Modeling Transformers With Internal Incipient Faults

Hang Wang, Student Member, IEEE, and Karen L. Butler, Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract
Incipient fault detection in transformers can provide early warning of electrical failure and could prevent catastrophic losses. To develop transformer incipient fault detection technique, a transformer model to simulate internal incipient faults is required. This paper presents a methodology to model internal incipient winding faults in distribution transformers. These models were implemented by combining deteriorating insulation models with an internal short circuit fault model. The internal short circuit fault model was developed using finite element analysis. The deteriorating insulation model, including an aging model and an arcing model connected in parallel, was developed based on the physical behavior of aging insulation and the arcing phenomena occurring when the insulation was severely damaged. The characteristics of the incipient faults from the simulation were

compared with those from some potential experimental incipient fault cases. The comparison showed the experimentally obtained characteristics of terminal behaviors of the faulted transformer were similar to the simulation results from the incipient fault models. Index Terms:Arcing, distribution transformer, finiteelement analysis, internal incipient winding fault, modeling. I. INTRODUCTION INTERNAL winding faults resulting from the degradation of transformer winding insulation can be catastrophic and hence expensive. In the new environment of deregulation, utilities therefore are needing inexpensive methods employed to detect such faults in the incipient stage. However, the implementations of the existing monitoring methods tend to cost too much to be applied to distribution transformers. Therefore,an ongoing project in the Power Systems Automation Laboratory (PSAL) of Texas A&M University is to develop an on-line incipient fault detection method for single-phase distribution transformers that utilizes the terminal parameters of voltages and currents. The development of an accurate internal fault diagnostic technique for transformers must be based on the analysis of quantities from fault scenarios. Considering the safety

of personnel, the damage that will occur in the transformer, the consumed time, and related cost, simulation involving the modeling of transformers at various incipient fault stages is the best way to generate these fault cases.Several transformer models have been developed for the study of transformers with internal short circuit winding faults and some research work on the representation of insulation material was done in the past . This method contains a degrading insulation model and a transformer internal short circuit fault model. Since deteriorating insulation involves two stages aging and arcing, the degrading insulation model is composed of an aging model and an arcing model connected in parallel. The degrading insulation model was combined with the internal short circuit model, developed in our earlier work, to simulate internal winding incipient faults. The transformer internal incipient fault model was implemented using commercially available finite element analysis software. Various incipient fault scenarios at different degrading levels of the transformer winding insulation were simulated. In these fault scenarios, the terminal voltages and currents of the transformer were analyzed in both time domain and frequency domain. The characteristics obtained from the

simulation were compared with the characteristics obtained from some experimental fault cases that conveyed incipient-like behavior. In this paper, the transformer model to simulate internal shortcircuit winding faults is briefly introduced in Section II. Then the method to simulate an incipient internal winding fault is discussed in more detail in Section III. In Section IV, some simulation results are discussed and compared with experimental results.The conclusions are given in Section V.

II. INTERNAL SHORT CIRCUIT FAULT MODEL

A method was developed to apply finite element analysis to calculate the parameters for an equivalent circuit of the transformer with an internal short circuit fault using ANSOFTs Maxwell Software . Using finite element analysis to solve problems involves three stages. The first step consists of meshing the problem space into contiguous elements of suitable geometry and assigning appropriate values of the material parameters conductivity, permeability, and permittivity to each element. Since an object with permeability equal to 1 in a magnetic model does not need to be modeled, the insulation between the turns and layers were ignored completely. The core was represented by a rectangle with two windows. The nonlinear

characteristics of the core were input manually into the solver and assigned to the core.

Fig. 1. Transformer model to simulate an internal fault. To simulate an incipient internal winding fault, a model of degraded insulation before breakdown replaced the switch between two turns to model an incipient internal winding fault.

III. DETERIORATING INSULATION MODEL

The deteriorating insulation between the turns is a major cause of incipient internal winding faults in transformers. During the operation of the transformer, a strong electric field is applied to the dielectric material. It can result in the aging and deterioration of the insulation. The relevant factors generally recognized as causing the aging and deterioration of an insulation include thermal stresses, electrical stresses,mechanical stresses, moisture, and so on . Thermal stresses are caused by the internal heating due to current overloads plus ambient temperatures. Electrical stresses are caused by the voltage gradient in the insulation. Under normal operating

conditions, high voltage gradients below the breakdown voltage do not cause detectable aging. However at elevated temperatures, electrical stresses may act to further accelerate material degradation. Mechanical stresses are caused by assembly configurations, manufacturing techniques, centrifugal forces and vibration. Moisture is another major cause of lowered dielectric properties. It can form a conductive path on the surfaces of material or react with the material to cause chemical reversion. The structure of a dielectric may be altered significantly during the aging process, and these changes will affect the electrical properties of the dielectric even before insulation failure occurs. The relaxation processes a dielectric undergoes, and hence the characteristics of dielectric loss, depend on the structure. As the structure of the dielectric molecules alter during aging, the dielectric characteristics and electrical properties change. Normal aging of the insulation may be manifested by the gradual reduction in its withstand capability over a long period of time. In addtion, discharges would like to take place on the surface of the solid insulation or within enclosed voids. The gas ions driven by the electric field would hit on the wall of the insulation and react chemically with some of its surface layer molecules. Thus chemical and

thermal degradation of the insulating material occurs at these microscopic sites. When a persistent discharge continues, it is called an arc discharge. This can result in the failure of the dielectric and a sudden breakdown under operating voltage. To simulate the incipient internal winding faults completely, both the aging phase and the arcing phase have to be taken into account. Therefore, a combination of an insulation aging model and an arcing model was developed to model an incipient internal winding fault. A. Aging Model: In considering the electrical behavior of dielectric material, it has been traditional to approach the subject in terms of an equivalent parallel circuit as shown in Fig. 2 [b]. is the applied voltage and is the current through the insulation. is the capacitive component of current and the resistive component of the current is . The resistance represents the lossy part of the dielectric, taking account of the losses that may result from electronic and ionic conductivity, dipole orientation and space charge polarization. The capacitance of the dielectric is given by (1), where is the equivalent capacitance in the vacuum of the insulation and is the relative permittivity or dielectric constant.

