CWT-PSDT-Based Identification of Electromagnetic-Related Stator Vibration Frequency Components in a Hydro-Generator

Accurate identification of electromagnetically induced stator vibration frequency components is essential for the online condition monitoring of hydro-generators, particularly for assessing the dynamic state of the stator core under normal operating conditions. In engineering practice, the fast Fourier transform (FFT) is widely used for vibration spectrum analysis; however, because the measured vibration response is simultaneously affected by electromagnetic excitation, mechanical rotation, hydraulic disturbance, and external harmonic interference, FFT-based spectra often contain multiple frequency components whose structural relevance is difficult to determine directly. To address this issue, this paper proposes a coupled continuous wavelet transform and power spectral density transmissibility (CWT-PSDT) method for identifying key vibration frequency components with stable time-frequency energy and inter-sensor transmissibility in hydro-generator stator vibration signals. In the proposed framework, the analytic Morlet wavelet is first employed to localize dominant energy bands in the time-frequency domain, and PSDT is then used to screen frequency components with relatively stable inter-sensor transmissibility characteristics, thereby reducing the ambiguity caused by excitation-dominated spectral components. A clamped-clamped beam model is first used for numerical validation, and the maximum identification error of the first five natural frequencies is 4.22%. Experiments on a Francis turbine-generator test rig under five operating conditions further show that the proposed method can distinguish the mechanical rotational component near 10.3 Hz from the electromagnetic-related component near 50.8 Hz, while retaining higher-order electromagnetic-related components around 150 Hz and 250 Hz. The results demonstrate that the proposed CWT-PSDT method provides a physically interpretable and data-efficient approach for extracting stator-core-related spectral features, and offers a theoretical basis for spectrum-based online monitoring and future abnormal-condition comparison of hydro-generator stator responses.