Dissolved Gas Analysis to Identify Faults and Improve
Reliability in Transformers Using Support Vector
Machines
Fernanda Rabelo Souza
Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of West Florida
Pensacola, Florida, USA 32514
fr11@students.uwf.edu
Abstract— Dissolved gas analysis (DGA) and its key-gas ratios
(C2H2/C2H4, CH4/H2, C2H4/C2H6) are the most widely used fault
diagnostic tests for transformers. This technique monitors the
concentration of various gases in transformer oil and uses it to
interpret the type of fault. In this study, support vector
machines (SVM) is proposed to classify and predict electrical
faults in transformers depending on the key-gas ratios
concentrations. A dissolved gas analysis data obtained from
published papers are used as a sample for the training and test
set with a supervised machine learning from MATLAB
software. Results indicate that SVM method can achieve good
accuracy under the circumstance of small training data.
Index Terms—Dissolved gas analysis, Fault identification in
transformers, Reliability improvement, Support vector
machines.
I. INTRODUCTION
The transformer is an important equipment in power
systems [1] and its adequate functioning is essential for
reliable supply of power. Once transformer develops
abnormality, continuity of power supply and its reliability will
be affected and significant economic loss can occur. It is
therefore essential to monitor the operating condition and
performance of a transformer in order to avoid or reduce
disruption due to unexpected failure [2].
Some transformers are filled with oil for cooling and
insulating the windings. When this protection breaks down,
gases are liberated and depending on the concentration, can
cause faults. These gases are produced not only by oil
breakdown but also due to oxidation, vaporization and
insulation decomposition. The common diagnosis used to
study the type of fault is Dissolved Gas Analysis (DGA). It
has been used by many utilities in order to save cost by
optimizing maintenance schedules [3].
In this study, one type of DGA method (IEC ratios
method) was used to classify and predict transformer fault
978-1-5090-0687-8/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
Bhuvana Ramachandran
Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of West Florida
Pensacola, Florida, USA 32514
bramachandran@uwf.edu
using SVM classifier. The SVM is an effective algorithm for
problems with non-linearity and small quantity of training data
as it is on this study. The data involves four conditions where
some samples are classified as normal state and other three
samples as faults state. The supervised machine learning with
SVM algorithm from MATLAB software was used to train
and test the data.
II. DISSOLVED GAS IN TRANSFORMER OIL
Dissolved gas analysis is a reliable technique for detecting
the presence of incipient fault conditions in oil immersed
transformers [4]. This method works by monitoring the
presence of certain key gases. There are various analysis
methods such as Doernenburg, Rogers’s ratio, Duval triangle,
IEC ratio and key gas. In this paper the IEC ratio method will
be used.
According to IEC Publication 60599, it provides a coded
list of faults detectable by IEC Ratios Method. The IEC Ratios
method utilizes five gases Hydrogen (H2), Methane (CH4),
acetylene (C2H2), ethylene (C2H4) and ethane (C2H6). These
gases are used to produce a three gas ratios: C2H2/C2H4,
CH4/H2 and C2H4/C2H6 and some of the fault types can be
identified by analyzing them. Table 1 tabulates some of these
type’s faults. When oil transformers exceed these limits,
several gases might be created as atmospheric, oxides of
carbon and hydrocarbons and consequently occurs faults [4].
Fault may occur due to overheating, arcing, partial discharge
and overheating in cellulose. Different fault types can be
identified by typical phenomena. Partial discharge of low
energy density is observed by discharged in gas filled cavities
from incomplete impregnation. Partial discharge of high
energy density leads to perforation of solid insulation.
Thermal faults are observed by overheating of insulation
conductors [3].
 TABLE 1. RANGE OF THE RATIOS BASED ON IEC 60599 [5] (2)
(Linear SVM)
Symbol C2H2/C2H4 CH4/H2 C2H4/C2H6 (3)

Partial (Two Layer Neural

PD <0.1 <0.1 <0.2
discharge SVM) (4)
Low
Energy LED >1 0.1-0.5 >1 (Radial Basis
Discharge
Function SVM)
High
Energy HED 0.6 -2.5 0.1 -1 >2
Discharge
(Polynomial SVM,
T1 <0.1 >1 <1 where d is the degree)
Thermal Where κ, σ and θ are constants [7].
T2 <0.2 >1 1-4
Fault
T3 <0.3 >1 >4

III. CONCEPTS OF SUPPORT VECTOR MACHINES

Support vector machine was developed by Vapnik and it is
a new machine learning for two classes of application,
classification and regression problems. The machine
conceptually implements the following idea: input vectors are
non-linearly mapped to a very high-dimension feature space.
In this feature space a linear decision surface is constructed
[6]. A good separation is achieved by the hyper-plane that has
the largest distance to the nearest training data points of any
class, since in general the larger the margin the lower the
generalization error of the classifier.
The SVM method implements the principle of structural
risk minimization (SMR), which is valuable in situations of
small sample [8]. SVM has advantages when compared with
others methods.
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
An experimental data [9] was collected from published
papers and adopted for train the SVM classifier. The data
include 29 samples of thermal heating, 15 samples of high-
energy discharge, 47 samples of normal state and 5 samples of
low-energy discharge. A total of 96 training samples. Two
SVMs are developed to identify three fault types as shown at
the scheme in figure 2.

