IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 24, NO.

3, JUNE 2014

0502204

Dynamic Deformation Analysis of Power

Transformer Windings in Short-Circuit Fault by FEM
Haijun Zhang, Bin Yang, Weijie Xu, Shuhong Wang, Guolin Wang, Youpeng Huangfu, and Jingyin Zhang

AbstractThis paper presents the investigations of short-circuit

current, electromagnetic force, and transient dynamic response of
windings deformation including mechanical stress, strain, and displacements for an oil-immersed-type 220-kV power transformer.
The worst-case fault with three-phase short-circuit happening
simultaneously is assumed. A considerable leakage magnetic field
excited by short-circuit current can produce the dynamical electromagnetic force to act on copper disks in each winding. The
two-dimensional finite element method (FEM) is employed to
obtain the electromagnetic force and its dynamical characteristics
in axial and radial directions. In addition, to calculate the windings
deformation accurately, we measured the nonlinear elasticity characteristic of spacer and built three-dimensional FE kinetic model
to analyze the axial dynamic deformation. The results of dynamic
mechanical stress and strain induced by combining of short-circuit
force and prestress are useful for transformer design and fault
diagnosis.

TABLE I
S PECIFICATION OF O IL -I MMERSED -T YPE 220-kV P OWER T RANSFORMER

Index TermsDynamic deformation, electromagnetic force,

finite element analysis, power transformer, short-circuit current.

I. I NTRODUCTION

OWER transformer is one of the most important equipment in power systems, in which the short-circuit fault is
a serious problem to cause many transformer failures occurring
at single line-to-ground or three-phase short-circuit happening
simultaneously. Compared with the fault in single line-toground, the three-phase short-circuit has a higher contribution for transformer instabilities. Recently, the investigation
of electromagnetic force and dynamic deformation from inner
of windings of power transformer has attracted many more
researchers. Deformation can be produced by inrush force [1],
[2] and short-circuit force [3], [4]. Due to the complicated
structure with multilayer copper disk and spacer, to predict the
dynamic electromagnetic force and displacement in windings
Manuscript received July 17, 2013; accepted September 30, 2013. Date of
publication October 10, 2013; date of current version December 12, 2013.
This work was supported by The National Natural Science Fund of China
(51177116, 11272112) and Science and Technology Plan Project of Suzhou
(SYG201139).
H. Zhang is with the State Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation and
Power Equipment, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Xian Jiaotong University, Xian 710049, China, and also with the Faculty of Hydroelectric
Power, Hebei University of Engineering, Handan 056038, China (e-mail:
hjzhang0515@163.com).
B. Yang, W. Xu, S. Wang, G. Wang, and Y. Huangfu are with the State
Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation and Power Equipment, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Xian Jiaotong University, Xian 710049, China (e-mail:
shwang@mail.xjtu.edu.cn).
J. Zhang is with the Innopower Superconductor Cable Ltd., Beijing 100176,
China.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TASC.2013.2285335

accurately is not easy. Generally, the vibration signals from

transformer tank are taken as predicting or detecting reference
to study the electromagnetic force or deformation in windings
[5], [6]. The numerical techniques such as FEM are also used to
calculate the response of short-circuit fault in transformer windings [7][10]. However, the prestress preset on the windings
and elasticity property of spacer can influence predicting the
dynamic deformation. It is known that the elasticity property
of spacer is far less than that in copper disk, which results in a
larger deformation in spacers. Especially, for the oil-immersedtyped transformers, the nonlinear elasticity of spacer under oil
environment are different from that of in dry-type transformer.
In our work, both the copper disk and spacer are considered
as elastic body. Two-dimensional (2-D) and three-dimensional
(3-D) FEM are used to analyze the dynamic magnetic-mechanic
response in low, middle, high and regulating voltage windings
(LV, MV, HV, and RV), respectively. Table I presents the
detailed parameters of an oil-immersed-type power transformer.
II. S HORT-C IRCUIT C URRENT A NALYSIS
Generally, the maximum short-circuit current happens under
the condition with three-phase short-circuit fault, where no negative and zero sequence current exist. Thanks to the symmetry
characteristics of circuit, the short-circuit current is determined
by the positive sequence current, as shown in Fig. 1.
The very high transient current flowing into the transformer
windings is a function of the sum of transformer impedance and

1051-8223 2013 IEEE

0502204

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 24, NO. 3, JUNE 2014

Fig. 1. Equivalent circuit diagram in short circuit.

Fig. 3.

Leakage flux under fault currents.

Fig. 4.

Leakage flux and short-circuit electromagnetic forces.

Fig. 2. Transient short-circuit current in different windings.

system impedance
U
IA = IC = IB =
.
3Z1

(1)

Considering a single-phase transformer, the high magnitude short-circuit current at transient condition shows nearly a
tenfold increase. The transient currents can be approximately
expressed as follows.


r

dt
id (t) = 2I1d cos e Ld cos(t + )
(2)
where, id (t) is transient short-circuit current, I1d is the RMS
of steady-state current, is initial phase angle, rd and Ld
are resistance and inductance, respectively. The transient shortcircuit current curve obtained by (2) is shown in Fig. 2, where
LV windings is shorted and MV is the supply winding. The
current peak is about 32 kA in LV winding, 28 kA in MV
winding and 5.5 kA in HV winding, respectively. Here, rd is
0.24 and Ld is 23.6 mH.
III. C ALCULATION OF S HORT-C IRCUIT F ORCE
2-D FEM has enough accuracy in the computation for axisymmetrical electromagnetic field in transformer [10]. Poisson
equation with boundary condition may be expressed as:




1 (rA )

+ z
v z = J
: r v r r
(3)
1 : A = A0

1 (rA )
2 : v r n = Ht
where, A is the magnetic vector potential, v is the reluctivity,
denoting the nonlinearity BH curve of the core material.
J is the source current density, denoting short-circuits current.
Ht is the tangential magnetic field strength, denoting the second
boundary condition. The magnetic flux density is obtained as:
Br =

A
z

Bz =

1 (rA )
r r

(4)

where, Br and Bz are the radial and axial components of leakage flux density, respectively. Fig. 3 illustrates the distribution of
leakage flux under fault currents, in which LV winding is shorted,
MV is the supply winding and HV is open-circuit winding.
The axial and radial components of the force densities are
computed by using the corresponding components of the flux
densities and the current densities of elements [4].
Fr = B z J ,

Fz = B r J .

