Developing a Synchronous Motor Maintenance Strategy

Motors are essential equipment in industrial facilities for driving the process, and synchronous motor technology is particularly important for high-torque applications such as extruders and reciprocating compressors. Proper maintenance of synchronous motors is necessary to ensure a long usable motor life. Standards such as NFPA 70B, NETA MTS, and IEEE 492 provide an overall maintenance plan and acceptable performance characteristics for synchronous motors but are not written to be specific to an existing synchronous motor. This paper will provide an overview of synchronous motors and review the maintenance practices outlined in published standards. Cases of synchronous motor failures where following these standards may not have prevented the root cause are discussed. The paper ends with an example and guidance on how to perform a failure-mode-effects-analysis on a synchronous motor to aid in the creation of motor-specific maintenance plans to improve equipment reliability.