A Co-Simulation Approach for Fault Detection in Induction Motor Drive Systems Using Finite Element and Spectral Analysis

Abstract

Induction motors (IMs) are widely used in electric vehicle (EV) drive systems owing to their cost-effectiveness, durability, and simple design. However, mechanical faults such as static eccentricity have a severe impact on degrading motor performance, potentially leading to machine failures. In addition, because of the nonlinearity of this type of fault, it is difficult to simulate in a traditional MATLAB environment. This paper presents a co-simulation framework for analyzing the effects of static eccentricity faults in IMs using finite element modeling (FEM) and MATLAB software. By integrating ANSYS Maxwell for electromagnetic field analysis, MATLAB/Simulink for implementing the IM drive control and ANSYS Simplorer for system-level simulation, comprehensive analysis of IM performance under both healthy and faulty conditions is carried out and analyzed. Static eccentricity is examined at varying fault severity levels to assess its impact on machine’s performance, particularly in torque signal. Using both time and frequency domain features, statistical features, power spectrum density and order spectrum characteristics are extracted and selected. The results indicate that increasing eccentricity leads to significant torque oscillations and harmonic distortions, with specific fault signatures in both frequency and time domain.