500 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 22, NO.

1, JANUARY 2007

Line-Current Compensated Single Toroidal-Core

Current Transformer for Three-Phase
Current Measurement
Celal Korasli

Abstract—A novel design of 100 : 1 single toroidal-core current

transformer (CT) is described to measure line currents of a three-
phase system. The toroidal core has three compensation windings
associated with line conductors and a secondary winding. The cur-
rent through a line conductor is measured, except the compensa-
tion winding of the sound phase, when the compensation windings
of the other line conductors are active. The calibration and perfor-
mance of the transformer are discussed for burdens 0.1 and 1

over the current range 0–50 A. Test results indicate that maximum
errors of measurements are comparable to the commercial CTs.
Index Terms—Compensation winding, current transformer
(CT), toroidal core.

I. INTRODUCTION
Fig. 1. Systematic drawing of the toroidal-core CT showing line conductors,

I N large-scale three-phase electrical distribution practices,

simultaneous measurements of large currents for energy
metering and protection purposes are performed using toroidal
their compensation windings, and switching positions to read line current I .

shaped single-stage or multistage toroidal-core current trans-
formers placed over each line conductor. For the same purpose,
an important advantage would be to use only one toroidal-core
current transformer (CT), which allows measurements of
three-phase line currents.
Presently, there is not an existing method for measuring three-
phase line currents using only one toroidal-core CT. This paper
describes the development of an innovative 100 : 1 single-core
and line current compensated toroidal-core CT for three-phase
line current measurements.
The toroidal core basically accommodates three line conduc-
tors and three auxiliary compensation windings associated with
each conductor, and a secondary winding for current measure-
ment. To measure current through a line conductor, compensa-
tion winding of the sound line conductor is to be switched off
while compensation windings of other line conductors remain
switched on to cancel out fluxes produced by their associate con-
ductors, the secondary detecting winding measures the current
through the uncompensated line conductor. Design, operation,
and calibration procedures of the transformer are described, and
errors of measurements are discussed.
II. THEORY OF OPERATION
A. Operation
As shown in Fig. 1, three line conductors incorporate three
compensation windings wound on the toroidal core. The design
Manuscript received July 12, 2005; revised April 17, 2006. Paper no.
TPWRD-00392-2005.
The author is with the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering,
University of Bahrain, Isa Town 32038, Bahrain (e-mail: korasli@eng.uob.bh).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2006.883009
0885-8977/$20.00 © 2006 IEEE
is based on setting up the condition that flux generated by a line
conductor cancels out [1], [2] the flux generated by its compen-
sation winding. For example, to establish the zero-flux condition
for the line current , the flux phasor generated by the line
current should completely be opposed to the flux phasor
generated by its compensation winding current . Thus,
to measure current through a line conductor, its compensation
winding should be kept disconnected, while keeping the other
two compensation windings connected to their own line con-
ductors. For the switching configuration illustrated in Fig. 1, the
current through line conductor R can be measured as switches
and are closed, and is kept open (i.e., fluxes generated
by the compensation windings and makes fluxes gen-
erated by their own lines Y and B ineffective), and leaving out
only flux phasor of the line conductor R as the working flux
in the core. Hence, the current through the detecting secondary
winding becomes proportional to the current through the line
conductor R. The current measurements through the other lines
follow the same procedure (i.e., any disconnected compensation
winding allows measurement of the current of its own line con-
ductor). The design also allows neutral current measurements
with the addition of a similar compensation winding.
The systematic equivalent circuit of the transformer drawn
according to current directions of Fig. 1 is illustrated in Fig. 2.
B. Approximate Equivalent Circuit
The equivalent circuit of the simplified configuration shown
in Fig. 2 is given in Fig. 3 to take into account magnetic cou-
pling of each winding with respect to the other windings wound
around the core. Due to extensive magnetic nature of the CT,
each winding may be represented with a series resistance and
KORASLI: LINE-CURRENT COMPENSATED SINGLE TOROIDAL-CORE CT 501