B. Arcing Model:
An arc is defined as a continuous luminous discharge of electricity across an insulating medium, usually accompanied by the partial volatilization of the electrodes. Arcs may develop from a spark when arc tracking occurs across a partially conductive surface, such as damaged insulation. Once extinguished, an arc requires a potential, known as the restrike voltage, to reignite the arc. After an AC current becomes zero, the restrike voltage establishes the potential needed to restrike the arc with the opposite polarity. From experimental results and analysis, Schurig reported that the arc voltage is usually flap-topped and that the magnitude of arcing fault currents ranged from 57% to 100% of the available short-circuit current .

Fig. . Arcing voltage and current. Equivalent circuits of the arc (a) during the burning period (b) during the extinction period.The arcing characteristics are illustrated. The

figure shows the simple case of arcing current and arcing voltage in a resistive load circuit. The dotted line is the arcing current; the solid line is the arcing voltage; the dash-dot line is the system voltage. The arc ignites only after sufficient voltage is across the gap. TABLE I SUMMARY OF VALUES OF VARIABLES DURING DIFFERENT PERIODS When S1 is closed and S2 is open, the arcing model is in the burning period. Otherwise, when S1 is open and S2 is closed, the arcing model is in the extinction period.

TABLE I

decreased to a small value. When the random square wave is zero, S1 and S2 are open. The model represents the nonarcing deteriorating insulation. When the value of is , the model represents the degrading insulation with arcing. In this case, when S1 is closed and S2 is open, the model simulates the burning period. If S1 is open and S2 is closed, it models the extinction period. The aging model and the arcing model can also be connected in series into a series combination insulation model. In the simulation using the series combination insulation model was discussed in more details. TABLE II PARAMETERS IN AGING MODEL FOR PRIMARY FAULT similar to those from the field tests, this paper focuses on discussing the implementation of the parallel combination model and the corresponding simulation results. TABLE II

C. Combination Models represents the parallel combination model. Table I shows the values of various parameters in the different periods of this model. The parallel model represents a perfect insulation when S1 and S2 are open; the value of is zero and is a very large resistance so that the current in the insulation is almost zero. To represent deteriorating insulation, is

IV. IMPLEMENTATION AND SIMULATION RESULTS

A. Transformer Parameters Simulations were carried out based on a custom-built 25 kVA, 60 Hz, single-phase, shell-form transformer used for field experiments. The design data were as follows. The rated voltage ratio was 7200 V/240 V/120 V. The normal impedance was 1.75%, and normal reactance was 1.62%. The turns ratio was 780/26. The primary winding was made of copper; the secondary subwindings were made of aluminum. The insulation between the layers in the custom-built transformer was made of Aramid paper. The custom-built transformer was equipped with various taps placed on both windings so that internal faults could be performed by connecting two taps or connecting a tap to ground. B. Incipient Faults With Aging Model Only Based on the transformer information listed above and the modeling principles discussed in Section II, the parameters of the equivalent circuit for the perfect insulation between two adjacent turns of the transformer were calculated. According to the literatures and previous experimental results, the equivalent capacitance, , changes little. Terminal currents with the aging model to simulate primary

incipient fault. (a) Relationship between primary current and R . 8(a) and (b). From the plots, some conclusions were obtained. First, when was larger than 10 , the primary current was very close to the transformer rated values. In other words, the transformer was in good condition. Fig. 9(a) and (b) show the relationships between the RMS values of primary current and secondary current in one power cycle and the resistance when the incipient fault occurred between the tenth and the 13th turns on the secondary winding.

Fig:[a]

Fig:[b]

V. CONCLUSIONS:
This paper presented a new transformer model to simulate an internal incipient winding fault. The newtransformer modelwas implemented by combining deteriorating insulation model with a finite element analysis internal short circuit fault model. The new deteriorating insulation model, which includes an aging model and an arcing model, was developed based on the physical behavior of aging insulation and the arcing phenomena occurring when the insulation was severely damaged. The characteristics of the terminal currents and circulating current in the faulted winding were analyzed in time domain and frequency domain. Some incipient-like fault cases obtained from internal short circuit field tests were also analyzed in time domain and frequency domain. The comparisons between the incipientlike fault experimental test cases and simulation results showed that terminal behaviors of the faulted transformer obtained from the field tests show some similar characteristics to those from simulations using the parallel combination model. In future work, the incipient fault transformer model will be used to generate a database of incipient internal winding faults in

distribution transformers for the development of intelligent transformer fault detection techniques.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors highly appreciate P. Palmer-Buckle for providing the experimental results and ANSOFT technical support personnel, M. Christini, for his assistance.

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