrossRef    
2. Benbouzid, M.E.H., 2000. A review of induction motors signature analysis as a medium for faults detection. IEEE T. Ind. Electron., 47(5): 984-993.
   CrossRef    
3. Bin, H. and M.T. Andrzej, 2001. Simplestator fault detector for AC motors. IEEE T. Ind. Appl., 39: 192-194.
   
4. Biswa, B. and S. Das, 2009. Current harmonics analysis of inverter-fed induction motor drive system under fault conditions. Proceeding of the International Multi Conference of Engineers and Computer.
   
5. Brian, A.W., A.L. Thomas, M.J. Thomas and E.S. Steven, 2003. Fault tolerant three-phase AC motor drive topologies: A comparison of features, cost and limitations. Proceeding of the IEEE International Electric Machines and Drives Conference. Madison, WI, 19: 1108-1116.
   
6. Debmalya, B. and V.T. Ranganathan, 2009. Load-commutated SCR current-source-inverter-fed induction motor drive with sinusoidal motor voltage and current. IEEE T. Power Electr., 24(4).
   
7. Don, H.H., K.C. Lee and Y.J. Kim, 2003. Voltage stresses on stator windings of induction motors driven by IGBT PWM inverters. Proceeding of the 38th IAS Annual Conference, 1: 439-444.
   
8. Farzad, R.S., A.N. Tooraj and J.M. Parviz, 2010. An adaptive flux observer with on-lineestimationof dc-link voltage and rotor resistance for VSI-based induc tionmotors. IEEET. Power Electr., 25(5): 1310-1319.
   CrossRef    
9. Jee, H.J., J. Lee and B. Kwon, 2006. Online diagnosis of induction motors using MCSA. IEEE T. Ind. Electron., 53(6): 1842-1852.
   CrossRef    
10. Jorge, O.E. and J.M.C. Antonio, 2011. A new approach for real time multiple open-circuit fault diagnosis. IEEE T. Ind. Appl., 47(6): 2487-2491.
    CrossRef    
11. Mendes, A.M.S., X.M. López-Fernández and A.J.M. Cardoso, 2005. Thermal performance of a three-phase induction motor under fault tolerant operating strategies. Proceeding of the IEEE 36th Power Electronics Specialist Conference (PESC '05). Recife-Brazil, pp: 2886-2892.
    CrossRef    
12. Pereira, L.A., G.D.Z. Silva Gaz and L.F. Pereira, 2005. Motor current signature analysis and fuzzy logic applied to the diagnosis of short-circuit faults in induction motors. Proceeding of the 32nd Annual Conference of IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IECON 2005), pp: 6.
    CrossRef    
13. Rodriguez, M.A., A. Claudio, D. Theilliol, L.G. Vela and L. Hernandez, 2009. Strategy to replace the damaged power device for fault tolerant induction motor drive. Proceeding of the International Multi Conference of Engineers and Computer.
    CrossRef    
14. Shi, K.L., T.F. Chan and Y.K. Wong, 1999. Modelling and simulation of the three-phase induction motor using simulink. Int. J. Elec. Eng. Educ., 36: 163-172.
    CrossRef    
15. William, T. and F. Mark, 2001. Current signature analysis to detect induction motor faults. IEEE Ind. Appl. Mag., 7(4): 26-34.
    CrossRef    

Competing interests

The authors have no competing interests.

Open Access Policy

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

Copyright

The authors have no competing interests.