AESIEAP Conference of the Electric Power Supply Industry October 25-28, 2010

Area II: Power Generation & Distributed Energy – 9

PARTIAL REWINDING OF 5 MW VACUUM PRESSURE IMPREGNATION

(VPI) GENERATOR WINDING

I. Rendroyoko Sigit Pudji Handojo Didik Setya Irawan

Electrical Power Senior Engineer Power Generator Expert Maintenance Supervisor
PLN Head Office Garuda Maintenance Fascility PLN Cabang Kupang
Mobile : +628112202597 Mobile : +628123367443
Ignatius.rendroyoko@pln.co.id sigit@gmf-aeroasia.co.id pltdtenau@gmail.com

Keywords: Repair work, generator stator winding, insulation damaged and partial rewind

Abstract:

Generator failures due to insulation breakdown on stator windings may cause severe damages to the equipment
and expensive losses. Stator winding insulation of generator is prone to partial discharge as a result of voids within
insulation and air gaps adjacent to insulation under high voltage stress. In this case, numbers of the stator bars had
crack in the overhang section just outside of the core caused by flashover as a result of overvoltage condition. A
difficult decision has been determined to repair the stator on site rather than to replace it with new equipment. The
repair work of damaged stator winding which caused by partial discharge require numbers of specific techniques,
methods, and proper procedures especially when the stator winding is a vacuum pressure impregnation (VPI)
treated generator winding. An extensive partial repair can be carried out if the damage only occurred on several
numbers of coils.

This paper describes experience gained during repair work activities on a 5 MW global vacuum pressure
impregnation (VPI) type generator winding in Tenau Diesel Power Plant, Kupang, Indonesia. The stator windings
have suffered partial discharge cause by unwanted overvoltage which causes severe damage on its several coils. It
was found that insulation breakdown occurred in numbers of diamond coils on separated stator windings. On-site
installation and partial repair works have been carefully performed in order to meet its original design and values.
Partial rewinding of VPI stators, which the entire stator is impregnated with an epoxy resin, needs specific
techniques, steps and procedures. Series test activities have also been carried out to determine its condition. The
repair work activity was completed in 5 months and more than 3500 operating hours ago, and is still running
without any problems.

INTRODUCTION
The generator restoration was done in Tenau Diesel Power
Station in Kupang, Indonesia. The Power Station has 10
diesel engines with various types of diesel engine types and
manufacturers. One of the engines is 5 MW Caterpillar Diesel
engine D3616TA s/n. 1PD00423 with KATO Synchronous
Generator Type AA 27185001 with natural cooled stator
windings. This diesel generator set is operated routinely as
main engine to supply Kupang power distribution system base
load. The peak load of Kupang distribution system reaches 27
MW and the total power generated capacity is around 28 MW.
If there is a disturbance occurred on one of the generating
machines, hence, it will lead directly to electricity shutdown.
In July 2008, the Caterpillar D3616TA diesel engine has
experienced several problems in its engine side. Mainly, the
problems were caused by failure on cylinder heads and
crankshaft that generated excessive vibration on the engine.
Diesel engine reparation has been carried out approximately
four months and during that period, its generator part was
kept in good condition. The reparation has been completely
done and the diesel engine was ready to be operated in early
January 2009.
In January 2009, the diesel engine was put back into
operation. After two hours operation, suddenly, there was an
short circuit breakdown on generator winding. The short

1
AESIEAP Conference of the Electric Power Supply Industry October 25-28, 2010

circuit resulted in severe burnt damage to the generator’s

stator winding.

The generator failure has caused shortage in electricity power

supply to Kupang electricity system. The power system has
experienced deficit up to 8 MW in power supply and this has
forced utility to do power curtailment. In response to this
growing power shutdown problems, PLN Area Kupang as
electrical utility company in East Nusa Tenggara Region in
cooperation with other qualified third parties have organized
repair work programs.

In this paper, evaluation and analysis of the root cause of the

generator failure is explained as well as the repair process.
The procedures and methods of stator winding repair work are
described in detail including testing stages. In particular,
series of feasible partial repair work on a Vacuum pressure
Figure 1Damaged Stator Winding
impregnation (VPI) treated generator winding are introduced.
The further problems with the machine discovered during The investigation of the root cause of the problems comes up
repair are also explained. with important point as follow:
a. The partial discharge failure may be caused by
DAMAGES ASSESMENT & INVESTIGATION weaknesses on winding insulation and at the same time it
First step of the actions is to conduct investigation on the may be generated by overvoltage condition.
problem. Instead of merely finding the location of partial b. The winding insulation failure may be caused by aging
discharge, investigation is conducted also to find out the root and corrosion. On the other side the overvoltage
cause of the problem. condition may be caused by AVR malfunction that lead
The generator was opened and the stator winding was to supply full output VDC to the exciter.
dismantled from its top and bottom housing bearing, rotor part c. The core damage may also be caused by entry of foreign
and other accessories for inspection. The inspection result material inside when machine in operation (see fig.2).
founds that:
1. Initial inspection of the stator winding showed that a
flashover between turns in different winding layers had
occurred on 5 different coils, spreaded in different
position. The stator winding coils is partly burnt and
damaged (see Fig.1).
2. Preliminary electrical test on generator winding
insulation shows that the winding insulation has a
minimum level of electrical strength to survive electrical
stresses in normal operation
3. It was found that numbers of the stator knuckles had
cracked in the section outside of the core. The remainder
of the bars still in the stator were then be inspected, and
similar cracks in the same position were found
4. Several small foreign materials found in most locations
around the inside of the generator (see figure 2)

