Partial Discharge As An Early Sign Of Impending Trouble
Operations managers around the world absolutely loathe partial discharge because they associate it with failures of the important machinery that their operations depend on and the enormous amount of hassle and frustration that they have to endure when organizing repair and damage control efforts. Even in today’s modern world, motor insulation monitoring systems have not yet become commonplace, and many operations do still deal with the specter of sudden motor failures simply because they have no warning of impending failures. With the right motor insulation monitoring system, partial discharge can actually become more of an ally than a foe, because it is an early sign of more major trouble on the horizon.
Partial discharge in and of itself is not usually a major problem, as the nature of partial discharge means that it results from a small imperfection or flaw that has developed in the insulation of a motor, and it does not arise from large imperfections. This means that major problems are almost always preceded by partial discharge, and that its detection can mean having added time to locate and repair problem areas before such major problems have the chance to develop.
Older methods of motor insulation monitoring that are still in use in many operations today involved shutting down each motor and physically checking it for any flaws or defects that might develop into a problem. While such checks are sufficient to catch large cracks or gaps that might develop in the insulation of the motor, smaller cracks and gaps that are not obvious to the naked eye will most likely go undetected, and in the time before the next check is conducted, may develop into a major problem, causing motor failure.
Modern motor insulation monitoring systems, however, are continuously operational, meaning that they track the condition of a motor in real time instead of periodically. This way, the staff of your operation will be notified of any problems the moment they develop. This allows for pre-emptive action to correct developing problems before they can cause major disruption to work processes, instead of simply reacting only after such disruption has already taken place and the various work processes that depend on a particular motor have already been thrown into disarray.
A modern motor insulation monitoring system involves installing equipment on a motor that has been designed to detect relatively minute electrical fluctuations taking place in the insulation of the motor. These electrical fluctuations are indicators of partial discharge taking place, since partial discharge involves electricity leaking from the motor through cracks or gaps in the insulation. Multiple sensors are deployed on each motor, allowing the system to also pinpoint the source of the partial discharge with a fairly high degree of accuracy. This will save the electrical engineers hired to carry out repairs on the motor a great deal of time in attempting to locate the problem area. This form of early warning also allows operations managers to temporarily shift work processes to another motor or engage the services of the engineers or repairmen at a particular time when the motor to be repaired is not being utilized, thus minimizing disruption to work processes and lowering the cost of the problem.
With the right motor insulation monitoring system from Dynamic Ratings, you need not fear partial discharge, can learn to regard it as a useful early indicator of impending trouble that might have developed into a full-blown disaster if not for the presence of that partial discharge.
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