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EL-E - Practical Troubleshooting of Electrical

Equipment & Control Circuits

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Short Description
This manual focuses on the main issues of troubleshooting electrical equipment
and control circuits of today to enable you to walk onto your plant or facility to
troubleshoot and fix problems as quickly as possible.

Description
This manual focuses on the main issues of troubleshooting electrical equipment
and control circuits of today to enable you to walk onto your plant or facility to
troubleshoot and fix problems as quickly as possible.

Table of Contents
Download Chapter List

Table of Contents

First Chapter
Types of Problems

1
Types of Problems

1.1 Introduction

Building electrical equipment or networks so as to completely eliminate the

possibility of failure in service is neither a practical, nor a viable proposition. It is
therefore a fact of life, that different types of problems do occur in electrical
equipment and systems, however infrequently and at random locations.

However, it is imperative that the problems should be identified, diagnosed and

solved as quickly as possible to avoid causing disturbance to the users, mitigate
damage to equipment and prevent safety hazards. For example, problems
involving electrical faults produce short circuit currents which release enormous
amount of destructive heat energy capable of causing irreparable damage to
insulators, conductors and equipment and produce violent magnetic forces that
can twist and destroy conductors and bus-bars in the panels. Electrical faults in a
hazardous area like a refinery can even cause explosions.

It is of major importance to prevent or mitigate problems in electrical systems

because the cost of damage to life and property inflicted by major problems can
be very huge and prohibitive. The cost of electrical failures is attributable to the
following:

Loss of revenue due to downtime

Cost of labour for trouble shooting, repairing, restarting etc
Cost of damaged equipment and material including repairs,
replacements, scrapped material
Cost incurred due to injuries suffered by personnel

Prevention or mitigation of problems have the tangible benefits of reduced repair

costs and down time and the intangible benefits of improved safety, morale etc.

1.2 Problems and their genesis

Problems can arise on account of various reasons such as:

Design deficiencies
Quality of installed equipment
Installation deficiencies
Operation deficiencies
Quality of maintenance carried out on the equipment
Inherent ageing and deterioration of equipment
 External causes like hostile environment, malfunction of protection
devices etc

1.3 Problem categories

Problems can be broadly classified into two categories, namely electrical

problems and mechanical problems.

1.3.1 Electrical problems

Electrical problems can arise either in the electrical circuit or in the equipment
and components connected in the electrical circuit.

Types of electrical equipment used in practical circuits

Equipment used in electrical circuits can be broadly divided into power equipment
and control equipment.

Power and power electronic equipment

Power and power electronic equipment are used for handling the main electrical
energy in electrical circuits. They are designed to carry relatively larger
magnitudes of power.

Control equipment

Control equipment, as the name implies are used only for controlling the power
handled by the main power circuits and equipment and hence are designed
relatively to handle lesser power than what is handled by power equipment and
circuits.

Electrical circuits

Electrical circuits are used for interconnecting different electrical devices together
to enable the operation of electrical equipment and are generally classified as
power circuits and control circuits. A power circuit consists of the main power
device (motor, generator or some other power device) along with associated
power conductors, contactors, protection devices etc. A control circuit consists of
switches, field device contacts, timers, relay coils, relay contacts, protection
devices and light power conductors. Power circuits invariably handle more power
than control circuits.
Power circuits are required for carrying power to, or from large electrical
equipment like motors, alternators or an electrical installation. They are used for
performing the following functions:

Circuit control using devices such as contactors, circuit breakers etc.

Isolation of equipment or network using devices such as isolators, linked
switches and circuit breakers
Protection against overload and short circuits using thermal overload
relays, electro-magnetic relays, circuit breakers, fuses etc.

Power circuits carry large magnitude of power and therefore consist of heavy
conductors along with switching devices like contactors, breakers for switching
the power on and off. Protection devices are also included in power circuits for
resolving overload conditions or other faults. Figure 1.1 shows the typical power
circuit of a DOL starter used for a 3-phase induction motor.

Figure 1.1

Power circuit for a motor

Control circuits are used for automatic control, safety interlocking and sequencing
the operations of electrical equipment. Control circuit hardware consists of relay
contacts, wires, timers, counters, relay coils etc. The circuit consists of input
contacts representing various conditions and the coils at the output are energized
or de-energized depending on the input conditions. A few simple control circuits
are shown in Figure 1.2 to represent such logical conditions.

(a) (b) (c)

Figure 1.2

Simple control circuits

Electrical problems can be basically categorised as following:

Open circuits and short circuits

Active and passive faults
Incipient and solid faults
Open circuits and short circuits

An ‘open circuit’ is a condition in which current fails to flow through its intended
path due to disconnection or open circuiting of the current path. ‘Short circuit’ is
a situation wherein the current in a circuit flows through an unintended path either
between the phases or between phases and earth.

Active and passive faults

An ‘Active fault’ is one, where the fault current flows from one phase conductor
to another (phase-to-phase) or alternatively from one or more phase conductors
to earth (phase-to-earth). An active fault can be a ‘solid fault’ or an ‘incipient
fault’. A solid fault occurs due to sudden and complete breakdown of insulation
resulting in high fault currents and release of huge amounts of destructive
energy. A solid fault must be cleared as quickly as possible due to the
catastrophic damage it can cause to equipment. An ‘incipient’ fault is a fault that
starts with a small magnitude and develops over an extended period of time, till
the deterioration results in the occurrence of a ‘solid’ fault.

Passive faults on the other hand are not really faults but are rather conditions that
stress the system beyond its design capacity and which may ultimately lead to
occurrence of active faults. Typical examples for passive faults are:

Overloading - Leading to overheating of conductors and insulation

resulting in their premature failure
Over voltage - Stressing insulation beyond its limits
Under frequency - Impairing the performance of equipment
Power swings – Causing generators to go out-of- synchronism with each
other

While passive faults are not as severe as active faults in the short run, it is
necessary to identify and clear these faults to prevent them developing into larger
faults.

1.3.2 Mechanical problems

Mechanical problems, as the name implies are on account of mechanical causes

like bearing defects, breakages, jamming of moving parts, lubrication problems
etc. Mechanical problems can lead to electrical problems. A defective motor
bearing can cause the rotor to foul with the stator of the motor causing an
electrical flashover.
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