From the above inspection findings, it is still difficult to find
out the true cause of winding failure. The partial discharge /
flashover on stator winding may be generated by insulation
failure, aging of winding insulation system, corrosion and
material deterioration by foreign materials. The other
potential cause of the failure is caused by overvoltage on
stator winding.
Figure 2 Strange materials inside generator
Based on the winding inspection and investigation, it was
considered that a total rewind was necessary. The winding
insulation had been degraded by the flashover and taking into
account that the generator is a vacuum pressure impregnation
(VPI) treated generator winding. The options to conduct
winding repair are discusses on the next paragraph.

2
AESIEAP Conference of the Electric Power Supply Industry
REPAIR WORK OPTIONS
PLN researched the alternatives. One option was to consider
the failure as a total loss of the generator winding and install
new generator winding. Another option was to do partial
rewind for the generator. Based on technical experiences,
evaluation and analysis, it is still possible to repair the stator
winding. There are three options to consider:
1. One option was to consider the failure as a total loss of
the generator stator winding and make plan to purchase
and install new complete set of stator winding
2. The second option was to do stator winding repair for the
generator in authorized workshop. The damage of the
stator winding still can be repaired by replacing with new
coil parts. However, the process of rewinding and
installation of the new coils would leave the unit in a
forced outage stage for several months
3. The most cost effective and conservative approach would
be to proceed with on-site partial rewind for the
generator. The damage of the stator winding till can be
repaired by replacing with new coils.
Figure 3Coil connection diagram
Comparison between options of conducting partial repair and
purchasing brand new stator winding shows that the best
option is to do partial repair. The partial rewind involved the
ordering of set of new coils to replace the damaged existing
coils. This would have the advantages of requiring no
engineering design work, of leaving the undamaged bars
undisturbed and using the same end-winding support system
and also will save substantial amount of time. However, this
option need high level of expertise in removing damaged coil
parts and put the new / repaired coil without causing other
October 25-28, 2010
problems. Furthermore, this option consequently has higher
risk on the success rate of partial rewind work.
Due to the cost and operational consideration, and also
operational pressures, it was decided to apply on-site partial
rewind which involved replacing with new original coils,
reparation on damaged coils, and the application of resin to
the affected areas and then returning the machine into
services.
PARTIAL REPAIR OF STATOR WINDING
PLN, along with its generator service partner, Garuda
Maintenance Facility (GMF), proceed to repair the existing
stator winding. Initial electrical test were done by PLN to
determine the baseline condition of the stator winding. In
particular, the cooper winding resistance measurement was
carefully performed in order to compare it to factory values
and assure consistency of measurement values with the final
values.
Figure 4Re-tapping process activities
In general, the following steps are the procedures in
conducting stator winding repair:
a. Remove the stator coil and surge ring support
b. Remove the compression bolts and finger plate from
frame
c. Remove the damaged stator wedges (see Figure 5)
d. Clean out by dry air
e. Cut the damaged stator teeth wedges
f. Grinding the damaged stator surface core, do careful and
avoid the metal dust fill in side
g. Clean up by using clean cloth and by dry air
h. Separated the damaged core lamination by using thin
knife (round 1 mil thick)
i. Sprayed by insulation varnish onto separated lamination
sheet and dry it out
j. Pull back the lamination onto its position
3
AESIEAP Conference of the Electric Power Supply Industry
k. Applied the epoxy / resin onto these lamination
l. Repair all damaged finger plate or replaced
m. Re assembly the compression bolt acc to the torque
required.
n. Test the core looseness after compression bolts has been
tighten, found loose on the lamination is indicate loose on
compression bolts
o. Test and analysis the core repair result
p. Any unsatisfactory result must be repaired.
q. Clean up and spray paint coating
r. Core ready to refitting coils
Figure 5 removing damaged stator wedges
There are four new methods that have been learned from
previous result and kept as standard procedures:
1. For a totally damaged stator coil, the damaged material
have to be replaced with new and original winding coil in
order to ensure quality of the stator winding restoration.
2. In case of damaged insulation layer surface of the stator
winding, a partial re-insulation has to be carried out to
restore the conditions and lamination coil performance.
3. The more effective method to conduct testing to detect
position of damaged coil
4. Prove the high voltage test on half-baked varnish can be
done with good results.
The extensive repairs included removal of numbers of
existing insulating clip caps and cooper clips over the series
joints. The soldered clips were removed by flame torch.
Maximum care was needed in this operation in order to avoid
damage the adjacent coil insulation. In rewinding process, a
bar placed in the winding next to or near the neutral end will
obviously experience far less electrical stress than a bar near
the line end [1]. This results in fewer discharges and slower
deterioration of the insulation. That is why during a rewind
using the original bars, they are usually swapped around so
that bars, which were at the line connections, are at the
neutral.
October 25-28, 2010
For the coil that was damaged in the lamination, layer
restripping should be done upto the deepest layer. Each of the
layer should be clean up, apply re-taping insulation with mica
glass tape and spray insulation varnish onto separated
lamination sheet. All the winding failure area were ground out
and cleaned up, and coated with a penetrating insulating
varnish. The re-winding activities should maintain the same
characteristics as the original.
In repairing the Vacuum Pressured Impregnation (VPI)
winding, it has been developed two interesting improved
techniques to do partial rewinding on that particular stator
winding type. For PLN engineers, this technique was a new
method and also a break-through in doing partial repair of
stator winding.
1. Since the stator winding is GVPI (Global vacuum
Pressure Impregnation) then almost every part of the
winding is integrated and covered by the varnish
lamination, so an excessive movement of coil part will
cause cracks on certain location of the winding. In
removing the broken / old coils and replacing with the
new coils cannot avoid the occurrence of cracks on a long
coil. The techniques is to move the crack by adding
wooden pegs in each coil which is potentially crack so it
can be repaired / reinsulated.
2. In these partial rewinding activities, there were 3 types of
coils: new original coils, old coils and old coils that were
damaged / cracked as a result of removing the broken coil
parts. The multilayer crack and void that might occur on
the diamond coil indentation should be fixed and
reinsulated on site due to time constraint. HIPOT testing
are conducted for each reinsulated coils with certain
specific voltage level refer to the IEEE standard
Figure 6 Removing stator wedges over burnt coils
4
AESIEAP Conference of the Electric Power Supply Industry October 25-28, 2010

