IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Vol. 24, No.

1; February 2017 183

Detection and Classification of Defects in Ceramic Insulators

using RF Antenna
Shaharyar Anjum, Shesha Jayaram
Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Waterloo, ON, Canada

Ayman El-Hag
Department of Electrical Engineering
American University of Sharjah, Sharjah, UAE

and Ali Naderian Jahromi

METSCO Energy Solutions
Mississauga, ON, Canada

ABSTRACT
Defects in ceramic insulators like broken, cracked and punctured discs give rise to the
initiation of partial discharge (PD) activities within the samples which has a
detrimental effect on the insulator life. Hence it is important for the utilities to identify
such defective samples as early as possible so that appropriate replacement strategies
can be devised. The work presented in this paper involves the investigation of a number
of cases of insulator defects, with the goal of developing an online RF-based PD
technique for monitoring ceramic disc insulators. The three classes examined are a
cracked ceramic insulator disc; a disc with a hole through the cap, and a completely
broken insulator disc. The defective discs are considered individually and are also
incorporated into strings of 2, 3, and 4 insulators. The captured RF pulses are
processed by extracting wavelet packet based features. Feature reduction and selection
is carried out and classification results are obtained. To classify the discharges arising
from different types of defects, an artificial neural network (ANN) algorithm is applied
to the extracted features, and recognition rates of more than 95% were reported for
each class. The results of preliminary field tests carried out on a 40 feet high test
transmission tower are also reported and their analysis showed good discrimination
between the different defect types.
Index Terms — Ceramic insulators, partial discharge, wavelet packet transform, defects,
radio frequency antenna, online monitoring.

1 INTRODUCTION
FOR the past few decades, owing to deregulation and
competition, utilities across North America have been forced
to make drastic alterations in the way they conduct business.
The days of liberal spending on new assets as a means of
achieving higher levels of system performance are long past.
The focus is now increasingly shifting toward maximizing the
utilization of existing assets and minimizing the huge capital
investments needed for the replacement of costly equipment.
In addition to these changes, increased demand for reliability
and superior performance with respect to power equipment
has also become far more significant in recent years. Ageing
assets pose significant challenges for utilities. The primary
Manuscript received on 13 February 2016, in final form 31 August 2016,
accepted 10 September 2016. Corresponding author: A. El-Hag.
goal for the utility is to utilize the full life of an asset, but
ageing increases the probability that the likelihood of
equipment failure will become unacceptable from both a
financial and a performance perspective [1]. The average age
of vital assets, such as circuit breakers, transformers,
insulators, cables, and poles, owned by transmission and
distribution utilities in Ontario is estimated to be more than 35
years. Nearly 150 million porcelain suspension insulators are
calculated to be currently deployed in North America [2]. A
significantly high proportion of these insulators are either
approaching or have exceeded the life time for which they
were designed. Maintenance of these ageing assets is thus of
special interest to North American utilities. As the insulators
play such a crucial role in the power system reliability, utilities
have been giving increasing preference to faulty insulator
detection methods that are reliable, cost effective, fast and safe
to adopt for the line men.

DOI: 10.1109/TDEI.2016.005867
184 S. Anjum, et al.: Detection and Classification of Defects in Ceramic Insulators using RF Antenna

