SWEPT FREQUENCY RESPONSE TEST FOR CONDITION MONITORING OF POWER TRANSFORMER AI-Khayat N.

Danfoss Flowmetering Ltd Ebley Road, Stonehouse, Gloucester England Haydock L. Newage International Ltd PO Box 17, Barnack Road, Stamford, England
INTRODUCTION Winding deformation can be caused by lightning, switching or system fault. The principal forces causing the deformation are radial and axial. In concentric winding transformers, radial forces involve adequate support of the inner winding, whilst the outer winding relies upon the tensile strength of the conductor[l]. Axial forces include an unavoidable compression of both windings and a displacement due to the electromagnetic dissymmetry. Winding deformation may be determined by either frequency response analysis (FRA)[2] or low voltage impulse (LV1)[3]. Both methods are based on a comparison of the response of the transformer windings before and after damage. end of the winding. In 1988, ERA Technology, in collaboration with The Nottingham Trent University, started a detailed program of research for the development of a means of monitoring the condition of a power transformer using FRA technique[4]. The research work concentrated on the establishment of a mathematical model of the transformer windings. The models developed were general and accurate. Overall 11 transformers were tested (5OOkVA 70MVA). They range from distribution type transformer, arc furnace transformer, power station generator-transformer to neutral earthing reactors. In this paper attention will be centred on measuring and predicting the frequency response of iron cored disk-type windings in a SOOkVA distribution type transformer.

IRONCOREDRESPONSEMEASUREMENT The signal generator was connected across the transformer windings as shown in figure 2.
etwork Analyser

HP3577A

Winding Under Test

w o w

Figure 1.Transformer frequency response. The FRA method uses a sweep generator to apply a sinusoidal voltage at different frequencies to the terminals of a transformer winding. Amplitude and phase of the winding impedances or admittance are plotted directly as functions of frequency, figure 1. The LVI method considers the application of a low voltage impulse to the winding and records of both the applied impulse and the response at the remote

Figure 2: Circuit for frequency response of winding under test. The measured frequency response is shown in figure 1. The point of maximum and minimum admittance is quite regular and easy to verify for a single winding irrespective of its end terminal connection[4]. However, when a secondary winding is introduced, the beat effect between the oscillations of two windings with a different number of turns creates a very irregular pattern of the

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admittance-frequency traces, figure 1. It is worth noting that the influence of the secondary winding on the frequency response of the primary is a function of its radius as well as its terminal connections. When the secondary winding has a much greater radius than the primary, its effect is negligible and can approach the response for the primary alone in air. The change in the measured frequency response of the disk type transformer is very pronounced up to 400kHz. For frequencies up to 400kHz some maxima and minima occur, sharply signifying the change from an inductive to a capacitive resonant circuit. At higher frequencies, the peaks in amplitude disappear and this can be attributed to higher losses and consequently greater damping effect. It is also worth noting that after the first resonant frequency the general trends show a decrease in the admittance as a function frequency. Since the high voltage winding has been designed for a rated voltage much higher than the applied voltage, the iron is expected to be in the linear part of the magnetisation characteristic. The use of higher voltages will increase the value of the no-load impedance and so decrease the value of the first resonant frequency[5-7,121. DAMAGE PREDICTION The resonance phenomena on transformer windings resemble the behaviour of a transmission line[8151. Figure 3 shows the standing wave pattern along a transformer winding at the lowest resonant and antiresonant frequencies.

sinewaves distributed along the winding length and experiences large amplitude voltage oscillations. Also, at antiresonant frequencies, a standing wave pattern exists consisting of an odd integer number of quarter sinewaves. Now each of those resonant or antiresonant frequencies corresponds to a winding section which behaves as either a series or parallel resonant circuit. Winding damage detection employing the FRA method can be accomplished by comparing the fingerprints of a healthy winding (or the calculated response using the equivalent circuit) with the fingerprints of a damaged winding. Changes in fingerprints can be used to estimate the degree of winding damage and moreover, its location[4]. IRON CORED RESPONSE PREDICTION With the increasing power of computers and the compatibility of circuit solvers, it became possible to write a program for the solution of an equivalent circuit model for analysing the frequency response of iron cored coils. The program was written in PASCAL and it calculates the various circuit parameters of the transformer windings, using their physical dimensions and the material properties of the insulation (permeability and resistivity of the core, permitivity of insulation). The generated equivalent circuit was solved using SPICE[4]. The predicted response is shown in figure 4.

