Condition monitoring and diagnosis for electrical systems

Condition monitoring can be described as “assessing the current state and estimating the future state of a system by means of measurements and calculations”.

The results of condition monitoring can be used to take corrective actions, to plan the availability and maintenance, and to optimize the system performance.

The main reasons to apply condition monitoring are:

• Prevention of damage.
• Increasing availability.
• Increasing reliability.

• Changing from periodic maintenance to condition dependent maintenance.
• Reduction of production loss.
• Better operator process knowledge through more information and insight.

Partial discharges

• Partial discharge (PD) is a localized breakdown of a small portion of a solid or liquid electrical insulation.
• May be incepted from small voids inside the insulation, interfaces between two materials and zones with strong divergent electric fields.
• PD monitoring technique allows the definition and recognition of the local defect inside the material.
• Facilities for investigation of PDs at atmospheric and low pressures

Dielectric spectroscopy as a CMT

Complex permittivity may be suitable as a non-destructive CMT having proven to have good correlation with polymer degradation level.