NEW MAGNETIZING INRUSH

RESTRAINING ALGORITHM FOR

POWER TRANSFORMER PROTECTION
INTRODUCTION
Large power transformers belong to a class of vital and very expensive
components in electric power systems. Accordingly, high demands are
imposed on power transformer protective relays. The operating
conditions of transformer protection, however, do not make the
relaying task easy. Protection of large power transformers is one of the
most challenging problems in the area of power system relaying.

Magnetizing inrush inhibit is one the issues. Traditional second

harmonic restraining technique may face security problems as the level
of the second harmonic may drop below the reasonable threshold
setting (around 20%) permanently or for several power system cycles
during magnetizing inrush conditions. This is particularly true for
modern transformers with magnetic cores built with improved
materials, but it has a bearing upon old designs as well.

Numerical relays capable of performing sophisticated signal processing

functions enable the relay designer to re-visit the classical protection
principles and enhance the relay performance, facilitating faster, more
secure and dependable protection for power transformers.

A new magnetizing inrush restraining technique presented in this paper

uses the angular relationship between the first and second harmonics
of the differential current. Thus, the technique adds a new dimension
to the traditional approach that measures the magnitude ratio only
between the fundamental frequency component and the second
harmonic.

MAGNETIZING INRUSH
Magnetizing inrush currents in power transformers results from any
abrupt change of the magnetizing voltage. Although usually considered
a result of energizing a transformer, the magnetizing inrush may be also
caused by:

(a) occurrence of an external fault,

(b) voltage recovery after clearing an external fault,

(c) change of the character of an external fault, and

(d) out-of-phase synchronizing of a near-by generator.

Since the magnetizing branch representing the core appears as a shunt

element in the transformer equivalent circuit, the magnetizing current
upsets the balance between the currents at the transformer terminals,
and is therefore experienced by the differential relay as a false
differential current.

Inrush due to switching-on

Initial magnetizing due to switching a transformer on is considered the
most severe case of an inrush. When a transformer is de-energized, the
magnetizing volta is taken away, the magnetizing current goes to zero
while the flux follows the hysteresis loop of the core. This results in
certain remanent flux left in the core. When, afterwards, the
transformer is re-energized by an alternating sinusoidal voltage the flux
gets biased by the remanence. The residual flux may be as high as 80-
90% of the rated value [1], and therefore, it may shift the flux-current
trajectories far above the knee-point of the characteristic resulting in
both large peak values and heavy distortions of the magnetizing
current. Figure 1a shows a sample inrush current. The waveform
displays a large and long lasting dc component, is rich in harmonics,
assumes large peak values at the beginning, decays substantially after a
few tenths of a second, but its full decay occurs only after several
seconds. The shape, magnitude and duration of the inrush current
depend on several factors. They are:

(a) Size of a transformer.

(b) Impedance of the energizing system.

(c) Magnetic properties and remanence of the core.

(d) Point-on-wave (phase angle) and way (inner, outer winding, type of
switchgear) the transformer is switched on.

Harmonic content of the inrush current

Assume the analytical approximation shown in Figure 2 for calculation
of the frequency spectrum of the inrush current. The angle a is a
parameter facilitating modeling of an actual inrush current. For
example, during first few cycles of the waveform of Figure 1a the angle
is quite small, while from the 10th cycle on, the angle be-comes quite
large. The amplitude of the nth harmonic of the waveform of Figure 2
is calculated as:
Figure:1 Sample inrush current and its harmonic content.

Figure 3: presents the frequency spectrum of the signal shown in Figure

2: calculated with the use of (1) for a=60, 90 and 120 degrees,
respectively. As seen from the figure, the second harmonic always
dominates be-cause of a large dc component. However, the amount of
the second harmonic may drop below 20%. The mini-mum content of
the second harmonic depends mainly on the knee-point of the
magnetizing characteristic of the core. The lower the saturation flux
density, the higher the amount of the second harmonic.

INRUSH RESTRAINT METHODS

Modern means of restraining differential relays during magnetizing
inrush conditions recognize the inrush pat-tern in the differential
current either indirectly (harmonic analysis) or directly (waveform
analysis)
Harmonic restraint. This is a classical way to restrain the relay from
tripping during magnetizing inrush conditions. The magnetizing inrush
current appearing to a relay as the differential signal displays high
amounts of higher harmonics. Gen-erally, low levels of harmonics
enable tripping, while high levels indicate inrush and restrain the relay.
For digital relays this may be written as:

The condition (2) originates a whole family of algorithms using a variety

of approaches in combining cur-rents ICH and ICD. In the simplest
approach, the amplitude of the second harmonic in the differential
current in a given phase is the combined harmonic signal, while the
amplitude of the fundamental frequency component in the differential
current in the same phase is used as the combined differential current:
The harmonic restraint in general, regardless of the method of
composing the combined harmonic and differential signals, displays
certain limitations. In modern transformers the amount of higher
harmonics in the magnetizing current may drop well below 10% (the
second harmonic as low as 7%, while the total harmonic content at a
level of 7.5% [1]). Under such circum-stances (see Figure 1 for
example), the setting Din (2) should be adjusted at a very low value.
This may lead, however, to delayed or even missing operation of the
relay due to the harmonics in the differential currents during internal
faults accompanied by saturation of the CTs. Cross-restraint or time-
controlled threshold pro-vide only a partial solution to this problem.
Other approaches
Other approaches include:

Waveform-based algorithms.

Model methods .

Differential power method.

Flux-based method.

They do not address the problem entirely.

