244
1, JANUARY 2010
Stator Current and Motor Efficiency as Indicators
for Different Types of Bearing Faults
in Induction Motors
Lucia Frosini, Member, IEEE, and Ezio Bassi
Abstract—This paper proposes a new approach to use stator
current and efficiency of induction motors as indicators of
rolling-bearing faults. After a presentation of the state of the art
about condition monitoring of vibration and motor current for
the diagnostics of bearings, this paper illustrates the experimental
results on four different types of bearing defects: crack in the
outer race, hole in the outer race, deformation of the seal, and
corrosion. The first and third faults have not been previously
considered in the literature, with the latter being analyzed in
other research works, even if obtained in a different way. Another
novelty introduced by this paper is the analysis of the decrease in
efficiency of the motor with a double purpose: as alarm of incipient
faults and as evaluation of the extent of energy waste resulting
from the lasting of the fault condition before the breakdown of
the machine.
Index Terms—Bearings, condition monitoring, efficiency, fault
diagnosis, Fourier transforms, induction motors, industrial-
power-system maintenance, motor-current signature analysis,
spectral analysis, vibration.
I. I NTRODUCTION
I N THIS paper, the feasibility to use stator current and
efficiency as diagnostic indicators to detect bearing faults in
induction motors is investigated. Surveys on induction motors
have shown that the majority of faults (about 40%–50%) hap-
pen in rolling bearings, depending on the type of installation,
the motor size, and the supply voltage [1]–[3]. These faults
are not sudden, but progressive, so that a predictive main-
tenance based on condition monitoring of some parameters
of the machine can be effective in preventing the consequent
failures. An excellent review of the recent condition-monitoring
techniques for induction machines, including bearing faults, is
reported in [4].
Traditionally, diagnostics of bearings is carried out by means
of monitoring of vibration either of the bearings or the motor
case [5]–[7]. This method requires the use of accelerometers
or other vibration sensors and appropriate devices for signal
conditioning and can be expensive and not always simple to
be performed. On the contrary, monitoring of stator current
requires the use of a current probe that can also be employed
Manuscript received December 29, 2008; revised June 22, 2009. First
published July 17, 2009; current version published December 11, 2009.
The authors are with the Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica, Università di
Pavia, 27100 Pavia, Italy (e-mail: lucia@unipv.it; ezio.bassi@unipv.it).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIE.2009.2026770
0278-0046/$26.00 © 2010 IEEE
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 57, NO.
for the diagnosis of other types of faults. In fact, it has been
demonstrated that stator-current analysis can be effective for
fault detection in induction motors [8], [9], particularly for
problems related to the rotor, such as broken rotor bars [10]–
[12], air-gap eccentricity [13], and load anomalies [14], [15].
Moreover, in the case of inverter-fed motors, the stator current
is already measured by the drive system since it is required
for the control of the machine. Since, generally, bearing faults
are gradual, they can exist within the motor for a long time
(even for some months) before leading to failure and cause the
breakdown of the machine, increasing friction losses and, con-
sequently, reducing the efficiency of the motor. Efficiency can
be determined as the ratio of the mechanical power (measured
by a torque/speed transducer mounted on the shaft [16]) to the
absorbed electrical one. In the absence of this transducer, if the
load is constant, the absorbed current can be used as a reliable
indicator of efficiency. Therefore, efficiency can be analyzed
to obtain further information. On the one hand, the decrease
of efficiency could be considered as an alarm of an incipient
fault and used for diagnostic purposes. The problem is that this
alarm could be caused by different types of faults, even in other
parts of the machine (stator winding, rotor, etc.). Therefore, it
is necessary to analyze at least another parameter of the motor
in order to correctly detect in advance the faults in the bearings.
