Comparative Study and Analysis of DGA Methods for Transformer Mineral Oil

N.A. Muhamad, B.T. Phung, T.R. Blackburn, K.X Lai

The University of New South Wales, School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications, Sydney 2052, Australia

Abstract Dissolved gas-in-oil analysis (DGA) is a sensitive and reliable technique for the detection of incipient fault condition within oil-immersed transformers. The presence of certain key gases is monitored and quantified. There are a number of methods developed for analyzing these gases and interpreting their significance: Key Gas, Rogers Ratio, Doernenburg, Logarithmic Nomograph, IEC Ratio and Duval Triangle. This paper investigates the accuracy and consistency of these methods in interpreting the transformer condition. The evaluation is carried out on DGA data obtained from the local power utilities and from published papers. The data consists of 92 different cases. The key gases considered are hydrogen, methane, ethane, ethylene and acetylene. A MATLAB program was developed to automate the evaluation of the methods. I. INTRODUCTION Mineral oils are mixtures of many different hydrocarbon molecules. They are composed essentially of saturated hydrocarbon called paraffin whose general molecular formula is CnH2n+2 with n the range of 20 to 40 [1]. When use in transformers, the oil acts as a dielectric medium and also as a heat transfer agent. The breakdown of electrical insulating materials and related components inside the transformer liberates gases within the unit. The distribution of these gases can be related to the type of electrical fault, and the rate of gas generation can indicate the severity of the fault. The identity of the gases being generated by a particular unit can be very useful information in any preventive maintenance program [2]. There are several techniques in detecting those fault gases and DGA was recognized as the most informative method. This method involves sampling of the oil to measure the concentration of the dissolved gases. The most important aspect of fault gases analysis is the correct diagnosis of the fault that generated the detected gases. Currently there are several methods developed to do the interpretation of the fault type from the dissolved gases data. In this paper, the six methods of interpretation of the fault gases are investigated and compared. They are: Key Gas, Rogers Ratio, Doernenburg, Logarithmic Nomograph, IEC Ratio and Duval Triangle. The study was done to evaluate the accuracy of each method in predicting the fault and the consistency of each method.
II. METHODOLOGY

C2H4 and C2H2. Table 1 shows the set of data used in this paper.
Fault Type Thermal fault at low temperature Overheating and sparking Arcing Partial Discharge and Corona Normal Faults Type Code
F1 F2 F3 F4 F5

Number of cases 10 33 22 14 13

Table 1: Set of data used in analysis In this paper, MATLAB was used to develop a program to test each method. This involves some basic coding and construction of Simulink block diagrams. A. DGA Interpretation Methods Insulating oils under abnormal electrical or thermal stress breakdown to liberate small quantities of gases. The composition of these gases is dependent upon type of fault. By means of dissolved gas analysis (DGA), it is possible to distinguish fault such as partial discharge (corona), overheating, and arcing in a great variety of oil filled equipment [6]. Similar to a blood test or scanner examination of human body, DGA can give early diagnosis and increase the chances of finding the appropriate cure. There are many methods in DGA. In this paper six of the more commonly used methods were studied: i. Roger Ratio Method

The Rogers method utilizes four gas ratios: CH4/H2, C2H6/CH4, C2H4/C2H6 and C2H2/C2H4. Diagnosis of faults is accomplished via a simple coding scheme based on ranges of the ratios as shown in tables 2 and 3 below [3].

Table 2: Gas Ratio Codes [3].

The six methods are tested to interpret 92 data sets of 5 fault gases [1, 3-5]. These five key gases are H2, CH4, C2H6, Table 3: Rogers Ratio Codes [3].

The combination of the coding gives 12 different types of transformer faults. The type of faults based on the code is shown in table 4 below [3].

iii.

Doernenburg Ratio Method

This method utilizes the gas concentration from ratio of CH4/H2, C2H2/CH4, C2H4/C2H6 and C2H2/C2H4. The value of the gases at first must exceed the concentration L1 to ascertain whether there is really a problem with the unit and then whether there is sufficient generation of each gas for the ratio analysis to be applicable [7]. Table 7 shows the key gases and their concentration L1 [7].

