Experimental Investigation of Rotor Currents Distribution in the Healthy and Faulty Cage of Induction Motors at Standstill

This paper simply investigates experimentally multiple “rotor” bar current waveforms at standstill, on a dedicated inverted induction motor prototype as a basis to analyze the bar currents distribution in the symmetrical and unsymmetrical cage. A phasor calculus scheme based on primary magneto-motive-force space harmonics is developed to explain this asymmetry of bar currents system at standstill even for a symmetrical cage. The results of the paper should be a strong experimental foundation to investigate thoroughly the effects of rotor speed and loading and of broken bars on additional losses, torque pulsations, noise, and vibrations in high performance induction machines.