Drying out of the winding insulation is an important aspect in 
 



stator winding re-insulation process. This should be done in 


order to remove moisture from the winding insulation. Special
heat sink cloth was used to extract heat away from the area
and protect the coil insulation during the heating process (see
Figure 8). The coil insulation was protected during this
operation, and also was trimmed back to allow for longer
insulating clip assembly to be installed.
Figure 7Drying process of winding insulation
The heat source for the drying process use external heat
source from 12 heater lamps.
STATOR WINDING TEST
Before the stator winding is put back into its generator
construction structure, it should passed high potential
(HIPOT) testing. The HIPOT test that is imposed here refer to
the IEEE standard, however, because of certain conditions of
the coils a few exceptions are implemented. From a reference,
it is stated that for green, untreated or uncured coils intended
for vacuum pressure impregnation (VPI) or resin rich hot
pressing, there are really no official standards. Each motor
OEM, coil manufacturer or repair center has its own
procedures, but there are always issues when more failures
than expected arise during the testing process. In that case,
special testing condition has been implemented as follows :
In a series circuit of winding coils, each of coil chain acts a
voltage divider circuit. These exceptions in HIPOT testing
still have a foothold on IEEE standards.
Based on IEEE Standard and EASA Standard:

 

Based on the above values, the HIPOT testing are carried out
refer to the following conditions:
1. For new coil the HIPOT voltage is 13.6 kV
2. For old and re-insulated coils e or phase in the group
who did not issue 13.6 KV (total / no per coil and
escape)
From table 1 here, it is shown that for 6.6 kV output generator
voltage, the suggested hipot test value is only 12.24 kV, much
lower compare to the above calculation.
Tabel 1Suggested Hipot test voltages
PROBLEMS DETECTED & FIELD TEST
FINDINGS
It was stated above that there is a possibility that the root
cause of the overvoltage came from Automatic Voltage
Regulator (AVR) malfunction that lead to supply excessive
output VDC to the exciter.
Function of an Automatic Voltage Regulator operating system
(AVR) is to control field / excitation current in order to keep
the generator output voltage remains constant and stable. First
technical investigation on AVR operating system was carried
out on the AVR itself. There were possibilities of malfunction
on AVR device that generate overvoltage on stator winding.
The AVR has been checked and tested using product standard
guide of instruction manual. From the test result, it can be
concluded that the equipment is still functioning properly.
The other possible source of error may occurred in the AVR
input voltage sensing. In the search path on voltage sensing
cable wiring, it was found that one sensing voltage cable has

 'bad contact' condition. This is where the problems of

 
 transient overvoltage occurs on the stator winding.



