Rotor Temperature Measurement

The sponsor has issues tracking and measuring the temperature of the rotor on a wound field salient pole generator without an existing device to do the job. The team designed a system that can take the temperature readings from a resistance temperature detector sensor attached to a field coil and transmit these readings to a data acquisition system for analysis.The system’s microcontroller uses the change in resistance to calculate the temperature in degrees Celsius using programming libraries, then transmits the temperature readings at a rate of one reading per second to a data acquisition system via a Bluetooth app. This app displays the readings and stores them on the tablet’s solid-state hard drive, allowing them to be referenced anytime. The design’s capabilities allow the operator to monitor the temperature of a field coil on a spinning rotor, enabling the sponsor to verify its thermal models with test results and create more efficient machines.