Table 7: Concentration L1 for Doernenburg Ratio method [7] Table 4: Classification based on Rogers Ratio Codes [3] ii. IEC Ratio Method According to IEEE Standard C57.104-1991[7], the step-bystep procedure to diagnose faults using Doernenburg ratio method is: Step 1. Gas concentrations are obtained by extracting the gases and separating them by chromatograph Step 2. If at least one of the gas concentrations (in ppm) for H2, CH4, C2H2, and C2H4 exceeds twice the values for limit L1 (see table 7) and one of the other three gases exceeds the values for limit L1, the unit is considered faulty; proceed to Step 3. Step 3. Determining validity of ratio procedure: If at least one of the gases in each ratio CH4/H2, C2H2/CH4, C2H2/CH4 and C2H6/C2H2 exceeds limit L1, the ratio procedure is valid. Otherwise, the ratios are not significant, and the unit should be resample and investigated by alternative procedures. Step 4. Assuming that the ratio analysis is valid, each successive ratio is compared to the values obtained from table 8 in the order of ratio CH4/H2, C2H2/CH4, C2H2/CH4 and C2H6/C2H2 Step 5. If all succeeding ratios for a specific fault type fall within the values (column) given in Table 8 [7], the suggested diagnosis is valid.

This method originated from the Rogers Ratio method, except that the ratio C2H6/CH4 was dropped since it only indicated a limited temperature range of decomposition [3]. Here, the remaining three gas ratios have different ranges of code as compared to the Rogers ratio method and they are shown in table 5. The faults are divided into nine different types as listed in table 6 [3].

Table 5: IEC Ratio Codes [3]

Table 8: Fault diagnosis for Doernenburg Ratio Method [7] iv. Duval Triangle Method.

Table 6: Classification based on IEC Ratio Codes [3]

M. Duval developed this method in the 1960s. According to [8], to determine whether a problem exists at least one of the hydrocarbon gases or hydrogen must be at L1 level or above

and the gas generation rate is at least at G2. The L1 level and the gas generation rate for this method are shown in table 9.

The principle of the Key Gas method is based on the quantity of fault gases released from the insulating oil when a fault occurs which in turn increase the temperature in the power transformer. The presence of the fault gases depends on the temperature or energy that will break the link or relation of the insulating oil chemical structure. This method uses the individual gas rather than the calculation of gas ratios for detecting fault. The significant and proportion of the gases are called key gases. Figure 2 indicate these key gases and relative proportions for the four general fault types [7]. vi. Nomograph Method

Table 9: L1 limits and gas generation rate for Duval Triangle Method [8]. Once a problem has been determined to exist, to obtain diagnosis, calculate the total accumulated amount of the three Duval Triangle gases (CH4, C2H2, C2H4) and divide each gas by the total to find the percentage of each gas of the total. Plot the percentages of the total on the triangle (Figure1) to arrive at the diagnosis [8].

The logarithmic nomograph method was developed by J. O. Church [1]. This method combines the fault gas ratio concept with the Key Gas threshold value in order to improve the accuracy of fault diagnosis. It was intended to provide both a graphic presentation of fault-gas data and the means to interpret its significance. The Nomograph consists of a series of vertical logarithmic scales representing the concentrations of the individual gases as shown in Figure 3. With this method, straight lines are drawn between adjacent scales to connect the points representing the values of the individual gas concentration. The slopes of these lines are the diagnostic criteria for determining the type of fault. The key at the bottom of the chart between the two axes indicates the fault type for the two axes. A visual comparison of the slopes of the line segments with the keys given at the bottom of the Nomograph is all needed to identify the type of fault. The position of the lines relative to the concentration scales provides a means of assessing the severity of the fault.

Figure 1: Duval Triangle transformer fault diagnosis [8] v. Key Gas Method

Figure 3: The Logarithmic Nomograph

(a) Principal Gas: Ethylene (b) Principal Gas: Carbon Monoxide

Each vertical scale has a threshold value labeled with an arrow. For the slope of a line to be considered significant, at least one of the two tie-points should lie above a threshold value. If neither tie-point lies above a threshold value then the fault indication of that slope is not considered significant. B. Testing Method

(c) Principal Gas: Hydrogen

(d) Principal Gas: Acetylene

Figure 2: Key Gases Diagnosis

The testing method should be the same for each DGA interpretation method in order to compare their accuracy and consistency. Each method diagnosis was grouped according to

the faults type code for comparison. This is shown in table 10 below.
Method Roger F1 Slight overheating <150oC Overheating 150oC-200oC Overheating 200oC-300oC F2 Conductor overheating Winding circulating current F3 Flashover. Arcing Continuous sparking. F4 PDs PDs with tracking F5 Normal

Figure 4: Example of Simulink block diagram used for testing.

