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Published in IET Electric Power Applications
Received on 19th April 2012
Revised on 10th August 2012
Accepted on 19th September 2012
doi: 10.1049/iet-epa.2012.0129

ISSN 1751-8660

Experimental study of induction motor misalignment

and its online detection through data fusion
Subimal Bikash Chaudhury1,2, Mainak Sengupta2, Kaushik Mukherjee2
1
Tata Steel, Automation Division, Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, India
2
Department of Electrical Engineering, Bengal Engineering and Science University, Kolkata, West Bengal, India
E-mail: bckiit@yahoo.co.in

Abstract: Most of the induction motor (IM) fault detection schemes are based on one sensor with one detection logic which are
generally incapable of bringing out any consistent feature related to rotor misalignment. Moreover, these logics do not consider
simultaneously the asymmetric load condition with variable speed operation. In this study, a data fusion-based misalignment
related fault identication algorithm is presented, which isolates fault features from similar features generated because of other
operating conditions. In the proposed scheme, the feature vector is constructed by using signatures created from frequency-
domain characteristics obtained from stator vibration and line current measurements. Thereafter, the feature fusion technology,
by means of the weighted linear combination concept, is adopted to take advantage of the best features from both sensors and
to discern the pattern of misalignment with other signatures. The technique is validated experimentally on a 5.5 hp IM and
the results are presented.

1 Introduction combination of different detection logics will signicantly

Induction motors (IMs), used particularly in the steel industry
rolling mill area, experience a wide range of electrical and
mechanical faults. A survey conducted in a hot strip steel
mill (HSM) of steel industry, revealed that the IM failures
are mainly related to bearing problem, rotor-stator rubbing
or jamming of rotor, eventually leading to burnt motor
failure. Some of these failures are shown in Fig. 1. Further
examination of these motors reveals that the rotor motion
was eccentric prior to nal failure in most cases. The
eccentric motion of rotor is a common consequence of
various mechanical problems.
The authors [1, 2] have presented different faults related to
IMs. An Ishikawa diagram (Fig. 2) is drawn to represent the
different causes related to motor misalignment, which lead
to air-gap eccentricity.
Several classical papers have concentrated on calculation of
the air-gap eld as a function of eccentricity [35]. They have
indicated that eccentricity leads to obvious air-gap permeance
variation causing harmonic generation in air-gap ux. These
air-gap ux harmonics introduce harmonic currents in the
stator and harmonic components in stator frame vibration.
Motor vibration or motor current signal monitoring, are
widely practiced for eccentricity related fault identication.
Most of the commercially available solutions for motor fault
identication, are either based on the spectral analysis of
vibration or motor current. Identication of air-gap eccentricity
becomes elusive in the presence of other harmonics which
can be superimposed because of the different [2, 68]
electrical or mechanical problems in IM or the plant-operating
conditions. It is expected that the use of multiple sensors and a
reduce the chance of false alarm generation. The technique
proposed in this paper simultaneously considers monitoring of
both the radial vibration of motor frame and the phase current
of motor to identify the motor misalignment fault.
This paper investigates the effect of load imbalance (i.e.
dynamically unbalanced rotor) on motor current and stator
frame vibration of IMs in HSM. This investigation puts
forth the genesis of motor current harmonics and stator
frame vibration under different operating conditions. This,
in turn, elicits some important information related to motor
misalignment.
The work in this paper provides a novel concept of feature
(obtained from motor current and vibration signals) fusion
using weighted linear combination (WLC) of feature
vectors, generated from vibration and current signals to
make the detection logic more informed, robust and
reliable. The experimental validation on a 5.5 hp IM
demonstrates, how feature fusion improves fault
identication related to air-gap eccentricity and misalignment.
2 Existing method of analysis
2.1 Air-gap ux analysis and motor current
spectrum
The specic air-gap permeance wave variation because of
air-gap eccentricity is well documented in the existing
literature [9, 10]. The magnetic ux density wave in the
air-gap is the product of the permeance waves and MMF
waves. Multiplying the permeance and MMF waves gives
the expression for ux density. Based on Cameron et al.

