Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Clyde V. Maughan
Maughan Generator Consultants
Schenectady, New York 12306 USA
Email: clyde@maughan.com Web: clyde.maughan.com
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in cross-grain tension. Thus stator groundwall
insulation systems remain with limited The predominant problem associated with
mechanical properties, and when subject to groundwall stress is the phenomenon referred to
bending stress, e.g., short-circuit forces, fracture as partial discharge (PD), sometimes incorrectly
about like glass. It remains for another called corona. The stress gradient within the
generation of engineers to find a way to groundwall results in electrical breakdown in the
eliminate the need for mica in stator winding inevitable tiny voids in the groundwall. These
groundwall insulation. Perhaps by use of cable mini-arcs tend to eat through any insulation
windings or oil submerged stators. system that does not rely on the remarkable PD
resistance of mica.
Groundwall Voltage Stress Levels
If the outside surface of the groundwall is not
The stress on the groundwall has a dramatically adequately grounded, there will be discharges of
important impact on electrically-related much more energy. This in turn can result in
problems associated with stator windings. The surface PD, indicated in Photos 2 & 3.
significance of this impact is understood by
realizing that duties associated with stress have
been found to be in the range of a 7th to 11th
power function of the stress level. For example,
if the design stress is increased by 20%, the duty
increases by about (1.2)9, or about 500%.
Recognizing this attribute, stress has been
increased relatively slowly over the years by
design engineers.
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Furthermore, the increased capacitive energy
increases the duties on endwinding grading
systems. For example, the junction between end-
arm grading and slot grounding paints. Photo 4.
Where non-mica insulation has been used in Photo 7. Bare conductor exposed at each series
endwindings, reliability has sometimes been and phase joint. Yellow arrow.
seriously compromised. One example is shown
in Photos 5 & 6, where phase joints were A final observation. Stator winding electrical arc
insulated with non-mica potting compound and damage normally accompanies stator winding
Nomex. failure, but the actual root cause is usually
mechanical, e.g., vibration, fracture, foreign
object, contaminants. To this point in time,
generator failures due to purely electrical duties
are uncommon.
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On bar windings where it is usual to solidly
connect all strands at each end of the bar, this
cancelation of radial flux difference in the slots
does not occur. Very early (in 1915) a Swiss
engineer, Mr. Roebel, invented an elegantly
simple way to construct this transposition on
bars. His invention was no great scientific
discovery, but rather was a remarkably simple
way to accomplish a very difficult task Photo 8. Major winding failure from shorted
construct the transposition. It is so strand groupings. (See also Photo 7.)
manufacturing friendly, the Roebel transposition
system is universally used by all OEMs, with the Strand Insulation
exception of those few who have manufactured
smaller bar windings without consolidating the A small voltage exists between adjacent strands,
strands at the ends of the bars. probably always less than 1 volt, and the strands
must be individually insulated. Originally cotton
The standard Roebel transposition effectively would have been used, then glass and now
compensates the radial flux density gradient in commonly Dacron-glass. This material is thin,
the slot portion of the winding. But on larger typically 1 to 3 mils/side.
generators of non-coil design, the radial flux
gradient in the endwindings becomes A larger voltage exists between tiers of strands.
sufficiently large to cause problems. (This Here a vertical separator is inserted between
concern is automatically eliminated in coil tiers. The stress may be as high as 15 volts and
windings.) Several approaches have been used the thickness may be in the order of 15 mils.
here. The simplest is that of a 540o Roebel Photo 9.
rotation in the slot. (Mr. Roebels invention was
single 360o rotation.) The somewhat
complicated 540 rotation performs a correct
compensation in the slot while inverting the
strands at the two endwindings beyond the core.
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More complicated is the necessity to grade the Field Windings
voltage of the grounding paint at each end of the
slot. Photo 10. The duty differences between stator insulation
systems and field insulation systems could
hardly be more different. On stator windings, the
voltages are high but the mechanical stresses are
low. On fields, the voltages are low, less than
700 Vdc, but the mechanical duties very high, in
the order of thousands of psi.
