2012 Paris Session

A2 - 108
http : //www.cigre.org

Enhanced Modelling and Early Detection of Power Transformers

Internal Incipient Faults

Essam Abu El-Zahab Dalal Helmi Maha Salah Ahmad Alokabi

Faculty of Engineering, Egyptian Electricity Cairo Electricity Production
Cairo University Transmission Company (EETC) Company (CEPC)
Egypt

SUMMARY

Power transformers are considered as the most expensive infrastructure in the substations, and hence
the outage and/or damage of such critical equipment are costly to any electric utility. As initial inter-
turn insulation failure in Power Transformers does not draw sufficient current, traditional protection is
unable to detect such faults that develop slowly, often in form of gradual deterioration of insulation.
The subsequent progress of the fault, if not detected in the earliest stage, may well destroy the
evidence of the true cause. A short circuit of a few turns of the winding will give rise to a heavy fault
current in the short-circuited loop, but the rise in the terminal currents will be very small. As a result,
the transformer will only be disconnected from the line when the fault extends to such a degree to
affect considerable portion of the winding and produces high current. As field recordings of
transformer abnormal conditions, especially for internal faults, are seldom available, the information
needed for investigation of protective systems may be achieved by accurate simulation work.

A wavelet is defined as a waveform of effectively limited duration that has an average value of zero
(i.e., no dc component) and decays quickly to zero at both ends. Thus, by definition, a wavelet is a
transient signal, and methods that make use of wavelet functions (e.g., the wavelet transform) would
seemingly be suitable for transient analysis. That is, one would make use of a transient to analyze a
transient, as opposed to using a stationary function (e.g., a sine or a cosine) for such analysis.

This paper presents a technique dealing with one of the most difficult problems facing protection
engineers which is transformer incipient fault detection. A working transformer with a real data in the
Egyptian Network was accurately modelled using BCTRAN subroutine of ATP program. Wavelet
Packet Transform (WPT) is introduced in this work showing that WPT provides decomposition with
uniform frequency bands. An accurate algorithm was developed to estimate the RMS value of the
harmonics content in a signal using the wavelet coefficients of the WPT analysis. The developed WPT
algorithm was used to analyze the differential current of all studied cases. The harmonics content
changing characteristics were studied in each case. It was found that this change has characteristic
signature, which can be used to detect the incipient faults and discriminate between them and other
conditions. The proposed technique could be used as a complement to traditional transformer
differential protection to detect incipient fault at an early stage (increase its sensitivity). It could be
applied to any power transformer differential protection without any additional hardware, only
software add-in.

KEYWORDS Power Transformer, Incipient Internal Fault, Inrush Current, WPT.

1. INTRODUCTION

Power transformers are considered as the most expensive infrastructure in the substations, and hence
the outage and/or damage of such critical equipment are costly to any electric utility. A study of the

Ahmad_alokabi@hotmail.com
records of modern transformer breakdowns, which have occurred over a period of years, shows very
conclusively that between 70 and 80% of the number of failures are finally traced to short-circuit
between turns [1]. The subsequent progress of the fault, if not detected in the earliest stage, may well
destroy the evidence of the true cause. A short circuit of a few turns of the winding will give rise to a
heavy fault current in the short-circuited loop, but the terminal currents will be very small, because of
the high ratio of transformation between the whole winding and the short-circuited turns [2].

This paper is a continuing work to a previous paper [3], presents a method for modeling internal faults
in a three-phase oil immersed power transformer. The approach taken in this paper utilizes the
electrical indicators for internal winding fault, and is mainly based on the BCTRAN procedure of ATP
program. The terminal current behavior is discussed when the transformer is in several typical faulty
situations (turn-to-earth and turn to turn) on the primary and secondary sides of the transformer, and
for different number of shorted turns.

An algorithm based on the Wavelet Packet Transform (WPT) was developed to measure the RMS
value of the harmonics content in a signal with a high accuracy.

A protection technique is proposed to detect the incipient faults in the transformer, based on analysis
of the differential current of the simulated faulty transformer by the developed WPT algorithm.

2. COMPUTER MODELING PRINCIPLES

2.1. Incipient Fault Simulation

The basic model used in this work is the one supplied by the BCTRAN routine of the ATP software.
The transformer is handled as mutually coupled R, L branches. Based on data of excitation and short
circuit tests, this routine computes two matrices [R] and [L] modeling the transformer.

The principle used to model a fault between a coil turn and the earth or between any two turns is to
divide the faulty coil into sub coils, details will be found in [4, 5].