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Fig. 1 Different mechanical faults observed in medium size HSM motors because of high degree of rotor misalignment
a Shaft crack
b Bearing Cease
c Rotor rubbing
d Circlip opening

Fig. 2 Main contributing factors for creation of motor misalignment

[9], the resultant air-gap ux density can be expressed as harmonic currents in the stator winding. The eccentricity

  related harmonics present in motor current [9], can be
B(u, t) = Bms ,Vs cos ms u Vs t expressed as
ms ,Vs

(1)  
  fecc = (Krs R + Kd ) fr + 2Ksat p fs ) (2)
+ Bmr ,Vr cos mr u Vr t
mr ,Vr
where, fr and fs are rotor frequency (rps) and supply
where frequency. Replacing fr with ((1 s)/p)fs and rearranging
(2) gives
 
ms = Krs R + Kss S + Ks + Kd + 2Ksat p + kp   

  1s
Vs = Krs R + Kd )vr + 2Ksat v + v fecc = fr slot + Kd + 2Ksat fs (3)
p
 
mr = Krs R + Kss S + Ks + Kd + 2Ksat p + lp
where fecc and frslot are the eccentricity and slot harmonic
 
Vr = Krs R + Kd )vr + 2Ksat pv + sv related frequencies. Theoretically and experimentally, it has
been established in [5, 10] that under a mixed eccentricity
where Ks and Kd are the harmonic order related to static condition, side-band frequencies also appear near a
and dynamic eccentricity, Kss and Krs are the harmonic fundamental frequency.
order related to stator and rotor slot harmonics, Ksat is
the harmonic order related to saturation, R and S are f ecc| fund = fs + n fr|n=1,2,3,... (4)
the number of rotor and stator slots respectively, k and l are
stator space harmonic and rotor space harmonic components 2.2 Motor frame vibration analysis
respectively, s is the slip is the angular position of the
stator at time t, and r are the fundamental supply Many electrical and mechanical forces are present in IM that
frequency and rotor speed in rad/s, respectively. can cause vibrations [11]. The magnetic forces acting on the
The net air-gap ux density (1) because of stator and rotor stator of IMs because of the electromagnetic interaction
MMF, varies both in space and time. The time-dependent between the rotor and stator circuits, contributes to a great
harmonic ux components will produce corresponding extent to the generation of stator frame vibrations. The