Although sig gnificant work k has been don ne in the pastt to Tests inn the laboratorry comprise off three individuual defective
dettect failed or punctured insulators, thesee methods sufffer ceramicc insulator disscs. The samples are conneccted to high
froom problems suchs as safety issues for lin ne personnel. ForF voltage end of the traansformer at thhe cap and groounded at the
insstance one of th he most comm monly used metthods is the bu uzz- lower end. Subsequ quently, these defective ssamples are
tesst method whiich involves checking
c each insulator in the incorpoorated with 1, 2 and 3 healthyy insulators to yield a total
striing by successsively applying g a high voltagee across it. Oftten, of 3 diffferent strings wwith 2, 3 and 4 total numberr of insulator
shoort circuiting of the insulattor presents a safety conceern, discs reespectively. A string with 4 insulators iis shown in
whhich along witth other disadv vantages has led
l some utilitties Figure 2. In all the test classes thhe defective saample disc is
likke Hydro Queb bec to seek oth her methods forr faulty porcellain placed iin the string suuch that it is cloose to the high voltage end.
inssulator detectioon [3]. Also, liittle has been achieved
a in terrms A coroona free test ttransformer iss used, and tthe tests are
of early detection n of porcelain insulators thatt might fail in the conductted applying up to 13 kV Vrms to test samples to
futture. Partial Discharge (PD) initiation is a key indicatorr of individuual disc samplles and up to 45 kVrms to tthe insulator
deffects within thhe insulation sy ystem. As a reesult of PD, so ome strings. The inceptionn of the PD acttivity is analyzzed using the
phyysical, chemiccal, acoustic ph henomena takee place and maany classicaal PD measurem ment setup whhich along withh a coupling
PD D detection methods
m are based on quantifying
q these capacitoor is shown in Figure 3.
phenomena. Onee of the consequ uences of PD is
i the propagation A wideband horrn antenna is used as a PD D sensor for
of radio frequen ncy (RF) emiissions that faall well into the capturinng the RF siggnals that are emitted as a rresult of PD
ulttrahigh frequen ncy (UHF) rang ge [4]. activityy within the deefects in the samples. The aantenna is in
A significannt amount of reesearch work has h been reporrted turn connnected to a 2 GHz (10 GS S/s) oscilloscoppe via a low
on the exploratio on of these UH HF emissions for the detection impedannce cable in aan open loop arrangement. The antenna
andd localization ofo defects in key
k power com mponents; such as, frequenncy response iss shown in Figgure 4. The anntenna has a
gass insulated swwitchgear (GIS)) and transform mers [5]-[7]; but,
b pass baand between 1--2GHz with a correspondingg gain in the
appplication of such methods to outdoor in nsulators is very range 114.5 - 18 dB. A total of 2000 signals are ccollected for
limmited. Wong in n [8] applied very
v high frequuency VHF (30 0– each off the defected classes. A typpical RF pulse is shown in
300MHz) method and has repo orted the detecction of comm mon Figure 5. In additioon, a classical PD setup com mprising the
fauulty conditionss (heavily pollluted insulatorrs and insulattors couplinng capacitor arrangemennt is also employed
witth cracks) in ceramic
c insulattors using fracttal analysis. In
n an simultanneously to v erify the preesence of PD within the
earrlier work, thee authors havee investigated the possibility y to sampless. The classsic PD meassurement wass conducted
dettect PD in deefected ceramiic discs using g an RF anten nna accordinng to IEC 602270 method w with a center ffrequency of
under laboratory conditions [9]-[10]. In this study a string g of 250 kHzz and a bandw width of 300 kH Hz.
porrcelain discs with
w different types t of defectts have been ussed
to obtain their reepresentative RF R signatures in n both laboratoory
andd field conditiions. A wavelet packet deco omposition bassed
schheme to obtain n features from m the field colleected data leading
to their classificaation is presented.

2 MATERIAL
M S AND ME
ETHODS
Thhe test sampless in this study comprise of defective insulaator
disscs of three different
d types as depicted in i Figure 1. TheT
deffects in ceram mic insulatorss can arise either
e during the
maanufacturing prrocess itself orr introduced latter when they are
in service due to t high stressses. The first class of defeects
connsists of an inttentionally craccked ceramic innsulator disc. The
T
seccond class con nsiders a brok ken disc insullator. These twot
typpes of defective samples are shown in Figu ure 1. This typee of
deffect can be eaasily detected visually if thee ceramic discc is
situuated in the visible part of th
he string. Howeever the detection
beccomes a prob blem if the deefected insulattor is present in
vissually inaccesssible region off the string. A disc with a hole
h
thrrough the cap which
w results in
n generating in
nternal discharg ges
com mprises the th hird class as shown in Figu ure 1. This hole
h
woould initiate internal
i discharges within the cap of the
inssulator. The preesence of thesee defects resultts in the emission
of electromagnettic radiation due d to the iniitiation of partial
disscharge activitiies within the insulator.
2.1 TEST T SETUP AND D DATA ACQ QUISITION
In this study, laboratory and fieeld tests are carrried out and data
d Figure 1.. Top to bottom; IInsulator disc withh a deliberately inntroduced crack,
is acquired correesponding to each
e of the twwo types of tests. disc with a whole through tthe cap; broken inssulator disc.
IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation
Figure 2. Four disc string with a completely broken insulator installed near
the grounded end.
Figure 3. Experimental Test Setup: simultaneous classic and RF PD
measurement.
Figure 4. Frequency response of the RF antenna used for the study.
Vol. 24, No. 1; February 2017 185
Figure 5. A typical RF pulse acquired through the antenna.
Figure 6. Field test in progress on a test line facility at Kinectrics Inc.
2.2 FIELD TESTING APPROACH
The field testing was carried out on a Test-HV line installed
at the high voltage test bay facility, Kinectrics Inc., Toronto,
Canada on a cloudy day with temperatures in the range of -2.0
to 4.0°C with no precipitation. The defective insulator samples
were incorporated into a string of four insulators with 3 other
healthy insulator discs. The insulator string was hung on an
outdoor tower of approximately 40 feet height. A high voltage
connection was provided through a 350 kV variable reactor
resonance mobile high voltage station. The data acquisition
system was elevated to the top of the tower using an insulated
two-man bucket truck. The bucket truck has two degrees of
freedom, permitting movement along the horizontal and
vertical directions using the control panel of the bucket truck.
The position of the bucket truck relative to the hanging string
of insulators is given by x and y. Figure 6 shows one of the
186 S. Anjum, et al.: Detection and Classification of Defects in Ceramic Insulators using RF Antenna

