ONLINEMONITORINGDEVICES

Constructional Features

Most hydro generators in service today are of the vertical type wit the turbine or
waterwheel at the bottom of the assembly and the generator on top. There are
exceptions to this statement with bulb units being the most common. A bulb unit
places the generator in a submerged chamber, and the orientation of bulb units is
usually horizontal .

Unit ratings can vary from the kW range to over 800MW. Speeds can vary from 60
to over 600 RPM and are determined by both the waterwheel type and the
hydraulic head, generally the higher the head, the higher the waterwheel speed.
The highest head and therefore highest speed water wheels are of the Pelton or
impulse type. Intermediate head machines usually employ Francis or reaction
turbines while the low head machines are typically Kaplan or propeller type
turbines.



Conventional Hydro Generator.

Vertical hydro generators are generally manufactured in one of two types,
conventional or umbrella type. Figure above is a conventional hydro generator
with its distinguishing feature being a combined guide and thrust beating above
the generator that is supported by a massive thrust girder. Conventional hydro
generators are usually three bearing machines as show in figure above .


The umbrella type hydro generator is most commonly applied on new machines
he umbrella hydro generator, which is depicted on the cover of this best practices
document is usually a two bearing machine with a turbine guide bearing and a
combined guide the thrust bearing mounted below the generator rotor. The
umbrella design is more economical to manufacture and easier to maintain
because of the lack of the thrust girders above the generator.





Hydro Generator Cross Section.


Hydro Generator Rotor

Large hydro generator rotors are manufactured at the plant site because it is
impossible to ship an assembly that can be over 50 feet in diameter and can
weigh one thousand tons. From the inside out, the hydro generator rotor consists
of hallow rolled steel shaft sections that are bolted to the top and bottom of a
frame member called a spider. The rotor spider usually consists of eight to 16
spider arms. The spider is a welded steel assembly at least partially built offer site
and shipped to the site. On large machines, the spider is built in sections
assembled on site.




Installed around the outside of the spider is a laminated assembly called the rotor
rim. The rim is built up into a steel cylinder at the plant site from steel plates
approximately 0.2 inch 95mm) thick and installed onto the spider by one of
several means. There are two basic type of rim-spider interfaces, shrink fit and
floating rim. With the shrink fit rim, the rim is heated and then shrunk on to the
rotor spider. The amount of shrink fit is designed to be sufficient to maintain a
tight fit at greater than full over speed conditions (which can reach over 200% of
normal operating speed). The floating rim design usually utilizes some type of
driven key to secure the rim to the spider circumferentially while allowing for radial
expansion with speed and temperature. The shrink fit rim is the most commonly
used method on new hydro generators. The rotors salient poles are keyed to the
outside diameter of the rotor rim.



Rotor Rim Joint

With all those bolted, welded, shrunk, and keyed joints, a properly designed,
manufactured, assembled, and operated hydro generator rotor can remain in
service for well over 50 years. Problems that lead to an out-of round condition or
off center operation can lead to a major failure. Because of the immense weight of
hydro generator rotor assemblies and their slow operating speeds, out of round or
off center rotor rim condition do not always show up as a measurable vibration.


Hydro Generator Stator

Hydro generator stators can either be manufactured in sections in the factory or
they can be manufactured in one piece at the plant. Both methods of
manufacture have advantages and disadvantages. Factory manufacturing usually
entails clean-room condition that can be difficult to obtain in the field, and it may
be difficult to duplicate the quality controls inherent in the factory under field
conditions. Manufacturing in the field requires significant floor space for the stator
with an outside diameter that could exceed 70 feet (20 meters) .

Field manufacturing involves a continuous stack or pile of the stator core
laminations with the entire circle of laminations interwoven and a continuous stator
frame. Factory manufacturing allows for the laminations to be interwoven only in
each section (upto six sections per stator core). And the core/frame sections must
be connected in the field. The joint between core sections must be carefully
designed and assembled to assure mechanical, thermal, and magnetic integrity.
Mechanical integrity of the factory manufactured and field assembled stator is a
concern, as a stator assembled from per-manufactured sections simply cannot
have the hoop strength of a single piece field manufactured stator.

Both methods of manufacturing are in use today. The ultimate decision on which
type of manufacturing is utilized usually depends on schedules, available floor
space, and certainly pricing.

Figures below are pictures of a hydro generator stator during construction.
