On the other hand, it is worth investigating the effect of bearing
faults on the efficiency of induction motors in order to evaluate
the extent of energy waste that could result as a consequence
of the lasting of the fault condition. The stator-current analysis
for the fault detection of rolling bearings has already been
investigated by other authors [17]–[31]. The novelty of this
paper is given by the experimental tests on four different types
of bearing faults (crack in the outer race, hole in the outer race,
deformation of the seal, and corrosion; the first and third faults
have not been previously considered in the literature, with the
latter being analyzed in other research works, even if obtained
in a different way) and by the analysis of the effects caused by
these faults, not only in the current spectrum [32] but also in the
efficiency of the motor.
II. S TATE OF THE A RT: C LASSIFICATION OF
FAULTS AND V IBRATION M ONITORING
Bearing faults can be classified according to the location of
faults (outer race, inner race, ball, and cage) and the type of
defect (cyclic or noncyclic).
FROSINI AND BASSI: STATOR CURRENT AND MOTOR EFFICIENCY AS INDICATORS FOR FAULTS
A single-point (cyclic) defect produces an impact between
the ball and the raceway and generates a detectable vibration.
The frequencies fv ’s at which these vibrations occur are pre-
dictable and depend on which surface of the bearing contains
the fault, on the geometrical dimensions of the bearing, and on
the rotational speed of the rotor fr [5]
Outer race : fo = N/2 · fr (1 − d/D · cos α) (1)
Inner race : fi = N/2 · fr (1 + d/D · cos α) (2)
Ball : fb = D/2d · fr (1 − (d/D)2 cos2 α) (3)
Cage : fc = 1/2 · fr (1 + d/D · cos α) (4)
where N is the number of balls, d is the ball diameter, D
is the bearing pitch diameter, and α is the ball contact angle
(typically equal to 0◦ ). For simplicity, the outer and inner
race characteristic frequencies can be approximated for most
bearings with between 6 and 12 balls by
fo = 0.4 · N · fr (5)
fi = 0.6 · N · fr . (6)
These theoretical relationships can be applied only in the
case of cyclic faults. The characteristic fault frequencies appear
in machine vibration and tend to modulate the machine’s fre-
quencies of mechanical resonance. Since the energy at these
characteristic fault frequencies propagates from the bearing
to the vibration sensor, they can be significantly attenuated,
specifically in the case of incipient bearing faults. For this
reason, in [6], an amplitude-modulation detector is developed
to detect incipient defects in the outer race before their char-
acteristic fault frequencies become significant in the power
spectrum.
The same authors have subsequently considered the defects
in the inner race, which cause a magnitude of the characteristic
fault frequencies that can be significantly less than the magni-
tude given by a defect of equal size in the outer race [7]. Their
detection scheme is based on the principle of phase coupling;
due to the noisy broadband nature of machine vibration, the
simple inspection of the power spectrum could detect any
unrelated frequency components coincidentally spaced by the
inner race characteristic fault frequency and the shaft rotational
frequency. However, if these peaks are generated by the same
process (inner race defect), the relative phases between the
components will assume a value that will remain constant
over time. According to this principle, a fault detector is
proposed and applied to 12 bearings that contain inner race
defects of varying degrees of severity and a defect on a rolling
element.
A different type of fault, which can be included among
the noncyclic faults, is the generalized (not localized)
roughness [24]. The effects produced by this failure mode are
difficult to predict, and there are no characteristic fault frequen-
cies for the vibration associated with this type of fault. Another
type of fault that is not included in the previous classification is
a defect in the seal, which generally does not produce an effect
that is similar to air-gap eccentricity.
245
III. S TATE OF THE A RT: C URRENT M ONITORING
A. Cyclic Faults
One of the first research works concerning fault detection
in rolling bearings by means of stator-current analysis is [17],
where the authors propose a model based on the radial motion
between the rotor and the stator produced by the bearing cyclic
defects; this motion generates stator currents at the following
predictable bearing frequency fp , where fs is the electrical
supply frequency, fv is one of the characteristic vibration
frequencies, and k = 1, 2, 3, . . .:
fp = |fs ± kfv |. (7)
This model has been used in several recent works [17]–[21].