multiple tests that were conducted in the field. Table 1 shows

the highest amplitude that was detected corresponding to each
defect. Power was provided to the data acquisition equipment
through the onboard power supply.

Table 1. The Position of the Bucket and the Corresponding Signal Voltage
Magnitude Observed for Different String Positions.

Position of X,Y coordinates

the defect Highest in feet,
Case Defect
within the Amplitude corresponding
study Type
4-insulator Detected to the highest
string signal amplitude
Nearest to
1 15mV (5,15)
the HV side
Cracked
Second
Insulator
2 from the 10mV (5,10)
HV side
Nearest to
3 30mV (10,25) Figure 8. Features Extracted from the WPD Tree.
the HV side
Broken
Second
Insulator
4 from the 25mV (14,30) 2.3.1 ENTROPY
HV side
Entropy refers to the Shannon entropy of the discrete
distribution. Entropy is a measure of uncertainty or disorder
2.3 FEATURE EXTRACTION
within a system. A signal which is more chaotic will generate
The flowchart in Figure 7 illustrates the procedure for a larger value of entropy and vice versa.
classification of the ceramic insulator defects using features
Considering a discrete signal Xi [x1, x2,…, xn], the entropy
extracted from wavelet packet transform. Wavelet based
of this signal is given by equation (1)
features allow the capture of the local time varying features
because of the presence of additional time information, as ∑ log 1 .
opposed to the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) which captures
The entropy value of every node within the wavelet packet
the global features. This would result in better discrimination
tree is computed, which serves as one of the features.
between the classes, leading to a higher recognition rate.
Wavelet packet was used as a feature extraction technique to 2.3.2 ENERGY
classify six different PD sources measured using Hilbert
fractal antenna [12]. A high recognition rate was achieved for The extraction of the local time frequency features is made
all defects. Also, wavelet packet was used along with ANN possible by the use of wavelet packet decomposition. The
successfully to differentiate between PD signals in GIS and wavelet node energy is defined as:
corona [13]. Figure 8 graphically depicts the four different , | , | 2
features that are extracted from wavelet packet decomposition
(WPD) for each of the nodes resulting in the formation of four where wj,n is the two parameter array of wavelet packet
trees representing each of the four different features that are coefficients corresponding to one node (j,n) in the
described as follows: decomposition tree.
Skewness
The skewness measures the degree of asymmetry with
respect to the sample mean. The skewness of a normal
distribution is zero. Skewness S of a discrete signal x is
defined by equation (3):
∑
3

Figure 7. An illustration of classification of ceramic insulator defects using
wavelet packet based features.
2.3.4 KURTOSIS
It is a measure of the sharpness for any data distribution with
respect to the normal distribution. A normal distribution has a
kurtosis of three and excess kurtosis of zero. Mathematically it
is given by equation (4).
IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Vol. 24, No. 1; February 2017 187

