Jämtkraft AB has recently modernized its hydropower station at Hissmofors by replacing four older worn out units with two new units. The generators uses a concept with sliding stator feet to deal with the thermal movements that occur in the stator during operation when the unit is operating intermittently. At other sites, this method revealed shortcomings in the reliability. This has made Jämtkraft AB feel uncertainty about its function and therefore want to investigate it during an early stage. The generators have a built-in monitoring system for the sliding stator feet and by using data from there the function of the sliding stator feet has been investigated. The study focused on how the different stator feet move relative to each other and how the eccentricity and deviation from roundness changed during operation. The results show that there are several indications that the function of the sliding stator feet is not satisfactory.

Harmonics are a well-known problem that has to be dealt with in the design of thegenerator. Internationally accepted standards limits the amount of harmonics allowedin the no-load voltage. These limits can be difficult to fulfill with integral slot winding,where the number of slots per pole and phase is an integer. The presence of thedamper winding often makes the problem with harmonics even worse and harmonicswith frequencies of order 6q±1 arise with significant amplitude. How the damperwinding is designed affect the content of harmonics in the no-load voltage and the aimwith these ? has been to investigate in which extent design of the damper windingaffects the contents of harmonics.Simulations with the 2-D finite element method have showed that if the damper barsis centered in the pole shoe, the amplitude of the harmonics of order 6q±1dependsboth on the ratio between the stator slot pitch and damper bars slot pitch and if thedamper bars are connected between the poles or not.If the damper bars is displaced with ¼ stator slot pitch alternately, the amplitude ofthe harmonics of order 6q±1 is reduced and the influence of the ratio between thestator slot pitch and the damper bars slot pitch will vanish.