Self-guiding instrument carrier for in-situ operation in a generator

摘要

To remove the rotor for a large electrical machine is costly and time consuming. Especially the outage time of a power plant, which is needed for the removal of a generator rotor is very expensive and should be minimized. To avoid opening of the generator for inspection and maintenance instrument carriages can be used. The main objective of the present invention is to provide a new method, which allows the reliable guidance for an in-situ instrument carrier inside the annular gap of a generator and a corresponding instrument carrier. One objective of this method is to avoid the use of sensors and active control systems for the guidance of the instrument carrier. To this end a passively self-guiding system and method is proposed, which takes advantage of the internal structure of a generator and uses the passive centering properties of magnets to guide the instrument carrier through the annular gap of a generator.