∑
4

2.4 FEATURE SELECTION

In order to mitigate the issues caused by the curse of
dimensionality [11] it is critical to reduce the size of the
feature space. Also it is very important that a high degree of
separability be achieved between the data points. Thus a
method has to be used to maximize the separability within the
class and between the classes. A feature selection method is
thus used which is based on the computation of within-class
scatter Sw and between classes scatter Sb values for every node
of the wavelet packet tree. A ratio of the two quantities B as
shown in equation (5) is calculated and the nodes are ranked
based on the largest values of this ratio. A higher value of the
ratio indicates a high value of between-class scatter Sb and a
low value of within-class scatter Sw. The two highest ranked Figure 9. ANN architecture for the WPD set.
nodes are selected and the features extracted from these nodes
are fed as input to the artificial neural network classifier for 3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
further classification.
3.1 DETECTION SENSITIVITY OF THE RF ANTENNA
,
, 5 In order to quantify the detection sensitivity of the RF
,
antenna, the distance of the antenna from the test sample was
where the two quantities Sw and Sb are defined according to varied and the corresponding detected PD signal amplitude
the equations (6) and (7). was recorded for a range of the distances considered. The
distance was varied from 0.7 meters to 2.4 meters for different
types of defects. An example for this sensitivity analysis is
, , 6
shown in Figures 10 for a cracked insulator. Similar trend was
noticed for all other types of defects. It can be seen that the RF
antenna can detect the PD signal at a distance of
, , , 7 approximately 2.5 m which is a practical safe distance for high
voltage distribution lines.
In the above two equations Nc represents the total number of Table 2 tabulates the corresponding PD inception voltage
samples belonging to class c, N is the total number of samples, using both the classical PD detector and the RF antenna. The
, represents the node variance of the selected features RF antenna showed a slightly higher inception voltage at
different distances, nevertheless, it is comparable to the
for class c, , and , represent the features’ mean
sensitivity of the classical PD detector.
values at a node for class c and all of the samples respectively.

2.5 CLASSIFICATION
Back Propagation algorithm is the basis of the Artificial
Neural Network (ANN) technique that is employed in this
study after successive testing with different algorithms. The
architecture comprises of a three layer network that are the
input, hidden and the output layers. The input layer has 8
neurons corresponding to two data points each for entropy,
energy, skewness and kurtosis values, the hidden layer has 10
neurons and the output layer has 3 outputs. Every neuron has
an associated input, bias, an activation function and an output.
The input x is weighted by a weighting function Wij as shown
in Figure 9.
The total activation is determined by adding the weighted
inputs with bias b. The hidden layer output is dependent on its
activation function which for this particular network is the Figure 10: the effect of variation of distance on RF signal amplitude for
non-linear sigmoid function. sample with a deliberately introduced crack
188 S. Anjum, et al.: Detection and Classification of Defects in Ceramic Insulators using RF Antenna
Table 2. PD inception voltage for both classical PD detector and RF antenna. to the two best nodes selected through the feature selection
Distance Apparent PD inception using PD inception method. Figure 13 shows the kurtosis values for the best node,
(m) charge Classical PD using RF (5, 7) according to the feature selection procedure of the
(nC) detector (kV) Antenna (kV)
decomposition tree and Figure 14 shows the kurtosis values
0.76 0.5 5.0 5.5
0.92 0.6 5.0 5.8
for the second best node (2, 3). As can be observed from the
1.22 0.8 5.5 6.2 plots the kurtosis values for each defect demonstrate a high
1.52 1.0 6.0 6.6 degree of scatter and there is nearly no overlap between the
1.82 1.9 6.5 7.0 kurtosis values for the broken disc and the other two types of
2.12 4.0 7.0 7.3 defects. The cracked sample and the disc with a hole through
2.42 5.7 7.4 7.6 the cap also can be easily discriminated even though some of
the points are quite close to each other. The second best node
The main limitation of applying this technology is the (2,3) exhibits more overlap as compared to the best node,
allowed distance between the RF antenna and the high voltage however majority of the sample points in this case like the
outdoor insulators due to safety precautions. RF signals previous case are well separated. The 50 samples belonging to
attenuate very fast with respect to distance and hence it will be each of the three classes where class 1 is the cracked insulator
very challenging to detect the RF signal at long distances. sample, class 2 is the sample with a hole through the cap and
3.2 PARTIAL DISCHARGE CLASSIFICATION UNDER the class 3 is the broken insulator sample are used for a total of
LABORATORY CONDITIONS. 150 samples. Out of these, 108 samples are used for the
training of the neural network and the remaining 42 samples
Two best nodes are selected according to the selection are randomly selected from the three classes to test the trained
criteria described in the previous section for each of the four network. With the selected features, the neural network
features which are tabulated in Table 3. For example, Figure training converges after 51 epochs and an overall result with
11 shows the wavelet packet coefficients at node (2,3) which less than 3% error is obtained, with a 100% recognition rate
is also one of the nodes that were selected for feature for class 2 and class 3. These classification steps were
extraction. repeated for a total of 10 times in order to ascertain a high
degree of consistent classification performance. Tables 4 and 5
Table 3. Selected Features to be fed into the Neural Network.
tabulate the results corresponding to single discs and defective
Node 1 Node 2 discs incorporated in strings.
Node Energy (3,5) (4,11)
Node Kurtosis (5,7) (2,3)
Node Skewness (1,0) (0,0)
Node Entropy (2,0) (3,0)

