The insulation system of a machine coil includes several layers made of materials with different characteristics. The effective insulation design of machine coils, especially in the machine end winding, depends upon an accurate model of the stress grading system. This paper proposes a modeling approach to predict the transient overvoltage, electric field, and heat generation in machine coils with a stress grading system, considering the variation of physical properties in the insulation layers. A non-uniform line model is used to divide the coil in different segments based on material properties and lengths: overhang, stress grading and slot. The cascaded connection of chain matrices is used to connect segments for the representation of the complete machine coil. The resulting model is able to simulate the transient overvoltages due to the application of fast rise time pulses such as those observed with pulse width modulation from adjustable speed drives, considering coils with different insulation topologies and under pulses with different rise times. The parameters in each coil region are calculated using the finite element method (FEM). Additionally, the resistive heat and electric field distribution in the machine coil are calculated for excitations with different rise times by means of 3-dimensional FEM simulations.