In [17], the following two types of faults are tested: 1) hole
drilled through the outer race and 2) indentation produced in
both the inner and outer surfaces. For both faults, the vibration
and current spectra are analyzed in both loaded and unloaded
motor cases. The first faulty condition reveals fo and 2fo
components in the vibration spectrum and |fs ± fo | and |fs ±
2fo | components in the current spectrum. The second fault
highlights fo , 2fo , and fi components in the vibration spectrum
and |fs ± fo |, |fs ± 2fo |, and |fs ± fi | components in the
current spectrum. The authors state that the characteristic fault-
frequency components are relatively small when compared to
the rest of the current spectrum. The largest components occur
at multiples of the supply frequency and are caused by satu-
ration, winding distribution, and supply voltage. However, an
evaluation of the amplitude of these largest components in dif-
ferent cases (healthy and two types of faulty conditions) is not
shown. The characteristic fault-frequency components decrease
in the full-load condition because of the damping produced by
the mechanical load. In [18], two inner race faults (spalls and
drilled hole) are analyzed, and the authors point out a problem
related to the experimental simulation of bearing faults: The act
of disassembling, remounting, and realigning the test motor can
significantly alter the vibration and current spectra. The results
show that, for both defects, the characteristic fault-frequency
components are clearly visible only in the vibration spectrum
and not in the current spectrum.
In [19], different sizes of holes drilled in the outer race of
bearings with different internal radial clearance are considered,
and sophisticated methods to process and analyze the vibration
and current spectra are used (notch filter, time–frequency analy-
sis, and Mahalanobis distance, which is a statistical distance
calculation used for signal classification, as explained in [19]).
It was found that the internal radial clearance of the bearing
has significant influence on diagnostic possibilities. In small
induction motors, the ratio between the internal radial clearance
of the bearing and the air-gap length of the motor is greater than
that in bigger motors. Also, a smaller diameter of the rolling
element of the bearing allows greater movement of the rotor
for the same size of hole in the bearing race. In addition, load
eccentricity can affect the size and the direction of the radial
movement of the rotor. The conclusion is that the stator current
is not adequate as a bearing-fault indicator in the case of 15-kW
motor with normal radial clearance bearings.
246 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 57, NO. 1, JANUARY 2010
In [20], both inner and outer raceway defects are analyzed.
They show some differences in the amplitudes of the current
spectrum of an induction motor at full load, but the charac-
teristic fault-frequency components do not stand out so clearly
among the other ones. In [21], a Wiener filter is used to extract
the mechanical information contained in the electrical current to
detect a ball defect, but the authors do not show any comparison
between healthy and faulty current spectra.
In [22], a new analytical model that takes into account not
only the radial rotor movement considered in [17] but also the
load-torque variations caused by bearing faults is presented. In
this way, new frequencies in the current spectrum are identified
for the defects in the inner raceway and in the ball
fi = |fs ± fr ± kfi | fb = |fs ± fc ± kfb |. (8)
Two artificial faults (holes drilled axially through the outer
and inner raceways) and one realistic fault have been exper-
imentally analyzed by showing the apparition of some theo-
retically predicted frequencies, even if the amplitudes of these
additional stator-current frequencies depend heavily on the
type of bearing and on the load condition. Therefore, bearing
monitoring using only the stator current is difficult to realize.
Nevertheless, in some cases, the stator current shows more
significant effects than vibration does. This suggests that a
combined approach using vibration and current analysis could
be reasonable. Similar conclusions are reported in [23], where
a simulated brinelling damage and a single defect in the outer
raceway generated with chemical etching are analyzed. The
current analysis for the bearing-fault diagnosis seems effective
only for faults whose critical frequencies are quite low.