Figure 12. Cluster plot for skewness versus kurtosis.

Figure 11. Wavelet Packet coefficients for an insulator with a hole through
the cap at node (2,3).
An example of a feature clusters is plotted in Figure 12.
While a clear separation can be observed between the different
classes, points of the same class have lower scatter. This
shows the effectiveness of the proposed feature selection
procedure based on minimizing within-class scatter and
maximizing between-class scatter. Further, the capability of
the feature selection technique to select the best features can
be demonstrated through Figures 13 and 14. These figures Figure 13. Values of Kurtosis for WPD coefficients of the samples at node
show the kurtosis plots for 15 different samples corresponding (5, 7).
IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Vol. 24, No. 1; February 2017 189

3.2 PARTIAL DISCHARGE CLASSIFICATION UNDER

FIELD CONDITIONS
Two types of defects were investigated under field
conditions, i.e. cracked and broken discs in a string of four
insulators. The feature cluster plot between energy and
entropy at two of the selected nodes corresponding to the data
extracted in section 2.2 are plotted in Figure 15. Similar to the
selected features under laboratory conditions, a distinct
separation can be observed between the two different classes
for the defected insulators measured under field condition.
This shows the effectiveness of the proposed feature selection
procedure based on minimizing within-class scatter and
maximizing between-class scatter. Table 7 shows the
classification performance for the two different defect cases
considered. A high recognition rate is achieved which suggests
Figure 14. Values of Kurtosis for WPD coefficients of the samples at node that the proposed technique can be used to detect and classify
(2,3). different defects in ceramic insulators.

Table 4. Classification performance for single disc PD RF signatures.

Classes Average Recognition Maximum
Rate Recognition
Rate
Class 1 Rate 96 97
Class 2 Rate 97 100
Class 3 Rate 99 100
Overall Rate 97 98

Table 5. Classification performance for strings with defective insulator discs.