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mechanical problems such as motor misalignment, unbalance
and so on also inuence the rotor and stator magnetic circuits.
The analytical expression for the radial force acting on the
stator frame under mixed eccentricity condition is given in
[10]. It is also demonstrated that this radial force is
responsible for stator frame vibration. From the analysis of
vibration signal as a function of air-gap eccentricity [9, 10,
12, 13], it can be concluded that the eccentricity will
produce frequency components given by 2fs, fr, 2fr, 2fs fr,
2( fs fr).
3 Problem definition
Although there are well-established relationships pertaining
to eccentricity related fault identication, yet, under some
operating conditions, fault analysis becomes multifarious.
Some of them are discussed, as follows.
3.1 Problem related to asymmetric load condition
In industry, particularly in metal industry, a motor is coupled
through a gear box for transferring the torque to the load. The
demand of rolling process, interaction between the mill
structure and motor-gear arrangement creates a wide
variation in motor torque and speed demand.
This asymmetric torque requirement, which commands on
drive system, introduces the additional current. The typical
motor shaft torque demand (measured directly on motor
shaft) and corresponding modulated motor current in
nishing stand motors of HSM are shown in Fig. 3. After
metal entry in the rolling stands, the rolling torque and
current (marked with circle) oscillation remains for 3040
s., before these parameters stabilise. This modulation
introduces the current harmonics at a multiple of kfr [10,
13]. The frequency components given by (3), which
contains potential fault information, may be totally
eradicated because of similar frequencies generated by the
oscillatory load [7] demand.
3.2 Lack of information on motor-details
It was shown by Nandi et al. [13] that the characteristic
frequencies related to eccentricity (3) may not be present in
Fig. 3 Typical load torque demand and corresponding motor current in 6-stand nishing mill of steel hot rolling process
X-axis is time in seconds, Y-axis (top plots) load torque in KNm and (bottom plots) motor current in Amps
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all types of motors. Applicability of the referred relation
also depends on knowledge of the motor constructional
details, which is difcult to obtain. In such cases, the
characteristic frequency dened by (4) will be most useful
as it does not require any knowledge of motor details.
3.3 Low-frequency operation
Depending on the different sections of metal rolling, motor
RPM varies typically from 30 to 60% of rated rpm. At a
lower-speed operation, the lower band of characteristic
frequencies ( fecc = fs kfr where k > 1) are merged on top
of a higher frequency (i.e. operating supply frequency). The
peak of the carrier frequencies (supply frequency in case of
motor current and rotational frequency in case of motor
vibration) become dominant whereas the information related
to lower band characteristic frequencies are lost in the noise
oor of the spectrum. Hence, it becomes difcult to
distinguish between the fault frequency and the frequency
related to asymmetric load. In such a case it is important to
improve the signal-to-noise ratio by applying proper signal
processing.
3.4 Induced vibration signal
The misalignment-related fault frequencies ( fr; 2fr; 2fs fr
etc.) of motor frame vibration may get contaminated
because of surrounding vibrations generated from other
nearby operating machines.
The above factors limit the ability to accurately identify the
fault using a single feature alone. To achieve improved
accuracies and more specic inferences, it is proposed to
fuse the characteristic features, in a way that enables more
reliable identication of the presence of eccentricity fault.
Considering the metal rolling mill applications, where low
motor speed operation is in demand, the applicability of the
proposed scheme focuses specically on a low-speed
operation.
4 Proposed algorithm
The framework for implementation of the feature extraction
from current and vibration signals and their fusion using
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Fig. 4 Block diagram representing WLC algorithm
WLC algorithm is shown in Fig. 4. The features considered in
the present work are listed here
1. Fourier features present in current and vibration signals,
related to rotor eccentricity fault and asymmetric load
2. Motor shaft load and rpm
3. Floor noise level
4. Strike rate of the presence of similar pattern of signature
under same operating conditions
The different stages of the proposed system are discussed
here
4.1 Data processing
The acquired line current and stator frame vibration signals
are ltered using a third-order Butterworth lter,
with cut-off frequency near the Nyquist frequency
( fcutoff 0.99 fnyquist or 495 Hz). This removes the
switching frequency component of variable speed drive and
also improves the signal-to-noise ratio.
Further signal processing is carried out, to eliminate the DC
component which may appear during the low-speed operation
of the motor or from the sensors. DC levels for the signals are
estimated for each digitised frame using a Fourier transform.
F
The estimated DC level is XDC F
= X 0 where F signies the
F
current frame of signal, X 0 is the non-sinusoidal component F
in the signal. The DC corrected frame is X F = (X F X DC ),
4.2 Spectral component extraction
Fast Fourier transform (FFT) is performed with Hanning
window (50% overlapping) on X F . A normalised Fourier
transform (X ) using (Welch) power spectral density (PSD)
f
is calculated. A feature set jmf , (where m = 1, 2,) is
created by detecting the frequency peaks in this normalised
spectrum.
It is proposed to remove small frequency peaks (less
affecting) from the feature set jmf to reduce unmanageable
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spectral components into a manageable number. A
rule-based lter is proposed which, not only considers the
spectral components above a xed dB difference to the
fundamental (50 dB), but also considers the dB difference
of small components with respect to large components.
The steps for adaptive threshold calculation are
1. Calculate mean of the feature set |jmf | = m jmf /M .
2. Identify components with magnitude less than |jmf |.
f
3. Compute mean of small components (|jsmall |) and mean
f
of remaining components (|jrest |).
f f
4. Evaluate adaptive cutoff l f (= ((jsmall + jrest )/2),
50 dB).
5. Extract feature set f as large components from jmf with
magnitude > f
6. If f is persistent for few (6 in this case) frames then
consider else ignore.
4.3 Feature fusion using WLC
To improve the fault identication rate, feature fusion by
means of the WLC concept is adopted. The mathematical
denition of WLC can be given by (5)


n
S= wi (dB)i (5)
i=1
where wi is the ith weight for ( fi)th characteristic frequency.
(dB)i is corresponding dB value of signal. Weighted score
(S) for current (Sc) or vibration signal Sv. The characteristic
frequencies [7, 8, 11] of interest are listed in Table 1. All
the features appearing in column (3)* of Table 1(a) and in
column (3)*, (5)* and (6)* of Table 1(b) with mark are
potential indicators for identifying the misalignment related
faults. Weights of relative importance (i.e. more the weight
more important the characteristic frequency) are assigned
directly to each feature and a weighted map of features are
constructed. The weight criteria for different combination of
features are given in Table 2. The weights are divided
into four categories. W = 0 (feature not to be considered),
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Table 1 Tabulation of diagnostic frequencies stator frame Table 3 Boolean logic for isolating fault from asymmetric load
vibration spectrum condition