B. Noncyclic Faults
In [24], the difference between “single-point defect” and
“generalized roughness” is pointed out. The vibration and
current spectra are analyzed for ten bearings with microscopic
pitting on all surfaces and microscopic scratches on the rolling
elements and cage, caused by the shaft current injected through
the bearings (as explained in [25]). This research suggests
that this type of fault produces unpredictable and broadband
changes in the vibration and current spectra. In [26], the same
authors have revised their method by filtering the stator current
to remove most of the significant frequency content unrelated
to bearing faults. In fact, the stator current is dominated by
the fundamental, its harmonics, and the components due to
mechanical asymmetries and slotting effects; the third harmonic
is the largest peak in the spectrum, while the odd harmonics
decrease monotonically from there. In their opinion, the ability
to identify and remove the majority of these components makes
more skillful and robust their bearing-condition-monitoring
scheme. The filtered stator current is used to train an autore-
gressive signal model. As bearing health degrades, the modeled
spectrum deviates from its baseline value; the mean spectral
deviation is then used as the fault index. This fault index has
been proven to detect faults generated by externally applying
shaft current in ten different bearings. A further improvement
of this approach has been reported in [27], where the warning
threshold for the rms of the noise-canceled stator current is
computed by means of a statistical-process-control technique.
Fig. 1. Fault #1—Crack in the outer race.
In [28], the bearing at one end of a 22.4-kW induction motor
was faulted by adding contamination; in this condition, the
motor shows no discernible differences in the current spectrum
at the predictable bearing frequencies fp ’s with respect to the
same motor with both healthy bearings. By integrating the
current spectrum, the mean for the case with a contaminated
bearing is 1.3% higher than that for the case with both healthy
bearings. Moreover, there is an increase (about 10 dB) in
the magnitude of the harmonic currents at frequencies related
to dynamic eccentricity (fs ± fr ) and of the third-harmonic
current. It also appears that the current spectrum up to the fun-
damental frequency gives better information about the presence
of a bearing fault. A new promising technique to detect this
kind of fault (generalized roughness) seems to be the spectral
kurtosis (SK) applied to both vibration and current analyses
[29]. The SK is a spectral descriptor that is able to detect and
characterize transients in a signal, to discover the presence of
hidden nonstationarities, and to identify in which frequency
bands these occur [29].
C. Inverter-Fed Motors
In [30], a new formulation for current spectral analysis is
proposed for the detection of bearing failures in induction
motors driven by frequency converters. The fault analyzed is
on the outer race, and the authors show an increase in the char-
acteristic fault-frequency components of the current spectrum
of the motor with one faulty bearing with respect to the motor
with both healthy bearings; however, the scale of the amplitude
of the current spectra is different in the two cases. In [31], the
fast Fourier transform and the continuous wavelet transform
are applied to the current of a permanent-magnet synchronous
machine in order to detect bearing faults, but the type of defect
is not well defined, so it is difficult to compare these results with
other works.
IV. FAULTS A NALYZED
Four types of bearing faults have been tested. As a first case,
a crack in the outer race has been considered as an example
of a very serious fault; this is a single-point defect and can be
caused by wear from fatigue (Fig. 1). This condition is close
to the complete breaking of the bearing, so if a diagnostic tool
fails in detecting it, it will probably not be able to detect any
cyclic fault in the outer race. As a second case, in order to
have a comparison with the results presented in the literature,
FROSINI AND BASSI: STATOR CURRENT AND MOTOR EFFICIENCY AS INDICATORS FOR FAULTS
Fig. 2. Fault #2—Hole in the outer race.
Fig. 3. Fault #3—Deformation of the seal.
Fig. 4. Fault #4—Corrosion.
a fault already investigated by other researchers, i.e., a hole in
the outer race [17]–[19], has been reproduced. In fact, a fault
like that shown in Fig. 2 cannot occur during the working of
a bearing, but this artificial defect is useful to analyze in order
to obtain information about the effects of a “perfect” single-
point fault. As a third case, a fault not yet considered in previous
research works has been investigated, i.e., a deformation of the
seal (Fig. 3). This fault can be produced by errors during the
assembly and can be considered as a cycling fault, even if it
does not produce an effect like air-gap eccentricity. Thus, the
expectancy is that it will not arouse particular changes in the
current spectrum. Finally, a corrosion of the bearing has been
produced, which can be caused by humidity of the environment
and can be considered as a “generalized roughness” (Fig. 4).