PLACEMENT OF th STATOR SEGMENT JOINING OF STATOR SEGMENTS



















CORE RELAMINATION AT JOINTS
















HYDRAULIC PRESSING OF STATOR CORE






ASSEMBLED STATOR BEING LOWERED STATOR CONCRETE BARREL ON SOLE PLATES
INTO GENERATOR BARREL



Once the stator core is staked, stator coils will be installed in the vertical slots in
the stator core. The completed stator is set on a sole plant, which for large
machines provides a slip plane to allow for radial movement of the stator due to
thermal expansion. Large stators are known to expand over 0.5 inches (1.25cm)
on the diameter from ambient conditions to full temperature operation. Great care
is taken to assure that the expansion and contraction of the stator is uniform over
the entire stator to assure the stator remains round and concentric with the rotor.

After going through constructional details of Hydro Generator, which is mainly
required to be monitored online, we will discuss reasons for online monitoring and
various devices used for online monitoring.

Why Condition Monitoring on Hydro Units?
Historically, Hydro units have been reliable and robust, and have been used for
base load with only limited outages for scheduled maintenance. Utility
deregulation, environmental and water concerns have resulted in a change of
duty from base loading to peaking only. This change has resulted in multiple
starts and stops each day for units which were never designed to do so, causing
premature ageing, un-foreseen mechanical and electrical stress, resulting in
degraded reliability and performance. Financial pressures on operators have also
resulted in reduced routine maintenance. This is particularly the case with
pumped storage units.
Why do Thrust Monitoring?
Large Hydro units can weigh over 1000 tons, with the entire weight carried by the
thrust bearing. It is therefore critical that the oil film is present between the bearing
shoes and the rotor before the valves are opened and the high pressure water is
allowed to enter the turbine.
Monitoring of the thrust position is able to provide a permissive to operate,
indicating the presence of the oil film by measuring the lift of the rotor.

















Why do Vibration Monitoring?
Measuring vibration on Hydro Rotors provides the same benefits as in monitoring
conventional units. Parameters such as rough zone operation, cavitation,
unbalance, bearing problems and wicket gate problems can be diagnosed from
vibration signatures during day-to-day operation. Developing Faults can be
diagnosed and repairs scheduled long before they become critical or catastrophic
failure occurs.



















Why do Air Gap monitoring?


Monitoring Air Gap has been proven itself to be an efficient tool to detect and
diagnose structural problems related to :

loose rotor rim
weak rotor structure
uneven thermal and magnetic forces causing expansion of the
rotor and stator
structural change of stator foundation (concrete
deformation).

Monitoring generator problems enables plant owners avoid costly forced outages
for breakdowns or rotor-stator repairs, caused by

Overheating
rotor-to-stator rubs
structural issues

Air Gap monitoring can help to extend safe generator usage up to the next major
refurbishment. Uneven air gap also diminishes efficiency performance.



What is Air Gap?


The air gap is the distance measured between stator and rotor of a generator.
Large hydroelectric turbines are subjected to constantly varying centrifugal,
thermal and magnetic forces that are capable of distorting the stator and rotor of
the turbine, thereby causing this air gap to vary. Monitoring of air-gap is essential
part of online condition monitoring as it can provide early warning of impending
problems and facilitated timely maintenance procedures.



Air Gap Monitoring
Air gap is a measure of the distance between rotor and stator in the hydro
generator. Monitoring of air gap is critically important because unlike high speed
generators. Both the stator and the rotor on large hydro machines can be quite
flexible the bore diameter on the largest hydro machine can be over 50 feet(>15
meters) and the height of the stator can be over 12 fee (>3 Meters). Nominal air
gaps on large hydro machines vary from approximately 0.3 inches to 1.6 inches
(0.7 to 4cm.) with operating speeds ranging from 60 to over 600 RPM. Peak
operating efficiency is achieved when both rotor and stator are rotor and
concentric. Air gap monitoring provides the operator with early warning of
impending problems with shape and concentricity.


Out of round or off center conditions of the rotor and/or the stator can cause
problems. Any decrease in nominal air gap is a concern because of the magnetic
attraction between rotor and stator. Under normal conditions, the magnetic
attraction between rotor and stator increases approximately with the inverse
square of the air gap. So any anomaly that leads to a decreased air gap tends to
worsen with time as the increased magnetic attraction further decreases the gap.
The increased magnetic field at the location of a small air gap also increases the
magnetic heating in the stator, thus increasing the thermal aging of the stator
winding and core.


