Review of condition monitoring of rotating electrical machines

TLDR

Condition monitoring of rotating electrical machines has been a research focus for over 30 years, yet operators often overlook it because the equipment is considered reliable and rapid digital protection reduces attention. The paper reviews the current state of condition monitoring for rotating machines, surveying developments, contextualizing failure mechanisms, and highlighting future research needs. The review focuses on online monitoring techniques for conventional rotating machines, emphasizing minimal measurement strategies to rapidly diagnose incipient failures while excluding variable‑speed drives and emerging machine topologies.

Abstract

Condition monitoring of rotating electrical machinery has received intense research interest for more than 30 years. However, electrical machinery has been considered reliable and the application of fast-acting digital electrical protection has rather reduced the attention operators pay to the equipment. The area based upon current literature and the author's experience is reviewed. There are three restrictions: only on-line techniques for rotating machines are dealt with; specific problems of variable speed drives are not dealt with, except in passing; conventional rather than emerging brushless, reluctance and permanent magnet machines of unusual topology are concentrated upon. The art of condition monitoring is minimalist, to take minimum measurements from a machine necessary to extract a diagnosis, so that a condition can be rapidly inferred, giving a clear indication of incipient failure modes. The current state of the art is reviewed in the following ways: survey developments in condition monitoring of machines, mechanically and electrically, over the last 30 years; put that work in context alongside the known failure mechanisms; review those developments which have proved successful and identify areas of research which require attention in the future to advance the subject.