V. E XPERIMENTAL S ETUP
The experimental setup is made up of a standard three-phase
2.2-kW two-pole induction motor, fed by the mains (400 V and
50 Hz), having 24 stator slots, 18 rotor bars, and 0.5-mm air-
gap length, and coupled with a brake [32]. The load torque is
imposed by a control unit, and for each phase, the rms values
of current, voltage, and active power are collected. To carry out
247
TABLE I
P REDICTABLE F REQUENCIES IN V IBRATION AND
C URRENT FOR FAULTS #1 AND #2
the analysis in the frequency domain, use is made of a current
probe, which is connected through a BNC connector to the
PC with LabVIEW software. The motor is equipped with two
rolling ball bearings, type 6205Z, with nine balls, lubricated
with grease.
VI. A NALYSIS OF S TATOR -C URRENT S PECTRA
IN D IFFERENT FAULTY C ONDITIONS
The method employed here to test the effectiveness of stator-
current analysis for bearing-fault detection lies in the experi-
mental comparison between the spectra of the current in healthy
and faulty cases and in different load conditions (no load,
about half load, and full load). The tests carried out at half
load give results that are similar to those at full load, so they
will not be presented in this paper, but they can be found in
[32]. For each type of test, the following three acquisitions
are gathered: The current is measured with a sample rate of
4000 samples/s, each acquisition lasts for 2 s, and the spectrum
is calculated as the arithmetical mean of the three acquisitions.
With respect to [26] and [27], here, all the harmonics that are
present in the current spectra have been considered and not
filtered. This choice has been preferred in order to compare
the overall behavior of the current in the different four types of
bearing faults since, in the literature, only some of them have
been previously considered. Further analyses could be carried
out by implementing the techniques suggested and applied in
[26] and [27] to the generalized roughness faults produced
in situ by the shaft current.
A. Faults #1 and #2 in Outer Race
As the first two faults affect the outer race of the bearing,
(1) and (7) give the characteristic frequencies fo ’s of vibration
and the corresponding predictable frequencies fp ’s of stator
currents. The rotational frequency fr is measured for different
load and fault conditions (Table I).
Tests with fault #1 reveal a different acoustic noise compared
to the healthy condition, thus confirming an impaired operation
of the motor. The no-load current spectrum (Fig. 5) shows, for a
constant value of the fundamental, a remarkable increase of the
third- and seventh-harmonic components, whose absolute value
amounts to about 10 mA for both harmonics, i.e., about 80%
of their value in the healthy condition. Among the calculated
predictable frequencies in Table I, only one appears in the
faulty condition (407.5 Hz). Another component is excited at
about 1100 Hz. This behavior is surely related to the fault,
248 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 57, NO. 1, JANUARY 2010
Fig. 5. Experimental current spectra—Healthy and #1 faulty bearing
(no load).
Fig. 6. Experimental current spectra—healthy and #1 faulty bearing (full
load; the box highlights the harmonics excited in the case of fault).
which produces an asymmetry in the distribution of the air
gap of the motor, thus influencing the stator currents. Also, a
small increase in other odd-harmonic components can be noted.
The results differ from what was reported in the literature,
and this can be due to noticeable odd-harmonic currents, even
in the healthy state, which makes it difficult to identify other
low-valued harmonics. However, the variation in the current
spectrum caused by fault #1 allows detection of the defect, even
if in a different way than expected. In fact, it gives no indication
on which part of the bearing is damaged (outer race) but is able
to highlight the presence of a fault. This is a first step for the
diagnostics of the motor.
