An intelligent diagnostic system for the condition monitoring of AC motors

The implication of failure to diagnose the faults of AC motors at the inception stage would lead to unscheduled machine down-time that can upset datelines and causes financial losses. Classical methods which involve thermal switches, overload relays, timers, magnetic contactors and programmable integrated circuits were adopted in early days. But these methods did not guarantee full protection of motor. This paper introduces new approach to condition monitoring of motors through intelligent diagnostic system based on stator current analysis and programmable logic controllers. The proposed method is validated by experiments performed on five different defect levels. Experiment results show that this technique is more accurate, cost effective, safe and provides continuous real time tracking of faults and estimates the severity through visual indication.