Online Detection and Location of Eccentricity Fault in PMSG with External Magnetic Sensing

The detection and location of eccentricity faults in a permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) become increasingly essential, especially in safety-critical applications. However, the existing approaches for monitoring eccentricity subject to many limitations. In this paper, a novel method for online detection and location of the eccentricity fault in a PMSG is proposed based on the external magnetic sensing. The non-invasiveness facilitates installation and maintenance work. In the paper, the effect of different eccentricity faults on the external leakage flux density is analysed theoretically with the magnetic equivalent circuit method firstly. Then, two indicators are proposed for detecting static eccentricity (SE) and dynamic eccentricity (DE), respectively. The amplitudes of the SE and DE indicators are proportional to the fault degree. The angle of the SE indicator proves to be the direction of SE. Meanwhile, two indicators show excellent robustness and are independent of loads and rotation speed. Accordingly, an algorithm to diagnose the eccentricity fault is shown based on two indicators from three sensing points outside. The computation of the method is light, which leads to fast detection speed. Finally, the accurate results in multi operating conditions from simulations and experiments verify the feasibility of the proposed approach.