Condition Monitoring and Fault Diagnosis of Electrical

Equipment
Shengqi Yuan1, a)
1
School of North China Electric Power University, Baoding, China.
a)
Corresponding author email: 625940937@qq.com

Abstract. The competitive environment of the power market puts higher demands on ensuring the safe and reliable
economic operation of electrical equipment. Introduce the state-of-the-art monitoring technology and its practical
application of the main equipment in the substation—transformers, capacitors, circuit breakers, combined electrical
appliances, lightning arresters, etc., reduce the operation and maintenance costs of each power company, realize the
transition to state maintenance, and improve the power supply. Reliability and market competitiveness have certain
guidance and reference significance.

BACKGROUND
At present, a large number of transformer online monitoring devices have been put into use in China. However,
according to statistics, many of the installed online monitoring devices have little effect. Many devices not only have
their own high accident rate, but also have a low accuracy rate of fault diagnosis. These have brought many negative
effects on the online monitoring of transformers. Therefore, enhancing the reliability of transformer online monitoring
equipment and improving the accuracy of transformer fault diagnosis has become the main task of transformer online
monitoring system.
As the power system develops toward ultra-high voltage and large capacity, it is more and more important to
ensure the safe operation of electrical equipment. The impact and loss of power outage accidents on production and
life are also increasing. Therefore, it is urgent to conduct real-time online monitoring of the operation status of
electrical equipment, and timely reflect the degree of deterioration of insulation, so as to take preventive measures to
avoid power outages. At the same time, state monitoring is also a key support technology in state maintenance that is
being promoted and implemented both domestically and internationally. The substation is an important part of the
transmission system. It monitors the status of various types of equipment in the substation, pays attention to the various
monitoring methods and monitoring devices at home and abroad, and improves the operational reliability of the
equipment and reduces the operation and maintenance costs of the equipment. To extend the service life of the
equipment has its practical significance.

CONDITION MONITORING AND FAULT DIAGNOSIS OF TRANSFORMERS

With the rapid increase in power demand and the rapid development of power systems, the power industry faces
the challenge of improving equipment utilization, reducing equipment operating costs, and enhancing the safe and
stable operation of power systems. This requires the operator to more accurately grasp the operation of the power
equipment. As the main operating equipment of the power system, the transformer correctly monitors its operating
conditions and accurately diagnoses its early latent faults, which is essential for the transmission of electrical energy
in power transmission, transmission and distribution. Due to the failure of the transformer, the composition and
composition of the gas in the oil is closely related to the type and severity of the fault of the transformer. Therefore,

3rd International Conference on Materials Science, Resource and Environmental Engineering (MSREE 2018)
AIP Conf. Proc. 2036, 030027-1–030027-4; https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5075680
Published by AIP Publishing. 978-0-7354-1762-5/$30.00

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monitoring the gas changes in transformer oil and its development trend is the most commonly used transformer
monitoring method.

FIGURE 1. Condition monitoring of transformers

Condition Monitoring of Transformers

In order to realize the state maintenance of electrical equipment, the most basic is to realize the state monitoring.
It is necessary to grasp the operating state of the electrical equipment in real time, comprehensively and truthfully,
and timely detect various state parameters of the electrical equipment during operation. It’s changing trend. In this
way, accurate analysis and judgment of possible defects and faults of the equipment can be performed. Condition
monitoring includes offline monitoring and online monitoring. The so-called offline detection is to carry out various
test tests, such as traditional preventive tests, in the outage of electrical equipment.
On-line testing uses sensors, computers, and information and communication technologies to perform real-time
monitoring while electrical equipment is running or powered. Since offline detection requires power outages and long
test cycles, and it is impossible to monitor the development trend of electrical equipment failures in real time and
prevent possible failures, offline detection is not an ideal choice for state maintenance, and online monitoring becomes
the primary choice for state maintenance.

Transformer Fault Diagnosis

The correctness of transformer fault diagnosis is directly related to whether the transformer needs to be repaired.
Therefore, research on transformer fault diagnosis technology is very important. According to the internal insulation
of the transformer, analyzing and determining whether the transformer has defects or faults is the main task of
transformer fault diagnosis.
There are many test diagnostic methods for common transformer faults. These methods are: DC resistance
measurement, chromatographic analysis, insulation performance test, partial discharge test, edge resistance and
absorption ratio measurement, dielectric loss tangent measurement, DC leakage current measurement, winding
deformation test, low voltage short circuit impedance Tests, etc. Transformer fault diagnosis basically goes through
three stages: sensory diagnosis, experimental test and intelligent detection.