The emf induced across the compensation winding CR of the

R line is

(3)

where is the self-inductance of the compensation wind-

Fig. 2. Circuit diagram of the current transformer switched to measure line
current I .
ings of the line R, and and MCRCB are the mutual
inductance between compensation winding of the line R and
compensation windings of the lines Y and B, respectively. Sim-
ilarly, , , and are the mutual inductance
between the compensation winding of the R line and the line
windings of the lines R, Y, and B, respectively. Finally,
is the mutual inductance between the compensation winding of
the R line and the secondary measuring winding. Because of the
symmetric positioning of windings, we can make the following
simplification:

Under the unbalanced loading condition, the line cur-

rents , and
Fig. 3. Equivalent circuit of the CT. where induces the secondary
current through the burden. Hence, (3)
can be rewritten in terms of line winding currents , , and
a magnetizing branch. To simplify the equivalent representa- , and compensation winding currents , , and .
tion, leakage reactance of primary windings is neglected. In After differentiating each term of (3) the emf induced across
the figure circuit details of only the R line of the CT is in- the compensation winding, CR becomes
dicated. In the figure, first subscripted letters C and L stand
for Compensation and Line windings, respectively. The second
subscripts R, Y, and B are phase symbols, and m stands for
magnetizing component of primary compensation and of line
winding currents. Since resistance of three compensation wind-
(4)
ings are equal, and, similarly, for
three line windings . Hence, per- A similar expression can also be written for the line winding
formance of the CT can be evaluated in time domain with neg- LR as
ligible error using the simplified linear equivalent circuit shown
in Fig. 3.

C. Coupled-Circuit Equations
The terminal equations for the R line can be expressed for the (5)
compensation CR and line LR windings as
where and
(1) .
(2) No further closed-form expressions of (4) and (5) can be
written unless the relation between line winding and compen-
where and are the currents through compensation and sation winding currents are known. Assume that compensation-
line windings, and and are electromotive force (emf) winding current can be expressed as a linear function of line
induced across magnetizing branches of compensation and line winding current hence, we may write
windings, respectively.
The emf induced across windings can be expressed in terms
of self and mutual inductances of both windings with respect to
compensation and line windings of the other line conductors. (6)
502 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 22, NO. 1, JANUARY 2007

These relations hold as long as the working current range re-
mains over the linear part of the magnetizing curve of the core.
Since the number of turns of line winding is usually taken as
one, any method leading to determine the value of is valuable
in setting the initial number of turns for compensation winding
and in determining its tail length over the line conductor span.
Substituting (6) into (4) and (5), the emf induced across the
compensating winding CR becomes
values of magnetizing inductance of both windings may be ap-
proximated as and
.
D. Turn Ratio Error
Since reluctance of the toroidal core is very small, the net ex-
citation magnetomotive force (mmf) acting on the core will re-
main negligible and, hence, the total ampere-turn balance equa-
tion of the core to measure line current may be written as

(12)

where is the number of turns of the primary line winding,

(7) and is the number of turns of the compensation winding
and are compensation winding currents and are the
Assuming the load is balanced (i.e., ) currents through line windings of lines Y and B, respectively,
and making use of the trigonometric relation is the number of secondary winding turns, and is the
, and and secondary winding current.
, (7) may further be simplified as Noting the relations given in (6), the currents through line
windings of lines Y and B can be written as

and

Substituting and in (12), and taking , we

obtain

(8) (13)

Similar expression for the emf voltage induced across the line For a three-phase balanced load, after substituting
winding LR may be derived as in (13) and solving for the current ratio, , we obtain

(14)
(9)

After substituting and or simply, , which is also valid for the other current
in (8) and (9), the terminal equations given in (2) and (3) may ratios of line currents and .
now be written for the compensation winding CR as To derive a similar derivation for unbalanced loading condi-
tion, the neutral conductor should pass through the core and its
compensation winding is to be designed similar to those of line
conductors. The current ratio can be calculated following the
same procedure given in (12) to (14). Since for an unbalanced
load, , substituting
in (13), one can readily determine the nominal current ratio as
(10)

and for the line winding LR as where

which requires measurement of the neutral current to determine

(11)
Equations (10) and (11) are the voltages induced across the input
terminals of the R line expressed in terms of self and mutual
inductances, and current sharing factor.
Neglecting leakage component of the flux linking compen-
sating winding CR and of the line winding LR (Fig. 3), the
.
III. DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE
A. Details of Design
The experimental current transformer has a toroidal magnetic
core composed of 0.5-mm-thick sheath of magnetic material-
type 50H400 and has effective permeability of 0.02
KORASLI: LINE-CURRENT COMPENSATED SINGLE TOROIDAL-CORE CT 503