III. RESULTS

Each method was tested against all the 92 cases in the data set. The percentages of successful prediction and consistency are calculated using the following formulas:
S Fn = CFn = RFn 100 Number of cases of Fn (1) (2)

IEC

Core/tank circulating current. Thermal fault Thermal fault o 300oC-700oC <150 C Thermal fault 150oC-300oC Heating Thermal fault > 700oC Heating and Discharge

n =5 n =1

S Fn

Discharge of low energy Discharge of high energy Arcing Arcing and heating

PDs of low energy density PDs of high energy density Arcing, heating and discharge Arcing and discharge Corona

Normal

Number of fault types where: Fn = type fault code (n=1,2,3,4,5)

Nomograph

Normal (<L1)

Doernenburg

Duval

Thermal Thermal decomposition decomposition with very high ratio 4 Thermal Thermal fault fault <300oC 300oC-700oC Thermal fault > 750oC Principal gas: Principal C2H4 gas: CH4 and C2H6

Arcing

Normal (< L1)

Low energy discharge High energy discharge Principal gas: C2H2

PDs Mix thermal and electrical faults Principal gas: H2

Normal (< L1)

The results are summarized in table 11. It can be seen that the Duval Triangle method is the most consistent method followed by the Key Gas, Nomograph, IEC Ratio, Roger Ratio and lastly the Doernenburg method. Note the low consistency value (<50%) with some of the methods. We also find that those methods that take into account the limit value of fault gases before doing diagnosis have better success in predicting the normal condition and methods that have no limit value of faults gases always fail to predict the normal condition. This affects the consistency result.
Method Faults Number of Code predictions (P) Number of correct predictions (R) % Successful Consistency prediction (C) (S)

Key Gas

Normal (< L1)

Table 10: Grouping for faults type code. In this paper, the comparison was done using MATLAB. A program was developed to run the test based on each method rules in diagnosing the faults. This involved several coding and Simulink block diagram to run the test. Figure 4 shows an example of block diagrams used as testing method. Generally the diagrams consist of three main sections. The first section is for checking the limit value of the faults gases if applicable. The second section is for calculating the ratio and finding the ratio coding if applicable. The last section provides the diagnosis based on the ratio coding sequence or ratio value or fault gases value.
Roger

IEC

Nomograph

Doernenburg

Duval

Key Gas

F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F1 F2 F3 F4 F5

10 13 13 9 4 6 26 19 9 6 15 24 19 20 14 3 15 9 7 8 10 32 26 10 14 11 46 11 9 13

5 13 12 8 3 5 26 18 9 3 2 23 18 14 13 2 15 8 6 7 10 30 22 7 13 10 33 10 7 2

50% 39% 55% 57% 23% 50% 79% 82% 64% 23% 20% 70% 82% 100% 100% 20% 45% 36% 43% 54% 100% 91% 100% 50% 100% 100% 100% 45% 50% 92%

45%

60%

74%

40%

88%

78%

Table 11: Result analysis for each type of faults.

In this analysis, we also found that the best methods in predicting fault types F1 and F2 are the Duval Triangle and Key Gas method. The Duval Triangle method also is the best method for predicting fault types F3 and F5. Others than Duval Triangle, the Nomograph also is the best method in predicting F5 and F4.
Roger IEC Nomograph Doernenburg Duval Key Gas Total cases, TC No predictions, TNP Number of predictions, TP Correct predictions, TR Incorrect predictions, TW Accuracy ( predicted cases), AP Accuracy ( total cases), AT 92 47 92 26 92 0 92 50 92 0 92 0

one of the expert systems that can be used to diagnose the faults because of its ability in storing knowledge and using it to make decision [5]. Here, the final diagnosis rules are automatically determined and the membership functions of the corresponding fuzzy subsets are simultaneously adjusted. This can give better judgment on diagnosis the transformer faults. A Fuzzy Logic controller was developed using MATLAB to implement the Roger Ratio method. The same data set was used in the testing. It was found that by using this system, the number of cases with no prediction was decreased by 17 percent. This gives a better accuracy based on total cases (52% as compared to 45%) and consistency (51% as compared to 45%). Details of this work on Fuzzy Logic systems will be discussed in another publication.
IV. CONCLUSION