Physical spacing has also been commonly used This composite structured served adequately
by some OEMs. This design approach is safe for because of the low voltage stresses. In more
hipot test and operational stresses providing recent years, Nomex, glass/epoxy fabric, and
the creepage paths remain uncontaminated, and composites of glass/epoxy and Nomex have
providing there is not a conductive plasma become popular. Generally this ground
resulting from arcing of a failing electrical insulation is in a U-shape, closed at the top by a
connection. In the event the insulating capacity creepage block. Photo 12.
is violated, a ring of fire can result. Photo 7.
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historic insulation system. Again, around 1960
transition was made to a laminate structure of
heavy glass cloth and epoxy resin. The laminate
is degraded somewhat when the 300C retaining
ring shrinks down onto the epoxy glass;
however, the materials that are used are
sufficiently thick and thermally stable that the
electrical strength remains adequate for single
use. (New replacement material must be used if
the ring is removed.)
Stator Windings
Photo 13. Slot liner with damage from an Slot Support Systems
electrical creepage failure.
From the beginning, stator bars were held in the
Turn Insulation slots by wedges of treated paper or hardwood.
The electromagnetic forces were low (almost
The voltage between turns is low, typically 1 to non-existent), the groundwall insulation was
5 volts. Historically mica tape was used, but for soft, and bars had little cause to vibrate. The
the last 50+ years, thin glass/epoxy laminate has wedges held the bars in the slots and kept them
been in common use for turn insulation. So long from falling out of the slots in service, and
as physical spacing is maintained, turn shorts are maybe kept the bars from being thrown out of
unlikely. However, the integrity of the space can the slot in the event of a sudden short circuit.
be violated by fracture or migration of the
material, or by conductive contaminants The wood materials used for 50 years were
bridging the spacing. Failure of turn insulation is satisfactory. But wood inevitably shrinks, and
relatively common. the resulting looseness of wedges was a concern.
With the advent of man-made resins, in the
Endwinding Insulation 1950s transition was made to resin/cotton,
resin/asbestos, and then resin/glass materials.
Under the retaining rings, sheet laminate of (The harder resin/glasses can wear into the core
heavy-weave asbestos cloth and mica was the
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iron if loose, and this can be a concern.) Photo Others relied on side packing and tighter
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radial pressure spring almost universally on
large generators.
Photo 16. GE wedging system, about 1965. In the early years, the endwinding EMF was so
More recently top ripple springs were added. low that almost anything was going to be alright.
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The top and bottom bars in the endwinding, if The resulting GE endwinding system is shown
tied together, form a rather strong mechanical in cross-section in Photo 21.
structure. It remained primarily only to provide
support to the bars (or coils) as they were being
initially installed. Photos 18 & 19.
Photo 19. A large, 1960s vintage string-tied Photo 22. Modern Siemens-Westinghouse
system in cross-section. support system.
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Field Windings
Connections become resonant and break off or The winding copper is a primary source of
fracture the bar. Photo 25. service problems. Copper has poor mechanical
properties, even at room temperature. Yield
strength is low, fatigue properties poor. At
elevated temperature, above about 130C, these
marginal properties begin to fall off. Unlike
steel, copper can only be work hardened; it
cannot be hardened by quenching. With these
low mechanical properties, and the inherent high
mechanical duties, designers have had a difficult
challenge producing support systems that
Photo 25. Series connection broken off and lying successfully restrained copper coil dimensions
under winding. and prevent movement in position.
Sudden short circuit occurs and cracks bars. It is An indirectly cooled slot support design was
doubtful that any design today can experience a shown earlier in Photo 12. In this design, heat
worst-case short circuit without damage to the losses must pass through insulation and forging
bars in the endwindings. Photo 26. iron to be removed by the flow of cooling gas.
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directly cooled windings, which makes them
more vulnerable to contamination.
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dramatic, i.e., hydrogen tends to detonate and
produce a high pressure wave. This wave can
blow the siding off the entire building and bend
a steel door. Photo 33.
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Photo 37. Well designed copper header liquid
connection.
Photo 35. Direct cooling of a rotor winding.
