The interruption of a three-phase induction motor (TIM) on production lines represents a high financial and operational cost. However, these machines are often exposed to mechanical and electrical failures that can cause unexpected stoppages. Among these failures, the voltage unbalance (VU) is a supply fault that can lead to winding wear, torque losses, overheating, and other side effects. In this context, the acoustic emission (AE) analysis stands out as a promising nondestructive technique (NDT) in TIM monitoring. However, the AE method was not previously completely validated for VU diagnosis, and several research gaps need to be filled. Therefore, this work proposes a novel AE approach for detection, phase identification, and magnitude classification of VU. For this purpose, an electrical machine monitored by piezoelectric sensors was subjected to different levels of unbalanced voltages. The AE signals were processed using the novel zero-cross-weighted energy (ZE) index. This metric was based on the energy of the wavelet transform (WT) coefficients weighted by zero-crossing rate values. Experimental results revealed that the proposed index proved to be effective for detecting the VU occurrence. Besides, ZE-based data separation was proposed and achieved VU phase identification. Finally, the magnitude of the unbalanced voltages was classified by linear regression. The accuracy parameters for detection, phase identification, and magnitude classification stated the reliability of the new approach. Finally, the efforts of this work provide new functionalities to traditional AE systems.

Dry-type insulated transformers stand out for their higher applicability in substations, high-voltage instrumentation systems, and electrical installations. In this machine, the insulation system is constituted of dielectric materials such as epoxy resin and Nomex paper. Some critical issues in the operation of this equipment, such as overload, moisture, or heat, can induce a slow degradation of the physical–chemical properties of the dielectric materials, which can culminate in the total failure of the transformer. However, before the transformer’s shutdown, it is common to detect discharge activity in the insulation system. Based on this issue, this work proposes an experimental and comparative analysis between acoustic emission and Hall-effect sensors, aiming at differentiating discharges in epoxy resin and Nomex paper, materials that constitute the insulation of the dry-type insulated transformers. Two signal processing techniques were studied: traditional frequency analysis and discrete wavelet transform. The objective is to develop signal processing techniques to differentiate each type of discharge since different discharges require different maintenance actions. The results obtained indicate that acoustic emission sensors and Hall sensors are promising in differentiating discharge in epoxy resin and Nomex paper. Furthermore, the pattern recognition tools presented by this work, which associated the wavelet levels energies and the energy of the full signals with the average band and the equivalent bandwidth, were effective to perform feature extraction of power transformer condition.

Non-invasive fault diagnosis of three-phase induction motors (TIM) is widely used in industrial applications to ensure the integrity of processes. Among different types of TIM failures, transient inter-turn short circuits (ITSCs) are incipient stator winding faults characterized as short circuits between two or more turns of the coils, that can lead the winding to progressive deterioration, and consequently, the TIM to total failure. In this context, this article proposes a novel approach by using piezoelectric transducers, which performs the transient ITSC detection, phase identification, and magnitude classification by using the Acoustic Emission (AE) technique. To accomplish this analysis, a new statistical index based on the cross-correlation function was proposed to detect the ITSC and classify its magnitude. Besides, Wavelet Transform and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) stood out as promising tools to identify which phase was affected by the short circuits. A TIM was subjected to ITSCs and the experimental results showed that the proposed algorithm successfully performed the transient ITSC detection, phase identification, and evolution classification. Additionally, this work improve the capabilities of traditional AE systems, since no AE signal processing algorithm has ever been proposed for a comprehensive diagnosis of transient ITSC.

Fault diagnosis techniques of electrical motors can prevent unplanned downtime and loss of money, production, and health. Various parts of the induction motor can be diagnosed: rotor, stator, rolling bearings, fan, insulation damage, and shaft. Acoustic analysis is non-invasive. Acoustic sensors are low-cost. Changes in the acoustic signal are often observed for faults in induction motors. In this paper, the authors present a fault diagnosis technique for three-phase induction motors (TPIM) using acoustic analysis. The authors analyzed acoustic signals for three conditions of the TPIM: healthy TPIM, TPIM with two broken bars, and TPIM with a faulty ring of the squirrel cage. Acoustic analysis was performed using fast Fourier transform (FFT), a new feature extraction method called MoD-7 (maxima of differences between the conditions), and deep neural networks: GoogLeNet, and ResNet-50. The results of the analysis of acoustic signals were equal to 100% for the three analyzed conditions. The proposed technique is excellent for acoustic signals. The described technique can be used for electric motor fault diagnosis applications.

Under normal operation, insulation systems of high voltage electrical devices, like power transformers, are constantly subjected to multiple types of stresses (electrical, thermal, mechanical, environmental, etc.), which can lead to a degradation of the machine insulation. One of the main indicators of the dielectric degradation process is the presence of partial discharges (PD). Although it starts due to operational stresses, PD can cause a progressive insulation deterioration, since it is characterized by localized current pulses that emit heat, UV radiation, acoustic, and electromagnetic waves. In this sense, acoustic emission (AE) transducers are wildly applied in PD detection. The goal is to reduce maintenance costs by predictive actions and avoid total failures. Becasue of the progressive deterioration, the assessment of the PD evolution is crucial for improving the maintenance planning and ensure the operation of the transformer. Based on this issue, this article presents a new wavelet -based analysis in order to characterize the PD evolution. Three levels of failures were carried out in a transformer and the acoustic signals captured by a lead zirconate titanate piezoelectric transducer were processed by discrete wavelet transform. The experimental results revealed that the energy of the approximation levels increasing with the failure evolution. More specifically, levels 4, 6, 7, and 10 presented a linear fit to characterize the phenomena, enhancing the applicability of the proposed approach to transformer monitoring.