45

66

92

42

92

92

41

61

70

38

82

72

22

10

20

91%

92%

76%

90%

89%

78%

45%

66%

76%

41%

89%

78%

Table 12: Comparison of each method accuracies value. Besides using consistency to evaluate the performance of each method, the accuracy of each method has also been calculated. Here, the accuracy is divided into two categories: the accuracy (Ap) when considering only the predicted cases (Tp) and the accuracy (AT) based on the total number of cases (TC). Their formulas are:

As a conclusion, it was found that those methods using specific codes in their interpretation are more accurate if they make a prediction. This is because they are more precise in interpreting the data for each case into the code. However, whenever the data does not match with the available codes, these methods are not able to give their prediction. This results in their lower level of consistency in predicting the fault and less accurate based on total case prediction. These apply to the Rogers and IEC Ratio method. In contrast, those methods that use direct value of fault gases in their interpretation give higher consistency and same value of accuracies as they attempt to provide predictions for all cases. But as they have all the interpretations, the prediction is likely to be incorrect for certain cases. This is because, the diagnosis is generally based on one specific value of faults gases as indicator, and this tends to widen the range of one type of faults.

AP = AT =

TR 100 TP TR 100 TC

(3) (4)
1. VIII. REFERENCES DiGiorgio, J.B. (2005) Dissolved Gas Analysis of Mineral Oil Insulating Fluids. DGA Expert System: A Leader in Quality, Value and Experience 1, 1-17 Chu, D. and A. Lux, On-line monitoring of power transformers and components: a review of key parameters. Electrical Insulation Conference and Electrical Manufacturing & Coil Winding Conference, 1999. Proceedings, 1999: p. 669-675. Siva Sarma, D.V.S.S. and G.N.S. Kalyani, ANN Approach for Condition Monitoring of Power Transformers using DGA. 2004 IEEE Region 10 Conference, TENCON 2004., 2004. C: p. 444447. Yang, F. and Z. Liang, Comprehensive method detecting the status of the transformer based on the artificial intelligence. 2004 International Conference on Power System Technology, 2004. PowerCon 2004. , 2004. 2: p. 1638-1643. Hongzhong, M., et al., Diagnosis of power transformer faults on fuzzy three-ratio method. The 7th International Power Engineering Conference, 2005. IPEC 2005., 2005. Wang, M., A.J. Vandermaar, and K.D. Srivastava, Review of Condition Assessment of Power Transformers In Service, in IEEE Electrical Insulation Magazine. 2002. p. 12-25. C57.104.1991, I., IEEE Guide for Interpretation of Gases Generated in Oil-Immersed Transformer, I. The Institute of

Table 12 shows the accuracy results. The calculation of accuracy based on the predicted cases show that all methods have accuracy more than 70 percent. The most accurate is the IEC Ratio method followed by the Roger Ratio, Doernenburg, Duval Triangle, Nomograph and Key Gas method. As seen in table 12, the methods that used specific code in their diagnosis have high accuracy (>90%). On the other hand, methods that use direct interpretation based on each value of fault gases are less accurate. However, the accuracy based on the total number of cases shows different trend. Because of the high value of cases with no prediction, the accuracy drops significantly (<70%) for methods that used specific codes in the diagnosis. A possibility to improve the accuracy of DGA diagnosis is via the use of expert systems [9]. Fuzzy Logic is known as

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9.

Electrical and Electronic Engineers, Editor. 1992, The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, Inc p. 27. FIST3-31, Facilities Instructions, Standards and Techniques Volume 3-31 Transformer Diagnostics. 2003, Bureu of Reclamation Hydroelectric Research and Technical Services Group Denver. p. 5-13. Q.Su, et al., A Fuzzy Dissolved Gas Analysis Method for The Diagnosis of Multiple Incipient Faults in a Transformer. IEEE Transaction On Power System, 2000. 15(2): p. 593-597.