When does exciting current inrush occur in power

transformer?
September, 7th 2016

Exciting current inrush

When a transformer is initially energized, there is a phenomenon known
as exciting current inrush. Although inrush currents are not generally as
damaging as fault currents, the duration of exciting current inrush is on the
order of seconds (as compared to on the order of cycles with fault currents).

When does exciting current inrush occur in power transformer?

(on photo: Two 220kV power transformers at Bahawalpur and Burhan; credit:
ntdc.com.pk)
Exciting current inrush conditions also occur much more frequently than
short circuits, so this phenomenon is worth exploring.
Consider what happens when initially energizing a single phase transformer.
Flux in the core is equal to the integral of the excitation voltage.
If the circuit is closed when the voltage is passing through zero and the initial
flux is zero, the sinusoidal flux will be fully offset from zero. The full-offset flux
has a peak value that is twice the peak value of a symmetrical sinusoidal flux.
In other words, the peak flux for a fully offset wave can approach two
times the normal peak flux, and this is generally sufficient to drive the core
into saturation.
At this point, the only thing that limits exciting current is the air-core
impedance of the winding, which is several orders of magnitude smaller
than the normal magnetizing impedance.
Therefore, the exciting current is much greater than the normal exciting
current during the half cycle when the core is saturated. During the opposite
half cycle, the core is no longer saturated and the exciting current is
approximately equal to the normal exciting current.
This is illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1 – Exciting inrush current for a core having no residual flux

The situation is even more extreme when there is residual flux in the core
and the direction of the residual flux is in the same direction as the offset in
the sinusoidal flux wave. This is illustrated in Figure 2 below.
Note that Figure 1 and 2 are drawn on current different scales, so the peak
current plotted in Figure 2 is actually much larger than the peak current
plotted in Figure 1.

Figure 2 – Exciting inrush current for a core having a residual flux

Let’s find the peak inrush current
To find the peak inrush current, limited only by the air-core reactance, it is
convenient to calculate the inductance of the winding using cgs units:

where:
 N – number of turns in the coil
 Amt – area inside the mean diameter of the coil, cm 2
 l – axial length of the coil, cm
 L – inductance of the coil, μH
The flux generated by the inductance φL is equal to the residual flux plus 2
times the normal flux change minus the saturation flux, since the saturation
flux is in the iron. But φL is related to the inductance and the current:

Therefore, the peak inrush current is expressed in the cgs system of

units as follows:

where:
 Ipeak is in amps and
 φr – residual flux
 φn – normal flux change
 φs – saturation flux
Without resistance in the circuit, each successive peak would have the same
value and the current inrush would go on indefinitely. With resistance in the
circuit, however, there is a significant voltage drop across the resistance and
the flux does not have to rise quite as high as the previous cycle.
The integral of the voltage drop represents a net decrease in the flux required
to support the applied voltage. Since the i × R voltage drop is always in the
same direction, each cycle decreases the amount of flux required. When the
peak value of flux falls below the saturation value of the core, the inrush
current disappears. The rate of decay is not exponential although it
resembles an exponentially decaying current.
IMPORTANT! For large power transformers, the inrush current can
persist for several seconds before it finally dies off.
The line reactance has the effect of reducing the peak inrush current by
simply adding inductance to the air-core inductance of the winding. There is a
definite relationship between inrush current and short circuit current because
both are related to the air-core inductance of the windings.
Remember that short circuits tend to exclude flux from the core.
RULE OF THUMB! Typically, a rule of thumb is that peak inrush currents
are a little over 90% of peak short circuit currents. The magnetic forces
caused by inrush currents are generally much smaller than short circuit
forces, however. Because only one winding per phase is involved, there is no
magnetic repulsion between windings.
The whole problem of analyzing exciting current inrush gets much more
difficult when 3-phase transformers are involved. This is because the phase
angles of the exciting voltages are 120° apart, there are interactions of
currents and voltages between phases, and the three poles of the switching
device do not close at exactly the same time.
Nevertheless, it is safe to say that the peak magnitude of inrush current
for three-phase transformers approaches the short circuit current
levels.
One of the interesting features of exciting current inrush is that since the
current is fully offset, there are large percentages of even harmonics present.
Even harmonics are otherwise rarely encountered in power circuits.

Sympathetic inrush
There is also a phenomenon known as sympathetic inrush, where a
transformer that is previously energized will exhibit a sudden change in
current when a nearby transformer is switched on. Sympathetic inrush is
caused by changes in line voltages from the inrush currents of the second
transformer.