2.2. The Power Transformer Inrush Current Simulation Using ATP

The simulation of the hysteresis behavior of the magnetic core in ATP program is done by using the
element (Nonlinear Hysteresis Inductor Type-96). This element requires entering the hysteresis loop
nonlinear characteristics point by point. There is assumed symmetry to the hysteresis loop, so only
points of the lower half of the loop are to be input [6, 7].

Hence it is required to get the points of the lower half of the hysteresis loop; this is done by using
(HYSDAT) subroutine attached by ATP. The subroutine generates the hysteresis characteristics as
follows; the shape of the hysteresis loop for an inductor depends primarily on the material of the core,
while the scaling of the hysteresis loop depends on the geometry, the number of the turns and other
construction factors. The shape of the loop is stored in the subroutine, so by providing the suitable
information about the used core it will be able to generate the required characteristics. The scaling can
be specified via the location of the positive saturation point (PSP) [8].

So, by getting the PSP we will be able to get the hysteresis loop characteristics and hence using the
inductor (Type-96) and representing the hysteresis behavior of the magnetic core of the transformer.
As it is known the maximum flux density of the core steel is normally designed as close to the knee of
the saturation curve, so from the open circuit test of the transformer (which is usually done between
0.9 to 1.1 from the rated operating voltage) we can get the knee point value, hence we can get
approximately the B value or the vertical location of the PSP, where the knee point value equals

1
approximately 0.7 from the PSP (as mentioned previously).So the PSP can be anywhere on the line
shown the figure (1).

The next step is to get the horizontal location of the PSP on the H axis, this is done by assuming some
PSP points, for example (BPSP, H1), (BPSP, H2), (BPSP, H3)…, then by using the (HYSDAT)
subroutine we can get some hysteresis loops. By comparing these loops with the excitation curve of
the open circuit test and finding the more closely loop to be the hysteresis loop of the transformer, we
can get approximately the required loop and the PSP [9, 10].

After we get the hysteresis loop, we can now use the inductor (Type-96) to simulate the inrush current.
Three inductors will be used and connected in star to the secondary side of the transformer as shown in
figure (2).

Figure (2):
Figure (1):
The Transformer Inrush Current Simulation Circuit
The Vertical location of the PSP

3. WAVELET TRANSFORM

Wavelet Transform is a mathematical tool that cuts up data or functions into different frequency
components, and then studies each component with a resolution matched to its scale. For example, in
signal analysis, the wavelet transform allows us to view a time history in terms of its frequency
components, which means it maps a one-dimensional signal of time, f (t), into a two dimensional
signal function of time and frequency. The wavelet transform represents the signal as a sum of
wavelets at different locations (positions) and scales (frequency bands) [11].

3.1 Wavelet Packet Transform Filtering Process

In Figure (3), we can see the wavelet packet transform process, where h (n), h1(n) are the low and high
pass filter respectively. If the original signal frequency band is (0 – f), it will be divided in the first
resolution level to low frequency band (0 – f/2) and high frequency band (f/2 – f), then each frequency
band will be divided into two other smaller bands. P02 is the wavelet coefficients at level 2 and node 0
,and so on [12].

Figure (3): Two Levels wavelet packet transformation

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3.2 Harmonics RMS Measurement Using WPT

The RMS value of the current (i RMS) is [13, 14]:

Where,

2N the number of the original signal

samples
(1) k the wavelet coefficient number
Iij the rms value of the current for the
frequency band at node i and level j

Let the original signal contains 2N sampling points. The

wavelet coefficients at the level (j) and node (i) is (dij).The
Capture Signal
maximum resolution level can be achieved is N.
Samples
Where
i = 0 ,1 , 2 , 3,……… 2 j -1 ,
Apply Wavelet
j = 1 , 2 , 3 , 4,……….N Packet Analysis

Figure (4) shows a flow chart for the proposed algorithm.

Get the Wavelet
From the previous analysis, it's clear by choosing the Coefficients
appropriate sampling frequency and the WPT resolution level;
we can allocate the required harmonics in different frequency
bands (nodes). Apply the Proposed
Algorithm

RMS of each frequency band (node i) can be estimated as

follows: Get the RMS Values of the
Harmonics
1
I ij =
i

2N
∑ (d
k =0
j
)2 (2)

Figure (4): Flow chart for the use of

WPT for Harmonic Analysis
The signals we applied the analysis on are 50 Hz signals and have sampling frequency (6.4 kHz, 128
sample/cycle), i.e. (2N=128 =27). The maximum resolution level can be achieved is (N=7), at this
resolution level we will have 128 nodes (frequency bands).