. Its surface is insulated with 0.5-mm-thick insulating where

fabric tape. It has radial and axial lengths of 4.3 mm and 54
mm, respectively, having a cross-sectional area of 232 mm . Its
inner diameter is 50 mm All three primary windings are one-
turn line conductors 2.764 mm in diameter (6 mm in the cross- Hence
sectional area), and were wound around the core. The secondary
winding conductor is 0.9 mm in diameter and has 106 turns. The
conductor diameter of the compensation winding is 1.128 mm
(1.0 mm ). Both secondary and compensation windings were (16)
uniformly wound around the core and supported with plastic
In accordance with the assumptions made in (6), we can per-
sheets.
form root mean square (rms) operation on each term, hence (16)
To determine the approximate number of turns to be wound
becomes
for compensation and line windings, which are required to es-
tablish the zero-flux condition through the core as three switches
(17)
in the circuits of compensation windings are closed, the value
of the current sharing factor , defined in (6), is to be known.
Since under zero-flux condition, the last term in (10) and (11) Equation (17) can be reduced to , and
becomes zero and equating the right-hand side of (10) and (11), the solution yields . This signifies that in order to es-
we find tablish the zero-flux condition, the turn ratio of line to compen-
sation windings should be set to , which
is a fractional number. Since the number of turns of the line
winding is usually taken as one, the number of turns of the
compensation winding should be set as either slightly higher
than two or less than three. This uncertainty can be resolved by
setting the initial number of turns of compensation winding to
three, and then adjusting its resistance by varying its tail length
and length of its line conductor span before fixing it on the line
or
conductor.

B. Calibration
As mentioned earlier, the design of the transformer is based
on achieving zero-flux condition in the core as both compen-
(15) sation winding and its own line conductor act together. The
driving current source of a compensation winding is the frac-
The first term in (15) indicates the effect of winding resistance tional current diverted from its line conductor. Its conductor
on current sharing between compensation and line windings. size and length and number of turns, and points of fixing
The following circuit constants determined in the Appendix may its terminals along its line conductor span are the necessary
be substituted in (15) to obtain : requirements for establishing zero-flux condition in the core.
Therefore, during the calibration procedure, each compensation
winding was sought to fulfill these requirements.
The procedure for establishing the zero-flux condition is as
follows. While the current through only one of the line conduc-
tors was maintained at 50 A, initially, two turns were set for the
and compensation winding. Then, several trials were made to ob-
tain zero voltage output by adjusting its length before fixing its
terminals on the line conductor. The total tail length of the com-
pensation winding CR and the span length along the line con-
ductor or line winding LR were measured to be about 104 mm
and 100 mm, respectively. At a later stage, the switches were
wired into circuits of compensation windings.
The same procedure was followed for the other compensa-
tion windings. Each compensation winding was fixed to its line
conductor at one end, and at the other end, it was connected to
a single-pole switch.
and
C. Performance
The manufacturer’s core excitation data indicate that satura-
tion of the core induction starts at 1.3 T when the magnetizing
504 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 22, NO. 1, JANUARY 2007

TABLE I TABLE II
RESULTS FOR BALANCED DELTA-CONNECTED RESISTIVE LOAD OBTAINED TEST RESULTS FOR AN UNBALANCED DELTA-CONNECTED RESISTIVE LOAD
WITH BURDEN RESISTORS R = 0:1
AND R = 1:0
OBTAINED WITH BURDEN RESISTORS R = 0:1
AND R = 1:0