NEW ALGORITHM
The classical second harmonic restraint compares the magnitude of the
second harmonic with the magnitude of the fundamental frequency
component. Following this traditional approach one neglects the other
dimension of the derived ratio the phase relation.

Figure 4 presents an idealized magnetizing inrush cur-rent of Figure 2

with its fundamental frequency component and the second harmonic
superimposed. Because the waveform is symmetrical the first and
second harmonics are in phase as their signal models have the same
initial angle. In terms of rotating phasors, however, there are problems
in defining the phase angle between the fundamental frequency
component and the second harmonic. As the second harmonic rotates
twice as fast as the fundamental frequency phasor the phase angle
between the second and first harmonics varies cyclically. This obstacle
has been overcome by introducing the following

Two dimensional (complex) second harmonic ratio:

where all the involved currents are rotating vectors.

Depending on the definition of the phasors, the attribute of the

fundamental frequency component and the second harmonic being
in phase during inrush conditions should be understood as follows:

(a) If the cosine function is a base for the real part of the phasor, then
the angle between the first and second harmonics is 0 or 180 degrees
during inrush conditions.

(b) If the sine function is a base for the real part of the phasor, then the
angle between the first and second harmonics is either +90 degrees or
90 degrees during inrush conditions.

In this convention (b) is followed.

Analysis similar to the one depicted in Figure 4 has been carried out for
the waveform model that included a decaying dc component with the
time constant varied over a wide range. Again, an analytical proof has
been obtained that the phase angle difference between the second and
first harmonics defined as (b) above is close to 90 degrees regardless
of the ratio of amplitudes.

Statistical evaluation of the new principle

The algorithm has been tested using numerous wave-forms obtained by
simulation and from recordings on physical made-to-scale
transformers.
The following factors ensure diversity of the considered cases:

Both wye-delta and wye-wye connections have been taken into

account,

Energization from both wye and delta windings has been considered,

Energization onto an internal fault has been considered,

Variety of inrush factors have been taken into ac-count (weak and
strong energizing systems, random residual magnetism, random point-
on-wave when energizing, etc.).

The performed analysis has showed improved discrimi-nation ability of

the new algorithm comparing with the traditional second harmonic
restraint. To illustrate this, Figure 5a presents a histogram of the
complex second harmonic ratio for internal faults in wye-wye and
delta-wye transformers. The new restraint quantity converges at the
origin. The values away from the origin are marginal and are distributed
quite uni-formly. For comparison, Figure 5b shows a histogram of the
new decision signal for numerous inrush cases for energizing from both
wye and delta windings. As seen from the figure, the values of the
complex second harmonic ratio cluster along the 90-degree lines
Thus, there is significant separation between the internal fault (Figure
5a) and inrush (Figure 5b) patterns. This ensures robust operation of
the new algorithm.
Operate/Restraint regions
Taking the statistical difference of Figure 5 into account the operating
region for the new decision quantity I21 has been shaped as shown in
Figure 6. The following applies to the operate/restraint regions
(Figure6):

the operating region stretches between approxi-mately 20% for

angles close to 0 and 180 degrees (traditional second harmonic
restraint),

for angles close to 90 degrees the operating region is cut with two
lens-like shapes ensuring blocking for low values of the second
harmonic,

the lens-like cut-offs are not stationary, but are made functions of
time-initially, the cut-offs are very deep, but after several cycles they
disappear leaving a classical circular-like operating characteristic.

As a result of the dynamic restraint, one obtains a time-dependent

operating characteristic for the complex second harmonic ratio. The
time required to unblock the relay (i.e. the time after which the
magnetizing inrush restraint is taken out) is a function of I21. If the
latter does not change in time, the stationary tI21 relation may be
derived as shown in Figure 7. The obtained characteristic has the
following distinctive features:

if the angle of I21is close to 0 or 180 degrees, the in-rush restraint is

removed immediately regardless of the magnitude of the second
harmonic,
 if the angle is close to 90 degrees the delay before removing the
restraint depends on the amount of the second harmonic: for low ratios
of the second har-monic, the delay is very short; while for ratios close
to 20% is rises to 5-6 cycles; this is enough to pre-vent maloperation
due to low values of the second harmonic during inrush conditions.
CONCLUSIONS
This paper presents a new inrush restraint algorithm for protection of
power transformers. The algorithm is an extension of the traditional
second harmonic method instead of measuring the ratio between the
magnitudes of the second harmonic and the fundamental frequency
component -the algorithm considers a ratio between the phasors of the
second and the fundamental frequency components of the differential
signal.

The new decision signal has been proposed together with the
appropriate operating region. The operating region is made dynamic in
order to maximize the relay performance on internal faults. The new
algorithm has been successfully implemented using the universal relay
platform.

The results of extensive testing prove that the algorithm enhances the
relay stability during magnetizing inrush conditions maintaining at the
same time excellent performance on internal faults.

REFERENCES

1. Karsai K, Kerenyi D, Kiss L, 1987, Large Power Transformers ,

Elsevier, New York, USA.

2. Kasztenny B, Kezunovic M, 1998, Improved Power Transformer

Protection using Numerical Relays , IEEE Computer Applica-tions in

Power, 11/4, 39-45.

3. Giuliante T, Clough G, Advances in the Design of Differential

Protection for Power Transformers , 1995, Texas A&M University
Conference for Protective Relay Engineers, College Station,Texas, USA.

4. Inagaki K, Higaki M, Matsui Y, Kurita K, Suzuki M, Yoshida K,

MaedaT, Digital Protection Method for Power Transformers Based on
an Equivalent Circuit Composed of Inverse Inductance , 1988, IEEE
Transactions on Power Delivery, 3/4, 1501-1508