From the Nequist theory, the highest frequency that can be accurately represented is less than the half
of the sampling frequency. Therefore, in our study the highest frequency that can be represented is less
than (3.2 KHz). At resolution level (7), the number of the frequency bands is 128, so the frequency
band width = 3200 Hz / 128 = 25 Hz, to make this decomposition compatible with the harmonics
frequencies, we need to calculate the rms values of each two adjacent frequency bands then get their
square root summation [14]. For example, the 4th band has frequency range (75 – 100) Hz and the 5th
band has frequency range (100 – 125) Hz, to get the rms value of the 2nd harmonic (100 Hz), the rms
value of the 4th and 5th bands will be calculated separately then the 2nd harmonic rms can be estimated
as follow:

RMS2ndHarm = (RMS4thBand)2 + (RMS5thBand)2 (3)

and so on for the other harmonics.

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4. SIMULATION WORK

4.1. System under Study

Simulation work was carried out on three phase 72/13.8 kV, 66 MVA, 50 Hz power transformer.
Incipient turn-to-turn and turn-to-ground faults were carried out on both primary and secondary
windings. Different values of the ratio between the shorted turns to the complete winding were taken.
Incipient faults simulations were done under different loading conditions (different loading
percentages, different load power factors). Figure (5) shows the circuit of the system under the study in
the ATP program environment.

Figure (5): The circuit of the system under the study in the ATP program environment

4.2. Factors that Effect on the Incipient Fault Current

In this section we will study how the incipient turn to turn fault current characteristics can be affected
by the following factors: the faulted side (Primary, Secondary), the fault location from the winding
end, the transformer loading percentage with respect to the transformer rated full load, the transformer
load power factor and the percentage of the shorted turns with respect to the whole number of turns of
the phase.

To study these factors many cases (108 cases) were simulated, in each case the parameters were being
changed in a way to study the effect of one parameter on the incipient turn to turn fault current c/c's.

Figure (6) shows sample of the resulted differential current in studying the effect of:
- Changing faulted side (primary, secondary).
- Changing fault location from the winding end (5,
30, 90) %.
- Changing transformer loading percentage with
respect to transformer rated full load (25, 100) %.
- Changing transformer load power factor (0.7, 0.8,
and 0.9).

The differential current increased to as small value

(30 amp, peak), compared with the transformer full
Figure (6): Differential currents of the
load current (735 amp, peak). By this small rise, the
simulated incipient fault cases
traditional differential protection cannot detect this
internal incipient fault. As it can be seen, the
differential currents in all cases increased with the
same magnitude.
Figure (7) shows the resulted differential current in
the cases of studying the effect of the percentage of
the shorted turns with respect to the whole number
of turns of the phase.
As it can be seen, as the percentage of the shorted
Figure (7): Differential currents of the
turns increases the incipient fault current increses simulated incipient fault cases of studying the
and it's very clear in the differential current effect of the percentage of the shorted turns
magnitude.

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4.3. Harmonic Analysis of the Differential Currents of the Simulated Incipient Fault Cases

Harmonic analysis was done for the differential

currents of the previous simulated cases using the
proposed algorithm based on the WPT. The results
are shown in figure (8).
The harmonic analysis showed that DC component,
2nd and 3rd harmonics increased at the fault instant
(0.04 sec) to values greater than 60% then decreased
again to the normal operating values in one cycle
(0.02 sec).
Figure (8): The harmonic analysis results of the
differential currents of the simulated incipient faults

4.4. Load Switching Simulation

In the previous section, harmonic analysis was done for the differential current in cases of transformer
incipient faults and it was found that the change in the harmonics value has some characteristics,
which could be used to detect the incipient faults. To make sure from these results we need to make
analysis of other transient conditions, which may occur to the transformer, from these transient
conditions is load switching.

Harmonic analysis of the differential current in case

of load switching of 100 percentage load of the
transformer rating with 0.8 PF is shown in figure (9).

The analysis showed that the DC component, 2nd

and 3rd harmonics rise at the load switching moment
and decrease again to the normal values, but the rise
value is very small compared with the value in the Figure (9): The harmonic analysis results of the
cases of the incipient faults. differential currents in case of switching 100% load

4.5. Transformer Inrush Current Simulation

The technique mentioned in section 2.2 is used to simulate the transformer inrush current. Result of the
simulation is shown in figure (10). As it is clear, the three phase inrush current started with high value
then damping with time. Making harmonic analysis using the proposed Wavelet algorithm the result is
shown in figure (11), the 2nd harmonic value recorded high value more than 80%.

Figure (10)
Figure (11)
Transformer three phases inrush currents Inrush current 2nd Harmonic Component

5. SUMMERY OF THE TRANSFORMER SIMULATION RESULTS

From the previous simulations results of the incipient faults (turn-to-turn and turn-to-ground faults),
inrush current and the transformer load switching, the results can be summarized in table (I). It shows
for each case the characteristics of the harmonics content and their change behavior.