TABLE III
RATIO AND PHASE ERRORS RECORDED IN THE CURRENT MEASUREMENTS
OF I WITH BURDEN RESISTANCE FOR UNBALANCED LOADING
CONDITION GIVEN IN TABLE II
force reaches 220 AT/m. Hence, for the present design, the pri-
mary current limit is around 40 A.
Current measurements were performed in the current test
range 0–50 A using a Fluke 189 digital multimeter to a reso-
lution of 2%. The CT was tested for burdens 0.1 and 1.0
for a delta-connected resistive load throughout the performance
tests.
Two tests were applied to assess the performance of the CT
for burdens 0.1 and 1.0 under balanced and unbalanced load
conditions achieved with a delta-connected resistive load in the
current test range 0–50 A. No attempt was made to measure
neutral current to avoid the effects of mutual coupling of the
neutral winding on the others, which is expected to offset the
existing calibration state of the CT.
The performance assessments were made using the standard
definitions of percentage current ratio error (RE) and phase dis-
2) Factors Affecting the Accuracy of the CT: There are sev-
placement error (PE) [3].
eral factors reducing the accuracy of the present design. During
1) Transformer Output Response: Table I shows the test re-
the initial stage of calibration, it was observed that tail resistance
sults obtained for the balanced loading condition. In the current
of the compensation winding has a significant effect in estab-
test range, the RE varies between 3.0 and 3.25, which is close
lishing the zero-flux condition in the core. Since the conductor
to the RE limit of 3 specified for accuracy Class 3 (classified in
size of the compensation winding is inversely proportional to
IEC Standard 60044-1). For this class of CT, no limit is specified
its number of turns, the disproportionate selection of any one
for PE in the standard, however, all of experimental PE values
of them, as experienced in the present design, makes it difficult
are higher than the values given for any accuracy class specified
to adjust the tail length and, hence, its resistance for zero-flux
in the standard.
compensation.
Table II shows the test results obtained for an unbalanced
The second factor is the residual flux of the core, which causes
loading condition. As the line currents and were set to
generation of circulating currents through the loops of acting
5 A and 20 A, respectively, the line current was varied in
compensation and line windings (Fig. 3). It reduces magnetic
the current test range 0–50 A. RE and PE estimates of the test
induction in the core and consequently reduces magnitude of
results of Table II are displayed in Table III. In the current test
the secondary current and this, in turn, causes , RE, and PE
range for both burdens, RE was observed to vary between 3.2
to increase.
and 3.5, which is slightly higher than the RE limit of 3 specified
The amount of reduction in the measurement of line current
for accuracy Class 3. All of the experimental PE results are also
can be estimated after substituting circulating ampere-turns
higher than the limiting RE values specified for any accuracy
in the total ampere-turn balance equation given in (13) after su-
class of the standard.
perimposing circulating currents of the windings of both lines
For the present experimental conditions, the performance of
Y and B on the secondary current
the CT can fairly be classified in the accuracy Class 3. However,
resolving the problems related to the calibration, it is believed
that performance may readily be improved to higher accuracy
classes. (18)
KORASLI: LINE-CURRENT COMPENSATED SINGLE TOROIDAL-CORE CT 505

The resulting secondary current is 4) Effect of the Primary Line Conductor Position: Positions
of line conductors within the core were observed to slightly
(19) offset the zero-flux condition. Since it is difficult to assess this
effect, positions of the line conductors (one-turn) were fixed
and substituting , , and in (19), and symmetrically inside the core using an insulating spacer before
the amount of reduction in becomes any calibration attempt. In addition, running tail conductors par-
allel to their line conductors were found to inflict no adverse ef-
fect on the performance of the CT.
If accuracy can be improved by reducing the conductor
In order to determine , should be known at every stage size of the compensation winding or increasing its number of
of the current measurements and it can be determined using the turns, increasing its size, and arranging windings to reduce flux
relation leakages, the present design is advantageous with considerable
space savings and material cost.