Even the tests at full load show, with a faulty bearing, a
change of the stator-current spectrum, but this variation differs
from that in the no-load test (Fig. 6). The components at
predictable frequencies (Table I) are not visible. The third-
harmonic component is practically constant, whereas almost
all other odd and even harmonics increase (particularly the 7th,
10th, 12th, 13th, 16th, 18th, 22nd, and 24th ones). Thus, even
Fig. 7. Experimental current spectra—healthy and #2 faulty bearing (no load).
at load, the presence of a fault can be detected. The increase of
the amplitude of the odd harmonics suggests the distortion of
the current due to an asymmetry of the air gap, and therefore,
it can be related to the presence of a defect. The challenge is
to verify if another type of fault can produce the same effect.
The differences between full-load and no-load tests are related
to the coupling joint, which can add further vibrations during
operation, or damp the effect due to the bearing fault, and to
load eccentricity, which can affect the radial movement of the
rotor. Therefore, for diagnostic purposes, the no-load results are
more reliable and can be considered as directly linked to the
presence of the defect.
Fault #2 has been considered not only to check the experi-
mental results of other researchers [17]–[19] but also to analyze
a fault that, at least theoretically, gives effects that are similar
to that of fault #1. The no-load current spectra (Fig. 7) seem
to show that any predictable frequency fp is excited by the
faulty condition. As for the previous fault, the third and seventh
harmonics are increased, and a component appears at about
1100 Hz.
Thus, the laboratory tests seem to confirm the theoretical
considerations previously reported and thus validate the use of
current signature analysis to detect cyclic faults in the outer
race of the bearing. The full-load current spectra for fault #2
show (Fig. 8; cf. with Fig. 6) that the first odd harmonics are
almost constant (with a small increase only for the seventh one),
whereas the amplitude of the high-frequency even harmonics
increases noticeably (particularly the 16th, 18th, 22nd, and 24th
ones). Thus, for this fault, even the experimental tests confirm
some changes in the current spectra compared to the healthy
case, even if they differ from the previously reported results
and vary according to the load condition.
B. Fault #3 on Seal
Fault #3 consists of a deformation of the seal of the bearing.
Its effect could be considered as cyclic, even if it affects the
behavior of the motor in a different way with respect to the
previous faults. The indentation in the seal does not get in touch
with the rolling elements because the internal cage is interposed
FROSINI AND BASSI: STATOR CURRENT AND MOTOR EFFICIENCY AS INDICATORS FOR FAULTS
Fig. 8. Experimental current spectra—healthy and #2 faulty bearing (full
load; the box highlights the harmonics excited in the case of fault).
Fig. 9. Experimental current spectra—healthy and #3 faulty bearing (no load;
the box highlights the harmonics excited in the case of fault).
between them. The defect causes only a rubbing that increases
the dynamical friction in the bearing but does not cause any
variation of the air gap. As in the case of fault #1, the tests with
this fault are characterized by a higher acoustic noise compared
to that in the healthy case.
The experimental current spectra at no load show a small
increase in the amplitude of some odd harmonics (particularly
the 7th, 11th, and 13th ones) and a component excited at
about 1100 Hz (Fig. 9). The tests in load conditions do not
provide any diagnostic information. The spectra are practically
superimposed, and no component appears far from the profile
of the healthy motor.
C. Fault #4: Corrosion
This fault has been realized by keeping the bearing under
the water for three weeks. At the end of the treatment, the first
249
Fig. 10. Experimental current spectra—healthy and #4 faulty bearing (full
load; the box highlights the harmonics excited in the case of fault).
signs of corrosion of the inner and outer races appear. The
products of corrosion would interfere with the balls during the
rotation of the shaft, thus causing vibrations.
As for noncyclic faults, they are more difficult to detect with
respect to the faults previously analyzed. In fact, a localized
defect on one race arouses impulsive excitation at every contact
with the rolling element. In this situation, the debris due to
the corrosion process move themselves inside the bearings,
shifted by the passage of the balls; the consequent vibrations are
directly linked to the positions of the debris, and therefore, they
unlikely repeat at the same frequency. Thus, it is impossible to
analytically define some predictable frequencies to detect in the
vibration or current spectra.
