Closed-Loop Control Impact on the Detectability of
Stator High-Resistance Connection in Doubly-Fed
WRIMs Based on Rotor Power Spectral Analysis
Yasser Gritli, Claudio Rossi, Angelo Tani, Domenico Casadei, Fiorenzo Filippetti
Abstract— Design of modern Wind Energy Conversion
Systems (WECSs) must take into account two crucial aspects:
efficient control strategies and reliable monitoring and diagnosis
techniques. Wind turbine generators based on Wound Rotor
Induction Machine (WRIM) is actually the preferred technology
mainly because of the lower rating of the power converter
connected to the rotor side. With the association of a back-to
back converter on the rotor side a Stator-Flux-Oriented-Control
(SFOC) system can be used to obtain a decoupled control of the
active and reactive power on the stator side with high efficiency.
In this context, the influence of the Closed-Loop (CL) control
scheme must be considered when the diagnosis of stator
asymmetry is derived from the signature analysis of electrical
quantities. Therefore, an examination of the spectral content of
the investigated quantities for different bandwidths of CL
regulators is necessary to assess the effectiveness of the derived
fault indexes. In this paper, the performances of three different
techniques based on rotor electrical quantities, for detecting
stator asymmetry are investigated. Results with numerical
simulations and experimental tests are here presented showing
the validity of the established comparative study.
Keywords— Ac machines, stator faults, FOC, fault diagnosis,
power signature analysis.
I. NOMENCLATURE
f Stator frequency.
s Slip.
ωr Rotor speed.
θr Rotor position angle.
θ Stator flux phase angle.
Rs Stator resistance.
Rr Rotor resistance.
Radd Additional resistance used during the tests.
vds, vqs d-q components of the stator voltage vector in
the synchronous reference frame.
ids, iqs d-q components of the stator current vector in
the synchronous reference frame.
Lm Mutual inductance between stator and rotor
windings.
Y. Gritli, C. Rossi, A. Tani, D. Casadei, and F. Filippetti, are with the
Department of Electrical, Electronic and Information Engineering "Guglielmo
Marconi", University of Bologna, 40126 Bologna, Italy (emails:
yasser.gritli@unibo.studio.it; angelo.tani@unibo.it, claudio.rossi@unibo.it;
fiorenzo.filippetti@unibo.it; domenico.casadei@unibo.it). Y. Gritli is also
with the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Tunis El Manar,
LA.R.A., National Engineering School of Tunis BP 37, 1002 Tunis Belvedére,
Tunisia. (e-mail: yasser.gritli@ensi-uma.tn).
Ls Stator self-inductance.
Lr Rotor self-inductance.
idms, iqms dq components of the magnetizing current in
the synchronous reference frame.
ias, ibs, ics Stator phase currents.
iar, ibr, icr Rotor phase currents.
vdr, vqr dq components of the rotor modulating
signals in the synchronous reference frame.
II. INTRODUCTION
During the last years different motor technologies were
adopted in WECSs, but wound rotor induction machine still
remains the preferred technology for this category of
applications, mainly because of the lower rating of the power
converter connected to the rotor side. Different control
strategies for WRIMs can be found in literature for efficient
WECS applications, such as: accurate vector control [1]-[2],
using sliding modes approach [3], fuzzy logic [4], and the so-
called direct methods for torque [2], [5] and power control [6].
Nevertheless, whatever the research subject to be addressed
for specific control performances, there is one common issue:
the motor faults detection at incipient stages, in order to
minimize maintenance cost and to prevent unscheduled
downtimes. An important review [7] has revealed that 13% of
wind turbine failures are related to the motor. Investigations
on different failure modes in induction motors have revealed
that 38% of the overall motor faults are related to the stator
part [8]. Interesting details and analysis of this type of faults
can be found in [9]. Specifically, each electrical fault that
occurs in the stator side of a WRIM, such as resistance
variations or short circuits [9]-[11], produces a phase
dissymmetry because the phase impedances are no longer
equal [8-9]. The increase in a phase resistance, commonly
referred to as “high-resistance connection” in the literature, is
a common problem that can occur in any power connection of
electrical machines [9]–[13].
Operating in aggressive environments offshore or onshore,
winding connections of WRIMs are subjected to corrosion,
abrasion, and fretting, leading generally to local heating,
which can propagate insulation damages [12]. Consequently,
the detection of the first anomalies, such as resistance changes
and winding imbalances, can prevent serious damages and
avoid longer downtime periods. Different diagnostic methods
for electrical faults in WRIM for wind turbines have been
proposed [14–27]. Active power has been presented for the
detection of high-resistance connection in [23], where stator
active power has shown more benefits in terms of totality of
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