Symbolic time series analysis of the soft starting transient in induction machines

Induction motors are in the heart of almost every production line especially due to their robustness under harsh environments. Nevertheless, even induction machines are prone to faults. Among them, the faults related to the breakage of rotor bars have received special attention by the research community with a number of methods proposed both for the case of steady state as well as for transient operation. For the latter, methods relying on the analysis of the start-up transient have proven to be able to effectively isolate the faulty component that is created by the asymmetry caused by the bar breakage. However, very little work has been done concerning the soft starting of induction machines. In this work, preliminary results of the application of a symbolic time series technique for the analysis of the transient, when the motor is controlled by a soft starter, will be presented and experimentally evaluated.