In the experimental current spectra, there is only a slight in-
crease of some even harmonics at high frequencies (particularly
the 16th, 18th, and 22nd ones)—more pronounced at full load
(Fig. 10). The conclusion could be that fault #4 is not so serious
to harm the operation of the motor or that noncyclic faults are
not suitable to be detected by the current signature analysis.
VII. A NALYSIS OF E FFICIENCY OF THE M OTOR
IN D IFFERENT FAULTY C ONDITIONS
Monitoring of the efficiency of the motors has become an
important requirement in the last years, particularly in industrial
firms with high-energy intensity, where the annual cost for
the energy supply of a motor operating continuously can be
eight to nine times the investment cost of the same motor. By
multiplying this cost for the life duration of the machine, one
realizes that diagnostics and maintenance activities (necessary
to assure the performance of the machine) can be transformed
into an opportunity of energy savings.
Efficiency is given by the ratio of the output mechanical
power at the shaft to the input electrical one. The first measure-
ment needs a torque/speed transducer. In the case of high-power
250 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 57, NO. 1, JANUARY 2010
Fig. 11. Comparison among the characteristics of efficiency.
machines, it could be convenient to equip them with this quite-
expensive instrument; otherwise, for small- and medium-size
motors, if the load can be considered as constant, the absorbed
current can be employed as a reliable indicator of efficiency. In
this paper, the mechanical power is gathered by the control unit
of the brake, whereas the input power is collected by the power
meter. Several tests have been carried out in order to obtain the
characteristics of efficiency by varying the torque applied by
the brake to the motor starting from 3 N · m to the rated load
(7.5 N · m) for both healthy and faulty conditions (see Fig. 11).
It appears that the curve starts from a minimum and increases
up to about two-thirds of the rated torque (5 N · m), where
the maximum is reached. Then, efficiency is almost stationary
and slightly decreases up to the rated torque, where it is a
little higher than 84%. The curves for faults #1 and #2 at low
values of torque are perfectly superposed; by increasing the
torque, the decrease of efficiency is higher for fault #1, but the
characteristics remain parallel. This first comparison confirms
the results obtained by the previous spectral analysis, as both
defects are localized on the external race of the bearing, so
the effects on the operation of the motor have to be similar.
Efficiencies, however, are not identical, as the extent of the
damage is different. Fault #1 is more serious, so it will cause
a stronger effect.
The results for fault #3 are similar to that of fault #1, as in
both cases, the lowest values of efficiency are reached. This
feature is important in order to detect a defect like #3. In
fact, the spectral analysis of current does not provide relevant
information in order to detect this fault. Nevertheless, as one
can see in Fig. 11, this fault has a noticeable influence on the
operation of the motor. The defect affects the operation of the
bearing (and, therefore, the operation of the motor) since it
causes an increase of the friction due to the rubbing between
the cage of the bearing and the deformed part of the seal. This
rubbing makes the rotation difficult by obstructing the motion,
which explains the decrease of the efficiency of the motor.
However, since this fault does not bring about any asymmetry
in the air gap, there is no way to detect it by means of current
spectral analysis.
Fault #4 clearly causes the lowest impact on the efficiency of
the motor. Its characteristic is very close to that obtained in the
healthy condition. Similar considerations have been reported
for the influence of this fault on current spectral analysis.
The differences obtained in Fig. 10 cannot be attributed with
certainty to this type of fault. However, from the tests related
to fault #4, it is possible to draw other important remarks. In
rolling bearings, a lubricant (generally grease) has to be intro-
duced in order to reduce the dynamical friction and to decrease
the rubbing between the rolling elements and the raceways.
The lubricant has also another function, which is to protect the
bearing from the danger of corrosion, specifically in the case
of an environment with a high rate of humidity. Therefore, it
has been interesting to check the level up to the point that the
thickness of lubricant is able to protect the structure of the
bearings and, in the case of failure of this protection, what are
the repercussions on the operation of the motor. To produce
fault #4, the bearing has been kept for some weeks under the
water so as to rapidly simulate the effect of the presence of an
environment with high humidity and then to spoil the layer of
grease and to arouse the corrosion. At the end of the tests, it is
noticeable that, even in a very hostile environment, the damage
of the bearing does not harm its operation. In fact, as one can
see from Fig. 4, the external structure has been attacked by the
corrosion process, but internally, the lubricant carries out its
task by obstructing the entrance of the products of corrosion
in the internal structure of the bearing. Therefore, the small
differences obtained in the current spectrum compared to the
healthy case can be attributed not only to the fact that this is
a noncyclic fault but also to the weak effect produced on the
bearing by this fault.