Types of faults (d/dt)|

dB|
Frequency component (1)* (2)* (3)* (4)* (5)* (6)* First layer Load for fs
Sc Sv decision change fr Final decision
(a) Characteristic frequencies in stator current spectrum
fs F F F No no Fault
nfs kfr for n = 1 and X eccentricity or
k = 1, 2, 3, asymmetric
nfs kfr for n = 3, 5, and X X load
k = 1, 2, 3, T F not considered other faults (not
fs 2sfs X X part of the
(b) Characteristic frequencies in stator frame vibration present
spectrum investigation)
1*fr F T not considered other faults (not
2*fr X part of the
fs 2*fr X X X X present
0.5fr, 1.5*fr X X X X X investigation)
2*fs X X X T T T eccentricity T T load asymmetry,
2( fs fr) X X X X X or asymmetric No eccentricity
load fault
where (1)* winding fault, (2)* rotor faults, (3)* air-gap ecc., T F not considered
(4)* Bent shaft, (5)* misalignment and (6)* mech. F T eccentricity fault,
looseness. No load
*Mark used to differentiate with equation numbers. asymmetry
F F no decision

W = 0.25 (low importance), W = 0.5 (medium importance)

and W = 0.75 (high importance).
A score factor matrix Sj (where j denotes load condition) is
created for a particular operating speed. In this case, j = 1
(<25% load), 2 (2560% load), 3 (>60% load). After
feature level fusion of information obtained from current
and vibration sensors a voting-based decision making
technique is applied in which the presence of fault
frequency will be accepted or rejected depending on
whether the Sj is above the acceptable threshold value.
Thereafter, to isolate characteristic frequencies related to
eccentricity from asymmetric load conditions, a Boolean
overlay logic is applied as given in Table 3.
5 Experimental set-up
An experimental set-up is designed and built, to study rotor
misalignment and to test the proposed diagnostic scheme.
A four pole, three-phase, 5.5 kW IM is used here.
The test motor consists of custom built (modied) end bells
and rotor shaft to create rotor misalignment, which in turn
creates air-gap eccentricity. The off-centring of rotor centre
with respect to stator bore centre, is created by machining
bearing housings of the machine end bells by 100 , which
creates static eccentricity of 19.7% (originally measured
air-gap = 0.52 mm, measured using a feeler gauge). Dynamic
eccentricity is created by machining rotor shaft by 150
(21%). Combination of both creates mixed eccentricity and is
considered here as rotor misalignment. Fig. 5a shows the
photograph of lateral view of rotor assembly arrangement after
machining operation. The stator frame (motor) misalignment
is created by lifting the motor at one side by inserting 50100
shim at motor base. Effect of load torque oscillations (rotor
imbalance condition) on motor misalignment are studied by
applying different levels of rotating imbalance mass (25, 50
and 100 g) tted on the rotor shaft. Details of mounting
arrangement of imbalance of mass are shown in Fig. 5b.
An experimental set-up (Fig. 5c) consists of motor current
arrangement sensing using Hall effect transducers LTS15-NP,
vibration sensing using MEMS accelerometer ADXL322,
motor speed sensing using pulse encoder, a data acquisition
system Advantech USB 4716 and a PC. Arrangement is
made for symmetric and asymmetric loading arrangement
for generating torque pulsation. Asymmetric loading is
emulated by xing a mass on the disc as shown in Fig. 5b.
In the experiments, the IM is fed from a 440 V AC power
supply through a commercial vector-controlled drive. The
block schematic of the experimental set-up is shown in Fig. 5.

