A Review of Partial Discharge in Stator Winding of Rotating Machines Fed by Voltage Source PWM Motor Drives

Partial Discharge (PD) is a critical threat to insulation reliability in rotating machines fed with Voltage Source Pulse Width Modulation (VS-PWM) motor drives. With the growing adoption of VS-PWM drives in electrified systems, driven by the fast-switching capability and efficiency benefits offered by Wide Band Gap (WBG) devices, it is imperative to design motor stator windings with robust and PD-free insulation. This comprehensive review focuses on elucidating the influence of PWM voltage waveform characteristics of VS-PWM motor drives on PD phenomena, exploring factors such as rise time, frequency, pulse width, voltage shape, and dead time. Additionally, the paper delves into potential reasons explaining the differences in results across various literature and emphasizes the need for a standardized test procedure and setup. Furthermore, the paper reviews various methods adopted in the literature to detect, separate, and quantify PD events under switching frequencies and dv/dt environments. By examining these aspects, this paper contributes to understanding the intricate relationship between VS-PWM drive output voltage and PD-induced stator winding insulation degradation.