Experimental investigation and comparative study of signal processing techniques dedicated for the diagnosis of rotor failures in the induction motors

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose applications of advanced signal-processing techniques for the diagnosis and detection of rotor fault in an induction machine. Two techniques are used: spectral analysis techniques and time frequency techniques for the diagnosis of an electrical machine. One is based on the power spectral density estimation techniques, such as periodogram and Welch periodogram. The second method is based on Hilbert transform (HT) to extract the envelope for the stator current. Then, this signal is processed via discrete wavelet transform (DWT) for determining the faulty components in the spectrum of the stator current envelope and identifying the eigenvalues of energies (HDWT). Design/methodology/approach First, this paper focused on theoretical development and a comparative study of these signal-processing techniques, which are based on the periodogram, Welch periodogram, HT and the DWT to extract the envelope for the stator current; it is used to compute the energy stored in each decomposition level obtained by the stator current envelope (HDWT). Moreover, the Welch periodogram is applied to obtain the envelope spectrum. Findings The simulation obtained and the experimental validation results of the proposed methods through MATLAB environment show the effectiveness of the proposed approaches with a good accuracy by power spectral density estimation techniques (periodogram and Welch periodogram). Moreover, the faults are manifested through the appearance of new frequencies components, as well as the envelope for the stator current (HT and DWT). This approach is effective for non-stationary and stationary signal to extract useful information for the detection of broken bar fault. Originality/value The current paper proposes a new diagnosis method for the detection and characterization of broken rotor bars defects early; it is founded primarily on theoretical development, and the comparison is based on the power spectral density technique (periodogram and Welch periodogram) and the computation of the energy stored in each decomposition level (precisely the HT and DWT). Moreover, the Welch periodogram is applied to obtain the envelope spectrum. The main advantages of the proposed techniques increase their reliability and availability.