(5)

The mechanical stress produced in the conductor and spacer

is tensile when caused by outward forces and is compressive
when caused by inward forces, as Fig. 4 presents. Due to proportional to current squared, short-circuit force is unidirectional
pulsating type.


1
1 1
fi (t) = fim e2at + + cos 2t 2eat cos t (6)
4
2 2
where, fi is dynamic short-circuit electromagnetic force. fim
is the peak value. a is equal to the ratio of resistance and
inductance obtained from (2). There are the similar dynamic
curves in LV, MV, and HV windings, while the maximum value
presents in LV winding, as shown in Fig. 5.
IV. DYNAMIC D EFORMATION A NALYSIS
A. 3-D FE Mechanical Model of Power Transformer
In order to consider the effects of elastic property in radial
spacer and vertical spacer, 3-D mechanical FEM model was

ZHANG et al.: DYNAMIC DEFORMATION ANALYSIS OF POWER TRANSFORMER WINDINGS

0502204

Fig. 7. Responses of LV winding. (a) Stress. (b) Displacement.

Fig. 5.

Dynamic electromagnetic force in LV winding.

Fig. 8. Measurement of nonlinear elasticity characteristic in spacer block.

Fig. 6.

3-D model. (a) Meshed model. (b) LV winding with spacer block.

built to study the winding deformations. Here, LV winding is

selected to calculate the winding deformation response. Fig. 6
shows the 3-D FEM model (tetrahedral element with 201897
elements and 142618 nodes) of transformer and low voltage
winding supported by spacer. Each section includes one layer
copper disk and radial spacer, respectively.
B. Strain-Stress Analysis Equations
All computation variables, such as stress, strain and displacements, are assumed as symmetry relative to Z axis. In
cylindrical-coordinate system, the relationship between stress,
strain and displacement in copper disk or spacer are described
as follows:
(i) Equilibrium differential equation expresses the relations
between stress and mass force in space.
 r
r
zr
+ fr = 0
r + z +
r
(7)
z
rz
rz
+
+
+
f
z = 0.
z
r
r
(ii) Geometry equation expresses the relations between strain
and displacements in space.

r
= urr
r = u
r
(8)
uz
uz
r
z = z rz = u
z + r .
(iii) Constituent equation expresses the relations between
stress and strain in space.

r = E1 [r ( + z )] z = E1 [z (r + )]
= E1 [ (z + r )] zr = 2(1+)
zr
E
(9)

Fig. 9. Experimental equipment. (a) Spacer block. (b) Compression mould.

(c) Loading machine. (d) Thermometer. (e) Pressure gage.

where, fr and fz are the volume force components

determined by radial and axial short-circuit force, respectively. r , , z , rz , r , , z , rz , ur and uz
denote the stress, strain and displacement in radial, tangential, axial and shear direction, respectively. E is the
elasticity modulus in copper disk or spacer, is Poisson
ratio.
C. Radial Dynamic Deformations Analysis
Considering the influence of prestress from the supporting
points, with 24 vertical spacers uniformly distributing along the
inner circumference of LV winding, the fixed constraint is preset on the interfaces between vertical spacers and copper disks,
as Fig. 7 illustrates. In Fig. 7(a), the maximal stress appears near
the interface. In Fig. 7(b), the maximal displacement appears in
the outline of copper disk.
D. Measurement of Elasticity Property of Spacer
Fig. 8 presents the nonlinear elasticity characteristic of
spacer with oil-immersing one month and measuring at 65 degree oil-temperature. Equipment for testing is shown in Fig. 9.
Using the nonlinear characteristic of spacers can reflect the

0502204

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 24, NO. 3, JUNE 2014

Fig. 10. Dynamical loading force.

Fig. 11. Response under electromagnetic force. (a) Stress. (b) Displacement.

reality deformations of spacer and windings under different

loads in power transformer [3]. With the vibration of windings
immersed by oil, the spacers release the oil when they are
pressed or absorb the oil during the process of springing back,
which makes these spacers have different responses.
E. Axial Dynamic Deformations Analysis
The dynamic signal of short-circuit force may be assumed
as a small signal which is far smaller than prestress. Then the
elastic deformation process near the stability operation point
can be seen as linear relation. Fig. 10 shows the two steps to
implement the whole loading process: (i) only load prestress to
the stability operation point of windings (loading time is T p).
(ii) load the composition force of electromagnetic and prestress
to each section of winding (acting time is T c).
Fig. 11 shows the axial stress and displacement under the
maximum electromagnetic force at a given elasticity modulus
as Fig. 8 points out. Figs. 12 and 13 illustrate the axial dynamic
stress and displacement response under the action of prestress
and axial electromagnetic force, respectively.
V. C ONCLUSION
This paper presents the investigation of winding dynamic
deformations of an oil-immersed-type power transformer. The
results reflects the effects of prestress load and the nonlinear

Fig. 12.

Dynamic stress under electromagnetic force and prestress.

Fig. 13.

Dynamic displacement under electromagnetic force and prestress.

elastic property to winding deformation, which can be useful

for the transformer design and fault diagnosis.
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