Fig. 1: Optimal separating the planes

The operation of the SVM algorithm is based on finding

the hyperplane that gives the largest minimum distance to the
training examples. The training set of N data points {yk, xk}N
for k=1, where xk ∈ R is the k-th input pattern and yk ∈ R is
the k-th output pattern, the support vector method approach
aims at constructing a classifier of the form [7]: Fig.2: Scheme of transformer fault diagnosis based on SVM

(1)
This function is called SVM. αk is a positive real constant and
b is a real constant. It is decided by training samples and
defining a kernel function. Some commons kernel function are
shown as follows:
With the samples, the first SVM1 was trained to separate
normal state from fault state. When the input (predictors) of
SVM1 was the DGA gases and the 3 key ratios gases, the
output (response) was set to “fault” and “no fault”. With the
samples of the fault state, the second SVM2 was trained to
separate thermal fault from low energy discharge fault from
high energy discharge fault. The input of SVM2 was
considered the same and the output codification was: TF,
HED, and LED. The parameters of SVM train model were
optimized by cross validation method. The results of a SVM

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training are scalar plots as shown in figure 3, where the “X” the classifier. According to the calculated key gas ratios of the
are the support vectors and the filled circles are the training samples, the SVM1 was tested and then SVM2. The results of
data. the SVM diagnosis are shown in Table 3.
TABLE 2: ACCURACY OF EACH CLASSIFIER TRAINED

SVM 1 SVM2
Linear Linear Linear
Fine Gaussian
SVM Kernel SVM
. Accuracy 97.9% 96.8% 91% 86%

Methane Error 2.10% 3.20% 9% 14%

The classifier was exported to make predictions with the

new test data. Higher accuracy will result in better perform on
testing the new data. Twenty five samples of gases including
fault and normal state from published paper was used to test
the classifier. According to the calculated key gas ratios of the
samples, the SVM1 was tested and then SVM2. The results of
the SVM diagnosis are shown in Table 3.
TABLE 3: SVM RESULTS

Ratios SVM Diagnosis

Hydrogen
SVM
Samples CH4/H2 C2H4/C2H6 C2H2/C2H4 SVM 1
2
1 0.71 0.00 0.96 'No fault' 'LED'
2 0.07 0.21 0.00 'Fault' 'LED'
3 0.56 0.63 0.29 'Fault' 'LED'
4 1.17 1.59 0.91 'Fault' 'LED'
5 0.16 1.38 0.00 'Fault' 'LED'
6 0.35 0.59 0.00 'Fault' 'LED'
7 0.17 8.85 1.04 'Fault' 'HED'
Methane 8 0.19 10.84 1.69 'Fault' 'HED'
'No
9 0.40 11.00 0.18
'No fault' fault'
'No
10 0.26 0.26 0.07
'No fault' fault'
'No
11 1.49 6.45 0.05
'No fault' fault'
'No
12 0.79 6.75 0.00
'No fault' fault'
13 7.12 8.57 0.01 'Fault' 'TF'
14 2.31 3.82 0.00 'Fault' 'TF'
15 1.30 5.73 0.01 'Fault' 'TF'
16 14.81 5.11 0.00 'Fault' 'TF'
17 8.33 19.79 0.01 'Fault' 'TF'
18 1.00 2.55 0.01 'Fault' 'TF'

Hydrogen 19 43.40 7.58 0.01 'Fault' 'TF'

20 0.00 1.71 0.00 'Fault' 'TF'
Fig.3 Scalar plot of SVM1 training and SVM2 training 21 2.99 2.31 0.00 'Fault' 'TF'
Some kernel functions were tested and the best 22 3.05 5.09 0.01 'Fault' 'TF'
performance model acquired for the SVM1 training was the 23 1.91 6.57 0.07 'Fault' 'TF'
Gaussian and for SVM2 training was Kernel Linear. Table 2 'No
24 1.28 5.11 0.08
shows the results for these models. 'Fault' fault'
25 78.88 7.95 0.02 'Fault' 'TF'
The classifier was exported to make predictions with the
new test data. Higher accuracy will result in better perform on
testing the new data. Twenty five samples of gases including
fault and normal state from published paper was used to test

978-1-5090-0687-8/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE

 The results indicate that the SVM classifier can identify all
samples of the three fault states and that the method had no
big mistakes in identifying the 25 samples. The error found
on the fine gaussian model was 2.10% and linear kernel model
was 9%. These errors reflects on the results for classification
with the samples number 1 and 24.
V. CONCLUSION
This paper proposed a method for fault diagnosis of
transformers based on SVM classifier. The method took DGA
samples to identify the fault types and classify them. The
DGA method studied was IEC key-gas ratios which are
significant to detect and identify incipient failures of
transformer. The effectiveness of SVM training was analyzed
by Kernel functions and the best accuracy founded was in
linear kernel and fine Gaussian models.
The method showed good accuracy as with a small quantity
of training data. The test results indicate that the SVM
algorithm is a significant approach that has a fast training
time when compared with others methods. It can be used by
utilities in order to prevent failures and eliminate unnecessary
maintenance.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors gratefully acknowledge the Office of
Undergraduate Research at the University of West Florida for
sponsoring this student research project during summer 2015.
978-1-5090-0687-8/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
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