Simplified fourier series based transistor open-circuit fault location method in voltage-source inverter fed induction motor

Abstract

Transistors in three-phase voltage-source inverter often suffer from open-circuit failures due to the lifting of bonding wires caused by thermic cycling, resulting in performance degradation with ripple torque and current harmonics. Current-spectral-analysis based methods are widely applied to failure diagnosis; however, high calculation consumption and complex implementation limit their application in some real-time occasion. In this paper, a simplified Fourier series method is proposed by the product between reconstructed phase currents and reference signals. Meanwhile, a novel normalized method for DC and fundamental components of simplified Fourier series are proposed to locate twenty-one transistor open-circuit faults. Numerical results show that the proposed Fourier series method coincides with that of Fast Fourier Transform. Experimental results and the comparison with previous methods show high efficiency and merits of its application to transistor open-circuit fault location in the voltage-source inverter.