Significance
The transformer online monitoring system can grasp the real condition of the transformer in real time, and make
the transformer overhaul change from the "one size fits all" type of regular maintenance to the state of predictive state
maintenance. However, there are still many problems in the transformer online monitoring system in practical

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applications. Compared with the traditional and offline maintenance methods, the online monitoring equipment is not
very mature and perfect, and its operating environment is poor, so it has exposed many problems in operation.
In this context, this topic is to study new fault diagnosis methods, and combine various mature traditional fault
diagnosis methods to diagnose faults of transformers to improve the accuracy of transformer fault diagnosis. The
prediction of the fault state has also been studied, and some new methods have been proposed to make the transformer
condition monitoring develop healthier and bring greater social and economic benefits to the power system.

INFRARED DIAGNOSTIC TECHNOLOGY FOR ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT

With the continuous maturity and perfection of modern infrared technology, the infrared monitoring technology
of electrical equipment state developed by the advantages of long-distance, non-contact, accurate, real-time and fast
infra-red detection, due to the situation of no power failure, no sampling, no disintegration it can quickly monitor and
diagnose most faults of power equipment online in real time. Therefore, it has been highly valued by the domestic and
international power industry and has been rapidly developed. Its popularity and application have gradually become
the basis for many industries and fields to ensure the normal operation of equipment. An important technical means.
Infrared monitoring technology for electrical equipment status has sprung up in various methods of detecting electrical
equipment, and its application is even hotter.

Basic Law of Infrared Radiation

Spectral Distribution Law of Blackbody Radiation-Planck's Law

A black body with an absolute temperature of T (K) radiant power emitted by the unit surface area to the entire
hemisphere space within a unit wavelength interval around the wavelength  and M b , M b (T) and wavelength  ,
temperature T satisfy the following relationship:

M b (T )  C15 [exp(C2 1 1
(1)
T ) ]

In the middle, C1 is the first radiation constant, C1  2hc 2  3.7415  108 w  m 2  m 4 , C2 is the second radiation
constant, C2  hc k  1.43879 10 4 m  k
The above equation shows the mathematical relationship of Planck's law of blackbody radiation, which gives the
spectral distribution of the black body at temperature T(K).

The law of the Movement of the Black Body Radiation Spectrum

The law of the movement of the black body radiation spectrum. The one-dimensional displacement law Wien's
displacement law reveals that the peak wavelength  of the black body radiation spectral distribution is inversely
proportional to its absolute temperature T.

mT  2897.8m  k (2)

It can be calculated from the above formula that the black body at room temperature generally has a radiation peak
of 9.7 m , which is concentrated between 8-12 m .

Radiation Power as A Function of Temperature - Stephen Boltzmann's Law

Stephen-Boltzmann's law describes the variation of the total radiant power of all wavelengths emitted by the
blackbody unit surface area into the entire hemisphere space as a function of its temperature.
Therefore, the law is obtained by integrating Planck's law of radiation with wavelength:

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 
M b (T )   M b (T ) d  T 4 (3)
0

In the middle,    4 C1 (15C2 4 )  5.6697 10 8 ( w m 2  k 4 ) , which is called the Stephen-Boltzmann constant.
Stephen-Boltzmann's law states that objects with temperatures above zero degrees Kelvin spontaneously emit
infrared heat radiation, and that the total radiated power emitted by the unit surface area of the black body is
proportional to the fourth power of the Kelvin temperature. Thus, when the temperature of the object changes slightly,
it will cause a large change in the radiation power emitted by the object.

FIGURE 2. Structure diagram of intellectualized thermal imaging device

CONCLUSION
On-line monitoring and fault diagnosis of substation electrical equipment is the main supporting technical measure
in the substation state maintenance, so it is very important. However, it is also necessary to achieve a complete
transition from regular maintenance to state maintenance with the cooperation of other related technologies and
management measures and their information systems. In addition, because there is no systematic measurement data
and experience, how to realize the sharing of substation online monitoring data nationwide to better promote the
development of condition monitoring and fault diagnosis is a research aspect in the future.
Online monitoring and condition maintenance are the main development trends of power distribution equipment
maintenance at home and abroad. However, the research and practice of online monitoring and condition maintenance
of power distribution equipment is a complex system engineering, which requires constant innovation in theory,
technology and concept. Under the efforts of many scholars at home and abroad, state overhaul will be widely used
in power production.

REFERENCES
1. Gao Quan. Research on online monitoring and condition maintenance technology of electrical equipment . North
China Electric Power University, 2013.
2. Jiang Xiangyun. Research on equipment condition monitoring related issues. Zhejiang University, 2012.
3. Zhang Jinjiang. Research on information integration of substation equipment based on multi-agent technology.
Zhejiang University, 2009.
4. Liang Jiawen. Insulation online monitoring and condition maintenance of electrical equipment. Shandong
University, 2005.
5. Wang Wei, Wang Peng electrical equipment online monitoring and state maintenance technology, Modern
Electric Power, 2002 (05): 40-45.

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