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From this summery it can be shown that the incipient internal faults can be detected and discriminated
by observing and monitoring the characteristics of the harmonics content and its change behavior.

6. VERIFICATION OF THE PROPOSED WPT ALGORITHM

To verify the proposed WPT algorithm to measure the harmonics contents, real recorded data was
analyzed. Real transformer inrush current was analyzed and the results are as shown in figures (12,13).
The 2nd harmonic content is high as it is known for the transformer inrush current.

Figure (12) Figure (13)

Real transformer inrush current 2nd Harmonic content in the transformer inrush
current
7. CONCLUSIONS

This paper presents a technique dealing with one of the most difficult problems facing protection
engineers which is transformer incipient fault detection.

In this work, a transformer with a real data was accurately modeled using BCTRAN subroutine of
ATP program, using the proposed model, turn-to-turn and turn-to-earth faults were simulated with
different fault and operating conditions in addition to transformer inrush current. This power
transformer modeling technique can be used in representing power transformer transients, which is
very important in testing and evaluating protective relays. It allows the generation of some difficult
fault cases for power transformer protection evaluation, which may not be possible using other known
physical means.

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The transformer core hysteresis characteristics were simulated with a high accuracy, depending only
on the available transformer data and the manufacture open circuit test results. Wavelet packet (WPT)
is introduced showing that WPT provides decomposition with uniform frequency bands. An accurate
algorithm was developed to estimate the RMS value of the harmonics content in a signal using the
wavelet coefficients of the WPT analysis.

The developed WPT algorithm was used to analyze the differential current of all studied cases. The
harmonics content changing characteristics were studied in each case. It was found that this change has
characteristic signature, which can be used to detect the incipient faults and discriminate between them
and other conditions.

The authors recommend conducting further research on the following:

1. Studying the capabilities of the available software packages to include the modeling of the
transformer aging as an add-on function.
2. Studying the effect of the accuracy of CT measuring and protection cores on the accuracy
of the proposed protection technique.
3. The proposed WPT algorithm could be used to find specified signature for different
transient phenomena in the electric network.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

[1] William H. Bartley, "Investigating Transformer Failures," The Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection &
Insurance Co, ACTI Inc. Second Annual Conference, New Diagnostic Concepts for Better Asset
Management, November 2003.
[2] AREVA Transmission Distribution - Network Protection & Automation Guide,1st Edition 2002.
[3] Essam Abu El-Zahab, Dalal Helmi, Maha Salah, Ahmad Alokabi, "Detection of Incipient Faults in
Power Transformer using Wavelet Transform: Lessons Learned", “8th Regional Conference for
National Committees of Cigre in Arab Countries”, hosted by “GCC Power 2010 Conference &
Exhibition”, Doha-Qatar October.2010.
[4] Patrick Bastard, Pierre Bertrand, Michel Meunier, “A Transformer Model for Winding Fault Studies”,
IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 9, No.2 April 1994, pp. 690-699.
[5] Mladen Kezunovic, Bogdan Kasztenny, Zijad Galijasevic, Donna Williams, "A New Add-ON For
Modeling Internal Faults In Power Transformer", American Power Conference, Chicago, Illinois,
April, 2000.
[6] ATP Rule Book, part (V-D), "Type-96 Pseudo-Nonlinear Hysteretic Inductor L (i)".
[7] ATPDRAW version 3.5 Users' Manual, 2002.
[8] ATP Rule Book, part (XIX-H),"HYSDAT to create type-96 hysteretic inductor".
[9] M. Kezunovic, C.W. Fromen, F. Phillips, "Experimental Evaluation of EMTP –Based
Current Transformer Models For Protective Relay Transient Study", IEEE Transactions
on Power Systems, Vol. 9, No. 1,Jan 1994.
[10] Nabil H. Al-Abbas, " Saturation Of Current Transformers And Its Impact On Digital
Overcurrent Relays", Thesis Presented To The King Fahd University Of Petroleum &
Minerals in fulfillment of the thesis requirement for the degree of Master in Electrical
Engineering, 2005.
[11] Wavelet Matlab Toolbox User Guide, Version 3.
[12] F. Vatansever, A. Ozdemir, "A New Approach for Measuring RMS Value and Phase Angle of
Fundamental Harmonic Based on Wavelet Packet Transform", Science Direct, Electric Power System
Research 78 (2008) 74-79.
[13] Effrina Yanti Hamid, Zen-Ichiro Kawasaki, "Wavelet Packet Transform for RMS Values and Power
Measurements", IEEE Power Engineering Review, September 2001
[14] Ahmed Mohamed Gaouda, "Wavelet-Automated Recognition System for Power Quality Monitoring",
A Doctor of Philosophy Thesis in Electric.& Computer Engineering Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2001.