The voltage regulator operational test (reference Kato


 = 24.14 kV Instruction Manual) [6] was originally setup for voltage
regulators that had single phase sensing only. If the sensing
For Maintenance Test (Rewinding or re-condition coil) based voltage drops too far below, the voltage adjust
on EASA 65 % of acceptance test:

5
AESIEAP Conference of the Electric Power Supply Industry
potentiometer(s) setting, the internal flashing circuit will
come on to get the generator voltage back up to “normal’. If
the sensing voltage goes completely away, the voltage
regulator will go into a “fully on” condition, the generator
voltage will go into an overvoltage condition since the voltage
regulator will dump everything it can into the exciter field to
get the generator voltage back up to “normal”.
On the specification, it has been known that the voltage
regulator does not have build-in over excitation protection
circuit. In that case, if accidentally the sensing cable is open it
will make the generator to be over voltage. The overvoltage
condition could be harmfull to the generator by stressing the
insulation system that is used in the generator (asuming clean
and dry winding).
The protection system from overvoltage condition is provided
by circuit breaker sensing that have extra contact that would
prevent power to be applied to the voltage regulator.
However, the other protection in the engine control panel that
prevents this overvoltage from hapenning was deactivated.
There was no particular reason found why the protection
system was not activated. This might be due to ignorance
about the importance of engine protection issues.
From the findings on voltage regulator and engine protection
systems, it is clear that the over voltage condition may be
generated by mal function of voltage regulator system.
Furthermore, the engine protection system does not work
properly and result in over voltage condition to generator
winding. These findings may prove the cause of over voltage
that was occured on the stator winding.
CONCLUSIONS
This paper describes the emergency response procedure in
repairing a damaged generator-stator winding in Tenau Power
Station, Kupang, Indonesia. The stator winding had partial
discharge due to overvoltage.
Severe damage to the stator winding forced the unit out of
service and several repair work alternatives were considered,
including a full stator rewind and on-site partial rewind
options. Repairs was carried out by special rewinding
technique on the vacuum pressure impregnation (VPI) type
stator winding so that the process of repair and replacement of
damaged coils would not interfere and give bad impact to the
other winding.
The cost of the project was approximately only one quarter
the cost of a complete rewinding, and took only half of the
repairing time. This proves that an onsite partial rewinding
repair works on a VPI type stator winding which is carried out
with standard procedures can give good result with cost
effective
October 25-28, 2010
REFERENCES:
1. David C H Tarrant BSc. Eng. (Elec), Pr. Eng, MSAIEE,
“Problems and Solutions on a 350MW Turbo-Alternator
Stator”, Iris Rotating Machine Conference, San Antonio,
Texas, USA, June 2002
2. Generator & Motor Services, LLC, “Recent
Developments in Large Generator Repair”, EPRI –
Generator Predictive Maintenance & Refurbishment
Conference”, December 1998.
3. B.K. Gupta, G.C. Stone, J. Stein “Stator Winding Hipot
(High Potential) Testing”, 2009 IEEE Electrical
Insulation Conference, Montreal, QC, Canada, 31 May -
3 June 2009
4. LLJ Mahon, “Diesel Generator Handbook”, Elsevier,
Oxford, 1992
5. Hal Miller and Kevin Alewine, “Electrical Testing of
Uncured Resin Rich or Untreated VPI Coils”, TecTalk,
Schenectady, NY, 2007
6. Kato Engineering Inc., “Instruction Manual : Voltage
Regulator”, www.kato-eng.com
BIOGRAPHY
Ignatius Rendroyoko was born in Semarang, Indonesia in
1970. He graduated from the Institute Technology of
Bandung, Indonesia in 1994 and served as an electrical
engineer in PLN since 1995. After completing his Master of
Engineering Science Degree in Monash University - Australia
in 2002, he is currently working as Power Quality
Performance Analyst in PLN Head Office.
Sigit Pudji Handojo was born in Cirebon, Indonesia in 1970.
He graduated from the Polytechnic of ITB - Bandung in 1992
and served as an electrical engineer in GMF since 1993. He
completed numbers of expertise trainings in aviation engine,
gas turbine, control equipment and electric power generators
from 1993 - 2009. He is currently working as Senior Power &
System Engineer for GMF Aeroasia.
Didik Setya Irawan was born in Malang, Indonesia in 1981.
He graduated from the Merdeka University - Malang in 2004
and served as mechanical engineer in PLN since 2005. He is
currently working as Diesel Power Station Manager in
Waikabubak, Sumba Branch, East Nusa Tenggara Indonesia.