Prediction of Mechanical Shaft Failures Due to Pulsating Torques of Variable-Frequency Drives

Mechanical damage of rotating shafts has been reported for several years from various high-power applications. This paper shows that the variable frequency drive incorporated in a rotating shaft is one of the main root causes of mechanical-shaft failures. Simple analytical relationships show that th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on industry applications 2010-09, Vol.46 (5), p.1979-1988
Main Authors: Song-Manguelle, Joseph, Schröder, Stefan, Geyer, Tobias, Ekemb, Gabriel, Nyobe-Yome, Jean-Maurice
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cement
Damping
Electric potential
Error detection
Failure
Failure analysis
Frequency
Harmonics
Inverters
liquid natural gas (LNG)
Mathematical analysis
mechanical resonance
Mechanical sensors
medium voltage
mining
Motors
multilevel inverter
oil and gas
pulsating torque
Pulse inverters
Pulse width modulation inverters
pulsewidth modulator
Rotating shafts
Shafts
Studies
Testing
Torque
torque harmonics
torsional vibration
Voltage
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Summary:Mechanical damage of rotating shafts has been reported for several years from various high-power applications. This paper shows that the variable frequency drive incorporated in a rotating shaft is one of the main root causes of mechanical-shaft failures. Simple analytical relationships show that the frequencies of the motor air-gap torque have a more significant impact on the mechanical-shaft failure than their magnitudes. Effects of mechanical damping are analytically derived and analyzed. Motor air-gap torque is successfully reconstructed using only the motor's voltage and current, thus avoiding torque sensors, which are subject to failure and errors. Simple relationships between frequencies of current harmonics and frequencies of motor pulsating torques are proposed. For pulsewidth-modulated inverters (two and multilevel), possible drive operating points that might excite the shaft's eigenmodes are predicted. Simulation results of four interleaved three-level neutral-point-clamped converters are analyzed for validation purposes. Experimental tests up to 35 MW are performed on a compressor test bed. The presented results confirm the accuracy of the proposed approach, which is particularly valuable for multimegawatt drive applications.
ISSN:0093-9994
1939-9367
DOI:10.1109/TIA.2010.2057397