In service air gap measurements are made with Stator Mounted air Gap (SMAG)
probes. Measurements are made from the inner surface of the stator core to the
rotor poles. These measurements provide a direct measure of rotor shape. Stator
shape is calculated utilizing multiple SMAG probes. The table below lists standard
tolerances for air gap, rotor and stator roundness and rotor and stator
concentricity as defined in the Guide for erection Tolerances and Shaft alignment
published by CEA (Canadian Electrical Association). These numbers are provided
for reference purposes.








Parameter Definition Erection
Deviation
1

Acceptable
Deviation
Critical
Deviation
Air Gap Maximum difference
between air gap measured at
any point on a single plane
and nominal air gap
13% 20% 30%
Stator
Roundness
Difference between
maximum inside radius and
minimum inside radius
measured from the rotor
rotation axis.
7% 20% 12%
Stator
Concentricity
Difference between rotor
rotation axis and the best
stator centre measure on the
same plane and calculated
from the for reference pole
5% 7.5% 10%
Rotor
Roundness
Difference between
maximum outside radius
and minimum outside radius
on the same plane.
6% 8% 10%
Rotor
concentricity
Difference between the rotor
rotation axis and the best
rotor centre calculated from
the outside radius of each
pole on he same plane
1.2% 2.55 4%

1
Deviations expressed in percentage of nominal air gap.


A minimum of four SMAG probes per plane are recommended for stator bore
diameters upto 25 feet (7.5 meters) with a minimum of eight SMAG probes
recommended for larger machines. More SMAG probes will provide a better
approximation of stator shape. Single plane measurements should always be
made at the top of the stator, as the top of the machine is more flexible because
the bottom rests on sole plates. Measuring air gap in both top and bottom planes
will provide more protection for the user.



Location of sensors for Air gap
Air gap Sensors









Bearing Vibrations

Hydroelectric turbines are subject to unique forces and operating conditions,
typically operate at low operating speeds (60-600 rpm), and generally incorporate
vertical shaft arrangements. For these reasons, they exhibit unique vibration
characteristics and require specialised filtering for monitoring the various relevant
machinery condition parameters.




TGB Vibration Sensors
Some of vibration behaviours typical of hydroelectric turbines are caused by
rough load conditions (NOT 1X), shear pin failure (nX), faults with or debris in
wicket gates (nX), stator faults, and various sources of unbalance(1X).The system
provides alarm indications for these and other vibration conditions with low
frequency sensitivity necessary to effectively monitor hydroelectric turbines.
Inherent with these low speed turbines are longer response times and larger
vibration levels; therefore, the design of the system is such that it covers this
unique behavior of hydro turbines. Bearing vibration can indicate problems related
to fluid filmed bearings, including overload, misalignment, rough load zone (NOT
1X), shear pin failure (nX), faults with or debris in wicket gates (nX), stator faults,
and various sources of unbalance (1X). Bearings can be drilled and tapped to
accept probe mounting hardware and cable tie-downs during the manufacturing
process. For retrofit installations, the bearings can always be removed and drilled
to accept the probes mounting hardware and cable tie downs.


Stator Core and Frame Vibration Monitoring

Vibration between the stator core and frame and between the stator frame and
sole plate is monitored as a predictive measure for various problem scenarios.
Loose stator core laminations will cause a vibration twice the electrical frequency
either 100 or 120 Hz. A seismic transducer, such as the Velomitor CT, is the
recommended probe for this measurement.

Uneven air gap forces will cause stator core and frame vibrations twice the
operating speed of the generator. Since the vibration caused by uneven air gap
forces can be as low as one or 2Hz., the 3300XL is the recommended probe for
measurement of this low frequency vibration.

The table lists standard tolerances for stator core and frame vibrations as defined
in the Guide for erection tolerances and Shaft alignment published by CEA
(Canadian Electrical Association). These numbers are provided for reference
purposes.







Parameter Definition Erection
Deviation
1

Acceptable
Deviation
Critical
Deviation
Stator Core
vibration
Measured
between the
core and
frame
1.0 1.4 2.0
Frame
vibration
Measured
between the
frame and the
sole plate
1.0 2.5 5.0

1
Vibration expressed in mils peak to peak.

Thrust Bearing Oil Film Thickness:

Unlike horizontal, high speed generators, hydroelectric generators have a great
amount of freedom in the axial direction. During full load reject, some rotors move
over an inch (2.54cm) in the axial direction. For this reason axial position
measurement (rotor position relative to the machine case) are not recommended.
Most large hydroelectric generators are vertical machines. The thrust pads have
to carry the static weight of the machine and any load generated by the water flow
through turbine. An absence or reduction in oil film thickness at the thrust pads
results in rapid breakdown of the bearing Babbitt and can result in rotor/bearing
damage if not caught. Thrust pad oil film thickness can indicate problems related
to fluid-filmed bearings, including overload, bearing fatigue or insufficient
lubrication.
Thrust pads can be drilled and tapped to accept probe mounting hardware and
cable tie-downs during the manufacturing process. For retrofit installations, the
pads can always be removed and drilled to accept the probes mounting hardware
and cable tie downs. For most cases, two pads, separated by approx.. 90 degree,
are instrumented. If the machine is large (more than 100MW) it may be advisable
to place two probes at opposite corners of the each thrust pad because pads on
large machines can saddle under load.