Table 2 Weight factor for different features under different operating conditions
Characteristic frequencies in motor Characteristic frequencies in stator
current frame vibration

Loading condition Motor RPM fs + fr fs fr fs 2fr fs + 2fr 2fs 2fr 2fs + fr 2fs fr

low (030%) speed (<25%) 0.5 0.5 0.0 0.0 0.5 0.75 0.0 0.0
speed (2560%) 0.5 0.5 0.0 0.0 0.5 0.75 0.0 0.0
speed (>60%) 0.5 0.5 0.25 0.25 0.5 0.5 0.25 0.25
medium (3060%) speed (<25%) 0.5 0.5 0.25 0.25 0.5 0.75 0.25 0.25
speed (2560%) 0.25 0.25 0.25 0.25 0.5 0.75 0.25 0.25
speed (>60%) 0.25 0.25 0.25 0.25 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5
normal (>60%) speed (<25%) 0.05 0.05 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.25 0.25
speed (2560%) 0.05 0.05 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5
speed (>60%) 0.05 0.05 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5

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Fig. 5 Experimental set-up mechanical and electrical detail
a Motor bearing and shaft assembly, [1, 2] bearing housing arrangement different views, [3] machined portion for eccentricity (exaggerated view) and [4] bearing
housing arrangement (with off-centre)
b Arrangement for asymmetric motor loading
c Single-line diagram of set up
6 Results and analysis
Tests are conducted at different speeds by setting different
stator supply frequencies through the drive. FFT is
performed on vibration and current signals at different
operating speeds and load conditions.
The performance of the signal processing function is
illustrated in Fig. 6. It may be observed (Fig. 6b) that,
because of poor signal strength, the side band frequencies
are overshadowed by the low-frequency noise signal after
performing a normal FFT. The desired signal components
are enhanced using a rule-based lter and the characteristic
features like side-band frequencies near fundamental
frequency are now discernible (Fig. 6c).
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The effect of adaptive cut-off threshold on motor current
is illustrated in Fig. 7. With adaptive cut off threshold
the unwanted large spectral frequency peaks are reduced
signicantly. This in turn reduces the dimensionality of
feature vectors, and makes detection logic more robust with
reduced computational time.
Figs. 8 and 9 show the low-frequency spectra of the motor
current and vibration of stator frame. The results are presented
here under three loading conditions and at different speeds 5,
15 and 25 Hz. The points 1, 2 and 3 indicated on graph
(Fig. 8), represent the frequencies fs, fs fr and fs + 2fr,
respectively. Similarly, the marking on Fig. 9 indicates
different characteristic frequencies corresponding to fr; 2fr;
2fs; 2( fs fr).
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Fig. 6 Performance of frequency spectrum with and without rule-based lter

a Raw motor current signal obtained using Hall current sensor
b FFT of the signal without any signal pre-processing
c Depicting improvement in signal-to-noise ratio after the implementation of a rule-based lter

Fig. 7 Post-processing of spectral density features with adaptive cut-off

Fig. 8 Frequency spectra of the stator current at different speeds and at different loads
a fs = 5 Hz; fr = 2.42 Hz
b fs = 15 Hz; fr = 7.0 Hz
c fs = 25 Hz; fr = 12.07 Hz