Number of Class 1 Class 2 Class 3 Overall
healthy Rate
insulators in
string Figure 15. Cluster Plot of Entropy versus Energy.
1 93 93 96 95
Table 7. Classification performance for two different defect cases.
2 94 95 92 96
Average Recognition Maximum
3 95 92 95 97 Rate Recognition Rate
Class 1 Rate 90 93
In order to prove the robustness of the proposed technique, Class 2 Rate 91 96
the location of the defected sample was changed. The data Overall Rate 91 94
corresponding to each of defects is combined together to form
one class so that the possibility of identification of a defect
type regardless of its position can be established. For this 4 CONCLUSION
experiment only two insulator defects are examined, i.e. the Based on the conducted experimental results, the following
broken insulator and cracked insulator samples. Therefore this conclusions can be drawn.
becomes a two class problem. Table 6 tabulates the results of  Each type of defect considered was shown to produce a
this classification. unique RF signature that can be acquired on a pulse-by-
pulse basis using a high-bandwidth antenna.
Table 6. Classification results corresponding to the variation of position of
the defects within the insulator string.
 The RF antenna showed a slightly higher inception
voltage than the classical PD detector at different
Average Recognition Maximum distances.
Rate Recognition Rate
 Wavelet-based features have been extracted. The
controlled experiments conducted in this study have
Class 1 Rate 91 92 established that wavelet-based features in conjunction
with ANN can yield a recognition rate exceeding 95%.
Class 2 Rate 92 95  The applicability of the proposed RF based technique is
verified using a Test-HV line; with successful detection
Overall Rate 92 93 of PD from as far as 2.5m distance at 45kV energization.
190 S. Anjum, et al.: Detection and Classification of Defects in Ceramic Insulators using RF Antenna
This work has the potential to provide the utilities and asset
owners with an alternative field testing method for assessing
their ageing insulator assets in a cost effective and safer
manner which also has the added benefit of specifying the
type of defect present within the insulator disc. The proposed
future work in this area should focus on carrying out tests on
actual outdoor transmission lines with reportedly high levels
of radio frequency emissions to warrant further inspection.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank NSERC, MITACS,
Kinectrics Inc. and the American University of Sharjah for
their financial and technical support.
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Shaharyar Anjum(M’10) received his B.E degree in
electrical engineering from NEDUET, Pakistan (2012)
and MASC degree from University of Waterloo (2015).
After graduating from University of Waterloo, Anjum is
currently working as a product specialist at General
Cable Corp. His main areas of research interest are
condition monitoring and diagnostics of insulation
materials and asset management.
Shesha H. Jayaram (M’87-SM’97-F’08) received
the B.A.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from
Bangalore University, India (1980), the M.A.Sc.
degree in high voltage engineering from the Indian
Institute of Science, Bangalore (1983) and the Ph.D.
degree in electrical engineering from the University
of Waterloo, Canada (1990). Dr. Jayaram has held
various academic positions at the University of
Waterloo since 1992. She is currently a full
Professor, the University Research Chair and the
Director of the High Voltage Engineering
Laboratory. She is also an Adjunct Professor at the
University of Guelph and McMaster University.
Prior to joining the University of Waterloo, she served on the faculty at the
University of Western Ontario as an Assistant Professor (1990-92) and as an
Adjunct (1992-2003). Dr. Jayaram’s research emphasizes solution-based
outputs and is focused in four main areas: high voltage engineering and
insulation diagnostic, high voltage engineering applied to environment,
nanocomposite materials and pulse power applied to biotechnology. She has
been an active member of the IEEE Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation and
Industry Applications Societies and the Electrostatic Society of America. She
is a Registered Professional Engineer in the Province of Ontario, Canada.
Ayman H. El-Hag (S’99-M’03-SM’08) received
his B.S. and M.S. degree from King Fahd
University of Petroleum and Minerals and his
Ph.D. degree from the University of Waterloo in
1993, 1998 and 2003, respectively. He joined the
Saudi Transformer Co. as a Quality Control
Engineer from 1993 to 1999. In 2004, Dr. El Hag
worked as a Postdoctoral fellow at the University
of Waterloo then he joined the University of
Toronto as a Postdoctoral fellow from 2004 to
2006. Currently Dr. El-Hag is a professor in the
electrical engineering department at the American
University of Sharjah. Also, Dr. El-Hag is an adjunct professor at the
University of Waterloo. Dr. El-Hag main areas of interest are condition
monitoring and diagnostics of electrical insulation.
Ali Naderian Ali Naderian (S’05-M’07-SM’14)
received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from Sharif
University of Technology in 1998 and the University
of Tehran in 2000, respectively. He obtained his PhD
at The University of Tehran in 2006 after one year
visiting research on commercially available RTV
coatings for outdoor insulators at the University of
Waterloo. He worked as a project engineer at the
University of Waterloo for 1 year on HV lab major
overhaul and renovation (2006-2007). He was an
engineer/scientist at Kinectrics Inc (Formerly Ontario
Hydro Research) for 9 years working on diagnostics
of power transformers, high voltage cables, and outdoor insulators. He is now
director of high voltage testing at METSCO Energy Solutions. His research
interests include partial discharge and dielectric frequency response. He is the
co-author of EPRI Underground Distribution Reference Book (2009). Ali is a
registered professional engineer in Ontario since 2008 and a Senior Member
of the IEEE Transformer Committee. Ali is the chair of IEEE C57.161 WG:
“Guide of Dielectric Frequency Response”. He is the DEIS chapter chair for
South East Ontario. He is an active member of CIGRE WG A2 D1.51:
“Improvement of Partial Discharge Test for Factory and Field Testing of
Power Transformers”.