Generator Temperature Monitoring

Generator temperatures are commonly measured with RTDs and thermocouples.
Virtually all generators have RTDs installed between coils in the stator slots.
Unless specified otherwise by the user, 12 slot RTDs are installed in most
generators. Note that hydro generator can have over 500 slots, so monitoring
coverage of stator temperature is minimal.


Cooling air is generally measured with RTDs or thermocouples monitoring cool
inlet air and hot outlet air. Units with air to water coolers will measured hot and
cold (inlet and outlet) air on each cooler alongwith cooling water inlet and outlet
temperatures.

Some very large hydro generators are equipped with water inner-cooled windings
where deionized water passes through each stator coil. In these cases, each
stator coil will be equipped with a water inlet and/or outlet thermocouple.

Generator air designed to operate at full load within a specified temperature rise
over ambient temperature. A 40C ambient is generally specified. The rated
temperature rise will be stated such that at full load, stator temperature measured
by the embedded RTDs will not exceed the maximum allowable hot spot
temperature for the stator winding insulations system. The most common
insulation classes in modern machines and their maximum temperature limits are
listed in the table below:-

Insulation Class Maximum allowable
temperature
B 130C
F 155C
H 180C


Most operators will limit operation to some level under the maximum allowable
temperature as with only 12 RTDs covering over 500 coils, you can be virtually
assured that the actual hot spot is not measured. A conservative method of
specifying a new machine that is commonly used is to require class F insulation,
but specify a class B temperature rise of 90C over a 40C ambient. In this way, a
machine with Class F insulation will operate at a maximum temperature of 130C
at full load.

Partial discharge Analysis

Partial discharge (PD) is a radio frequency noise measured in the MHz range
that is generated by low level arcing and sparking in generator stator insulation.
There are three basic types of PD of concern in medium voltage generators ( 5-
20kV range)

Internal void discharges occur where the insulation on high voltage coils has
internal voids across which a charge builds up. Generator coil insulation is made
up of many overlapped layers of insulating tape all glued together with a resin,
polyester or epoxy on modern machines. If done correctly, the system should be
void free. Where voids exist, a sufficient charge will build up and arc across the
void and create some measurable radio frequency noise. Void discharges occur
only at the high voltage end of the winding, usually on coils operating at 4,000
Volts to ground or higher. In air cooled generators (Virtually all hydro generators
are air-cooled) and motors, internal void PD can be quite damaging as the arc
produces ozone which erodes the surrounding insulation. This is the reason PD is
not a big concern in hydrogen cooled generators like large high speed units, no
oxygen, so no ozone.


Slot discharge occurs where the stator coil is loose and vibrating in the stator slot.
Stator coils have a semi conducting coating on the outer surface to ground the slot
portion. If the coil vibrates, making and breaking the connection between the semi
conductor surface and the grounded core will create arcing. Slot discharge is not a
function of coil voltage, and can occur anywhere in the winding from high voltage
to neutral side. Like the void discharges, slot discharges are damaging in air
cooled winding because the ozone produced attacks the outer surface of the coil,
first destroying the semi conductor costing, and then eating away at the coil
insulation .


End winding pollution discharge occurs when sufficient conductive dirt build up
occurs on the stator end windings, usually bridging between coils with significant
voltage differences. In most cases, end winding discharges are not damaging, just
an indication that the winding needs cleaning.


The hydro Trac instrument takes PD measurement automatically and stores the
data for analysis and tending. Presence of each of the three types of PD
described above can be determined by analysis of the data, particularly where on
the voltage waveform the PD is detected. Trending of the PD data over time is
used to predict long term insulation degradation. Unlike temperature or vibration
measurements, there is no established good or bad level of PD. New machines
by the same manufacturer can have significantly different PD levels and still be
acceptable for operation. Increasing levels of PD with time is the primary indicator
of degrading insulation.
*****

References:-

1. Bentley Navada Paper on online monitoring
2. R, M & U of Bhakra Right Power House, Er. Surinder Singh