Root Cause Analysis of Commutator Damage in a 130 kW DC Recoiler Motor Drive

A recent failure incident of a 130 kW DC Recoiler Motor Drive of a slitter machine involved complete, irrepairable damage to its commutator, whereby all the commutator segments were thrown out, causing some damage to roof coverings; luckily, it was a "No-Injury" accident. This accident occurred during the "auto-tuning" test part of the recommissioning with a brand new Digital Control Panel in place of a pre-existing Analogue Control Panel of late 1970 vintage, the dc motor remaining unchanged. A short summary of the results of the study carried out by the author for root cause analysis of this failure and prevention of such failures in future is presented in this paper