IV. CONCLUSION
The design, operation, and performance of the 100:1 single
toroidal-core CT has been described to measure three-phase line
currents for the burdens 0.1 and 1.0 in the current test range
where . However, it is difficult to predict 0–50 A. The ratio errors are comparable to the accuracy Class
the value of since it varies with the magnitude of primary 3 of the standard CT. The present prototype CT exhibits some
current that the core is exposed to during the experiments. For drawbacks related to its calibration to achieve complete line
instance, for the present design, the maximum value attainable compensation. However, if the design is to be improved for cal-
is for primary currents larger than 50 A obtained ibration and performance, its accuracy class may be enhanced,
from the manufacturer’s data. This causes to and it may find applications in three-phase distribution systems
circulate through the indicated loops and, hence, the amount of for line current measurements in low-voltage distribution sys-
reduction in the primary current would be in the order of 0.03 tems. In addition, because of its novel configuration and opera-
A or less. tion, it has also some valuable features of academic interest.
One of the reasons bringing about higher RE and PE values
could be unaccountable circulating currents because of the small APPENDIX
core size of the present CT.
Two windings are wound over two separate spools having a
The other source of possible error affecting accuracy is
material thickness of 2 mm and a core insulation material thick-
the winding arrangement of primary and secondary windings
ness of 0.5 mm. The number of turns of compensation and line
around the core, which may increase leakage flux of the primary
windings, using the same notation of the text, are and
compensation and line windings, and the secondary measuring
, respectively. The resistivity of the Cu conductor is
winding.
and the permeability of the core mate-
3) Effect of Compensation Winding Parameters: As ex-
rial is .
plained in the Appendix, the amount of current diverted through
1) The resistance of windings.
a compensation winding is determined by the impedance ratio
The resistance of the compensation winding : The
of a line conductor to its compensation winding. The important
conductor diameter is mm (1 mm ). The
parameters for establishing zero-flux conditions are the number
total conductor length for the two-turn winding is
of turns of compensation winding and its tail length, and points
of terminating its end leads on its own line conductor span.
length of one turn
Further, the winding technique and locations of fixing both
line conductor and compensation windings on the core are also
effective factors for final zero-flux condition tuning.
The presence of another compensation winding was found
to offset slightly the zero-flux condition established by the first Hence
one. The reason for the increase in offset is due to the loading ef-
fects of compensation windings imposed with their mutual cou-
pling. This was corrected by fixing the compensation windings
symmetrically around the core and readjusting tail positions The resistance of the line conductor : The conductor
along the spans of their own line conductors. In the presence of diameter is mm (6 mm ), and its length is
three compensation windings, the total span lengths of line con- (length of one turn)
ductors were measured for the lines R, Y, and B as 104, 102, and . Hence
112 mm, respectively. The residual flux after calibrating each
phase group could be the reason for having different span and
tail lengths.
506 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 22, NO. 1, JANUARY 2007

2) The core reluctance . The average length of the REFERENCES

toroidal core is [1] K. Takahashi, “Error-compensated high-precision clamp current trans-
and its cross-sectional area former,” Elect. Eng. Jpn., vol. 108, no. 5, pp. 14–21, Sep./Oct. 1988.
. Hence [2] J. D. Ramboz, “A high accurate, hand-held clamp-on current trans-
former,” IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas., vol. 45, no. 2, pp. 445–448, Apr.
1996.
[3] B. D. Jenkins, Introduction to Instrument Transformer. London,
U.K.: George Newness, 1967.
3) Self and mutual inductances of the compensation and
line windings

Celal Korasli was born in Ankara, Turkey, in December 1947. He received the
B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from Middle-East Technical
University, Ankara, in 1971 and 1973, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from
the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, U.K., in 1980.
Currently, he is a Professor with the Department of Electrical and Electronics
Engineering, University of Bahrain, Isa Town, Bahrain. In 1980, he joined the
Middle-East Technical University as an Assistant Professor and was appointed
Associate Professor in 1986 with the University of Gaziantep, Gaziantep,
Turkey. He became Professor with the University of Kahramanmaras, Kahra-
manmaras, Turkey, in 1994. He has been involved in many engineering
activities for private companies and governmental organizations for testing
high-voltage gas and oil-insulated power switchgear.
and