VIII. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, a new approach to use stator current and
efficiency of induction motors as diagnostic indicators for the
bearings has been presented and applied on four types of
defects.
All the considered faults have produced a decrease in motor
efficiency. The extent of this reduction reached nearly 4% in
the low-load condition and 1.5% in the full-load condition in
the case of more serious faults (crack in the outer race and
deformation of the seal).
The cyclic faults in the outer race have shown noticeable
effects on the current spectrum, both in load and no-load
conditions, although these effects are rather different from
those pointed out in the literature: small changes at predictable
frequencies for the specific fault, a considerable increase of
the third- and seventh-harmonic components at no load, and
an increase of the even harmonics at high frequencies in the
load condition. Thus, for this type of fault, the analysis of stator
current seems to be effective for diagnostic purposes.
On the contrary, the deformation of the seal and the gen-
eralized roughness caused only slight effects on the current
spectrum (in particular, an increase of some odd harmonics at
no load for the first one and an increase of some even harmonics
at load for the second one). Thus, in these cases, the current
signature does not give an effective help in detecting the fault,
whereas the analysis of efficiency gives interesting information.
In fact, the fault on the seal causes a remarkable drop in the effi-
ciency of the motor. Therefore, in this case, the measurement of
efficiency could be used as an alarm for condition monitoring,
even if it could be influenced by other factors, i.e., any fault
that produces any type of asymmetry in the flux path. Instead,
the fault caused by corrosion brings about only a slight decrease
FROSINI AND BASSI: STATOR CURRENT AND MOTOR EFFICIENCY AS INDICATORS FOR FAULTS
in efficiency, so it seems that this fault has a weak effect on the
operation of the motor, and this is likely the reason that impairs
its detection by means of current signature analysis.
In conclusion, current signature analysis can be usefully
employed for online fault diagnostics since the current of one
phase of the stator winding can be easily measured, even during
the normal operation of the machine. On the other hand, the
online analysis of efficiency requires the measurement of the
rotor speed and the load torque; the latter needs expensive
instruments, and normally, the drive is not equipped with them.
If the load can be considered as constant, the stator current
can be an indicator of efficiency. In other cases, the use of a
torque meter can be considered as convenient for the online
analysis of efficiency only for high-power machines, but the
results obtained in this paper would spur the users of the motors
to consider a proactive maintenance aimed to early detect the
faults, not only to avoid catastrophic failures but also to restrict
the waste of energy.
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Lucia Frosini (M’09) was born in Pavia, Italy, in
1970. She received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in
electrical engineering from the Università di Pavia,
Pavia, Italy, in 1994 and 2000, respectively.
She is currently a Postdoc Research Assistant with
the Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica, Università
di Pavia, where she is also a fixed term Professor of
diagnostics of electrical machines and drives. She is
the author of about 50 scientific publications in jour-
nals, books, and congress proceedings. Her research
fields are mainly modeling and diagnostics applied
to electrical machines.
Ezio Bassi was born in Voghera, Italy, in 1951. He
received the Laurea degree in electrotechnical engi-
neering from the Università di Pavia, Pavia, Italy, in
1976.
Since 2000, he has been a Full Professor of electri-
cal machines and drives and is currently the Director
of the Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica, Univer-
sità di Pavia. His research interests include: modeling
of converter-fed electrical machines; identification
and control procedures of adjustable speed drives
for automation and robotics; integration of drives in
industrial environment.
Prof. Bassi is a member of the Italian Technical Committee on Electric
Drives.