(a)

(b)

Figure 3: Current C J and voltage wave pattems at resonance and anti resonance. (a) Lowest order antiresonance. (b) Lowest order resonance. At resonant frequencies, the winding exhibits a standing wave pattern of an integer number of half

Figure 4: Predicted frequency response for disk type transformer. There are close similarities between the trend of the predicted and measured frequency response. It

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should be pointed that the prime factor of interest in winding damage detection is the frequency trend. Any small winding movement can alter the frequency response by a significant amount. Nevertheless, table 1 shows a comparison between measured and calculated methods for the first seven modes of oscillation. The bracketed numbers represent the percentage difference with respect to the measured values. The equivalent circuit considered for this analysis ignored the frequency dependence of parameters like conductivity cscore and directional permeabiIity pz(core).

I Oscillation mode I
I

Predicted I Measured First I 7kHz(-13%] I 8kHz 29kHz Second 25kHz (-14%) Third 27kHz (-23%) 35kHz Fourth 59kHz (+2%) 6OkHz 70kHz Fifth 77kHz (+lo%) 11OkHz Sixth 98kHz (-11%) Table 1. Measured and calculated fundamental resonant frequencies

I I

CONCLUSION The paper has discussed of the modelling and testing of a large distribution type power transformer. The models developed show a close trend between the measured and predicted frequency response. The results are believed to be very encouraging for further work in this area. Furthermore, the method used in this paper is sufficiently general to be easily applied to other electromagnetic devices.

[6] Abetti P. A. : "Correlation of forced and free oscillations of coil and windings", Trans. of AIEE, pp. 986-96, 1959. [7] Degeneff R. C. : "A general method for determining resonances in transformer windings", IEE Trans. on PAS, Vol. PAS-96, No. 2, pp. 423, 1977. [8] Popovic Lj. M. : "General equations of the line represented by discrete parameters, Part I steady state", IEEE Trans. on Power Delivery, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 295, 1991. [9] Wilcox D. J. and Hurely W. G. : "Transient analysis of three phase transformer windings", UPEC, Belfast University, 1989. [lo] Dahab A. A. , Burke P. E. and Fawzi T. H.: "A complete model of a single layer air cored reactor for impulse voltage distribution", IEEE Trans. on Power Delivery, Vol. 3, pp. 1745, 1988. [ l l ] Namjoshi K. V. and Biringer P. P. : "Electromagnetic coupling between heater coils of axial induction heaters", IEEE Trans. on Magnetics, Vol. 26, No. 5,pp. 2241, 1990. [12] Jiang Qin and Bodger P. S. : "Harmonic response and terminal resonances of high voltage transformers", Int. J. Elect Enging. Educ., Vol. 28, pp. 144-156, 1991. [13] Hurley W. G. and McNamara P. S. : "Characterization of transformer cores using a new mutual impedance formula", European Conference Power Electronics & Applications, Italy, Vol. 2, pp. 452-7, 1991. [14] Snelling E. C. : "Soft Ferrites", ILIFFE Books, London, 1969. [15] Kress K. et al : Travelling Waves as Causes of Internal Resonance Phenomena in Coils and Windings", CIGRE, 12-303, 1992.

REFERENCES [ l ] Norris E. T. : "Mechanical Strength of Power Transformers in Service", Proc. of IEE, Vol. 104, Part A, pp. 289-306,1952. [2] Dick E. P. : "Transformer diagnostic testing by frequency response analysis", IEEE Trans. on PAS, Vol. PAS 97, 1978. [3] Lech W. : "Detecting transformer winding damage", Electrical Review, Vol 179, pp. 768, 1966. [4] Al-Khayat N. : "Transformer Simulation Models", PhD Thesis, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, U.K., 1994. [5] Abetti P. A. and Maginniss F. J. : "Natural frequencies of coils and windings determined by equivalent circuit", Trans. of AIEE, Vol. 72, pp 495504,1953.

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