Less common is the use of stainless steel tubes
Stator windings until about 1960 were cooled individually welded into a stainless header
indirectly, left bar in Photo 36. Two types of separate from the copper strand connection.
direct cooling were developed during the late Photo 38.
1950s and are in present usage, center and right
bars in Photo 36.
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through the engineering offices. Fortunately the This field forging had neither of the features of
failure occurred during night shift and no one the first 2 failures and the resulting investigation
was in the office space. But the 2 young test was more thorough. It was found that there were
engineers operating the facility were both killed. huge inclusions in the basic forging, perhaps
The rotor was built with a bored shaft centerline greater than 10 in diameter.
of perhaps 6 diameter and the bore opening was
filled with 6 diameter magnetic steel plugs. At that time, as now, all forgings were coming
Investigation concluded that the bore plugs were from the same facilities for all OEMs, and it was
the root cause of failure. concluded that forging material imperfections
were the cause of all 3 failures. These inclusions
A few months later a field body forging failed in were inherent in the casting processes of that
an operating power plant. Damage was time in that there was heavy contamination in
considerable, but no one was killed. During the liquid metal. As the ingot cooled, the
manufacture of this rotor a machining error had impurities percolated toward the ingot center
occurred and a complicated correction was made and top. Further contributing to forging
to compensate this error. The failure was vulnerability was that the materials had an
assigned to this correction configuration. FATT (fracture appearance transition
temperature) in the range of 40C. This property
In 1956 a third rotor failed in an operating power was totally unacceptable since it means that the
plant. (The writer would have been on site at the material had poor ductility (behaved as a brittle
time of failure had he been home the evening material) below the 40C temperature, and
before to answer the phone.) This failure therefore was intolerant to fatigue stress cycles
severely injured 3 or 4 personnel and destroyed associated with start-stop duty.
the turbine-generator. Photos 39-40.
The OEMs in conjunction with the steel mills
went into a major development program which
in a very short time resulted in much better
forging quality and NDT procedures for
detecting internal material discontinuities. No
further failures occurred, partly because of
modified operating procedures applied to
existing rotors with questionable material
properties.
Photo 39. Non-drive end of the generator after (These modified operating procedures involved
forging failure. operation at higher cooling gas temperatures,
which had the unintended consequence of
exacerbating the stator winding tape migration
problem. See the discussion of stator groundwall
insulation, page 2 above.)
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excess end-of-core heating as load moved The 18/18 alloy is not nearly as vulnerable to the
toward the leading power factor region.) stress corrosion phenomenon as the 18/5 alloy,
The most common of the non-magnetic rings and has been reliable in service since its
was the 18-5 (18% manganese-5% chrome) introduction. It is now the industry standard
material. A few other types of ring material were material for this application.
also used, including Gannalloy. The 18/5
material was found to be subject to stress
corrosion cracking, i.e., under high tensile load IN SUMMARY
and in the presence of water, inter-granular
cracking occurred. This condition led to several Clearly this text has been a very general
ring failures. One of these 18/5 ring in-service overview, with more left unsaid than said. No
failures was in the mid-1990s. Photos 41-42. doubt there are errors of omission as well as
commission. For these included errors and for
topics that are unclear or omitted, the writer
apologizes to the reader. (With the suggestion
that the writer be contacted for clarification.)
But hopefully the reader will have a little better
understanding, and perhaps appreciation, for the
efforts that went into the generator designs of
today.
Photo 41. Failed 18/5 ring. The evolution of large generator winding
insulation and support systems has presented
many difficult challenges to the engineers who
design the generators and to manufacturing
personnel who make these machines. Progress
will continue, but with continuing increasing
sizes and continuing cost pressures, old
problems will re-occur, present problems will
continue, and new problems will inevitably
develop.
Photo 42. Damage to stator from ring failure.
But this has been an impressive 100-year
This ring had been removed and given a full development cycle. Those remarkable engineers
non-destructive test 18 months earlier and was who have been at the forefront of this effort
found trouble-free at that time. Oddly, within the deserve our grateful appreciation.
same month, at a nearby plant a Gannalloy ring
also failed with similar damage.
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