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Fig. 9 Frequency spectra of the measured vibration at different speeds and at different loads
a fs = 5 Hz; fr = 2.42 Hz
b fs = 15 Hz; fr = 7.0 Hz
c fs = 25 Hz; fr = 12.07 Hz
The FFT and PSD analysis of the experimental data
presented here, reveals that
1. At low speed the observability of feature vectors are low.
However, two characteristic frequency components (for four
pole machines and at low speed assuming s 0), are fr = 0.5fs
and fr + fs = 1.5fs. These frequencies are present in the
motor current under any operating condition.
2. Amplitude of fault frequency components are sensitive to
load variation, however, these are not ideal under all loading
conditions.
3. The rotational frequency component fr and supply
frequency component fs are clearly visible in all cases of
vibration and motor current signal. However, fr is more
prominent than fs in vibration signal.
Fig. 10 Appearance of characteristic frequencies for (1) the healthy motor (2) eccentric motor (3) healthy motor with asymmetric load
condition. fs = 25 Hz and fr = 11.9 Hz
a Spectral component of stator current space vector
b Spectral component of radial vibration signal space vector
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Comparative studies are also made for healthy motor,
motor with (mixed) eccentricity and motor loaded with an
asymmetric load under different operating speeds and motor
loading. One such result, is shown in Fig. 10. The analysis
gives an insight in helping us to distinguish
position-dependent load torque oscillation from rotor
eccentricity faults. The most dominant features in motor
current resulting from a rotor eccentricity or load torque
oscillation are the side-band frequencies ( fecc = fs fr) near
fundamental [Fig. 10a(2) and 10a(3)]. The dominant
frequency in case of a healthy motor is only fs Fig. 10(a1).
Other, higher-order side-band frequencies are only present
in case of a faulty motor.
Similarly, in case of vibration signal, twice the line
frequency vibration (2fs) component is present in both
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Fig. 11 Performance of WLC of feature vector for
a Healthy motor
b Eccentric motor
eccentric and motor under oscillatory load (Fig. 10), whereas
one time rotational speed ( fr) dependent frequency is
prominent in case of eccentric motor only. Another
important point which was observed during experimentation
was that the amplitude of 2fs component is independent of
load variation in case of an eccentric motor but is
dependent under an oscillatory load. Other, higher order
side-band frequency components are only observable in
case of eccentricity.
Fig. 11 depicts the fault feature amplitude in motor current
and vibration after applying the WLC algorithm for the
characteristic frequencies as indicated in Tables 1. Fig. 11a
(1 and 2) show the spectral density plot for current and
vibration for healthy motor. For a motor with eccentricity
the same are indicated in Fig. 11b(1 and 2). Marks on the
graphs in Fig. 11(3 and 4) indicate the appearance of same
features in consecutive data frames (in this study six
frames). Vertical lines in Fig. 11(5 and 6) indicate the
weighted amplitude of characteristic frequency present in
the spectrum, which is computed using (5) and considering
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Table 2. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the
technique, the frequencies of higher importance have
become more prominent in comparison with less important
features.
After feature level fusion for current and vibration, the
scores Sc and Sv are assigned true (T) or false (F) based on
whether the values are above the threshold (present
case it is 40 dB). From Figs. 11a and b, it is clear that in
case of a healthy motor the higher order side-band
frequencies in both signals (current and vibration) will
not be considered since their WLC values are much
below the threshold value whereas in case of motor
eccentricity, WLC values of these frequencies are much
higher and hence the frequencies are identied as fault
frequencies. The inuences of asymmetric load variation
on side-band frequency near fundamental (even these are
strong) are discriminated from the eccentric case, since
the higher-order side-band frequencies are not present (or
very low) in asymmetric load conditions [Figs. 11a(3)
and b(3)]. The nal decision for eccentricity-related fault
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identication is taken based on decision level fusion as per
the logic given in Table 3.
7 Conclusions
This work investigates the prevailing operating conditions of
IM in the steel industry. The discussion is mainly oriented
towards the negative impact of some of these problems, on
eccentricity related fault identication. A novel approach is
proposed here, for online fault identication which can
effectively eliminate the impact of load torque oscillation
and high noise, which are inherently present in the fault
monitoring signals because of environment and switching
of drive devices.
This paper has presented a rule-based lter for improving
the signal-to-noise ratio by 40% and a simple feature
reduction (15%) by introducing an adaptive feature cut-off
(if the feature amplitude is less than a threshold). Finally,
this paper has laid the foundation for developing a fault
feature extraction logic based on decision fusion
strategy. It combines the feature vectors obtained from
non-commensurate motor current and vibration sensor data
using WLC to form a new measure for achieving improved
inferences. The effectiveness of the scheme is veried by
conducting separate tests for healthy and eccentric motor, at
different speeds (particularly at low speed) and at various
motor asymmetric loading conditions. These tests have
demonstrated that the combination of feature sets using
WLC logic improved the fault detection-related frequencies
and isolated them from similar features generated from
asymmetric loading.
The authors may try further improvement in the future by
considering more feature vectors in the time domain.
A novel architecture that brings the signal processing and
detection logic under the frame work of ISO 13374 may
also be taken up to make the proposed scheme industrially
acceptable.
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