A Novel Inductance-Based Technique for

Discrimination of Internal Faults from Magnetizing

Inrush Currents in Power Transformers
H. Abniki, H. Monsef, P. Khajavi, and H. Dashti
Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Tehran
Tehran, Iran
hnabniki@ut.ac.ir

conditions such as over-flux, over voltage and loss of cooling

Abstract— This paper presents a new methodology for about internal faults, can lead to deterioration of the
discrimination between inrush currents and internal faults for a transformer. Hence, protection again these failures should be
three-phase power transformer. This algorithm is based on considered as part of the transformer protection scheme. With
instantaneous inductance. First, this method calculates the advent of electrical system, transformer protections are
differential inductance of transformer phases from primary side studied under various situations and conditions. Therefore,
view of transformer by using voltage and current signals. Then,
their protection can be vastly categorized not only as electrical
the algorithm compares differential inductance with a threshold
value. If the calculated criterion is over than the threshold, protection implemented by sensing the current through it, but
disturbance will be inrush current. Otherwise, if the calculated also voltage and frequency, as mechanical protection
criterion is lower than the threshold, disturbance will be internal implemented by sensing operational parameters like oil
fault. The operating time is less than 5 ms, less than 1/4 rd of pressure, gas evolved and winding temperature. In finance
power frequency cycle. The scheme uses voltage and current affairs, as every electrical engineer knows, in transformer
signal; hence it can work reliably in the presence of transformer protection too, the extent of protective devices applied to a
tap variation, fault resistance and as shown later, the criterion particular transformer is dictated by the economics of the
works properly in CT saturation or over-flux condition. protection scheme, and the probability of a particular type of
Simulation studies with respect to different faults and inrush
failure and the cost of replacing and repairing the transformer
conditions have been conducted and the results proved that the
proposed technique is able to offer fast responses in protection as well the possibility of the failure causing to adjacent
and accurately discriminate between inrush currents and equipment damage. Failure costs include all of the direct and
internal faults. indirect costs related to it. Disconnecting device, circuit
breaker and other auxiliaries like batteries are necessary
infrastructure and costlier protection schemes. Recently, many
Keywords- Equivalent inductance, inrush current, internal studies have done in transformer differential protection. An
fault, transformer protection. inductance technique for discrimination between inrush
I. INTRODUCTION currents and internal faults is suggested in [1]. A
morphological scheme for inrush identification in transformer
protection was presented in [2]. Ref [3] proposed a new
It is obvious that performance of power systems directly method to identify inrush current based on error estimation. In
relates to the power transformers. In this regard, transformer [4] a wavelet based method and in [5, 6], artificial neural
protection shows itself essential case. The important objective network (ANN) was trained to distinguish between inrush and
of transformer protection is to detect internal faults from internal fault currents. In [7], a set of developed fuzzy laws
magnetizing inrush currents with a high and also good based on differential current harmonics has been proposed as
performance in all condition such as in external fault, in over- differential protection algorithm. Ref [8] proposed a sequential
flux or CT saturation condition. There are different kinds of phase energization method for transformer inrush current
inrush current such as sympathetic inrush current or switching reduction transient performance and practical considerations.
inrush current. Nevertheless, in some cases sensitive detection One of the other methods operates via measurement of
in transformer de-energization enables the faults damage to intervals between two successive peaks of differential current
system and hence it is necessary to be limited. However, it waveform is introduced in [9, 10]. The operation criterion in
should be able to provide backup protection through faults on another method is the duration in which differential current
the system, as these could lead to deterioration and accelerated waveform remains near zero. In some of these methods,
aging or failure of the transformer. Winding insulation due to differential current harmonics are used as inputs to a learned
over-heating and high impact forces causes in the windings neural network [11]. The output of the neural network
due to high fault currents. Moreover, abnormal system indicates transformer situation.

Modern Electric Power Systems 2010, Wroclaw, Poland MEPS'10 - paper P32
1
Fig. 2. Transformer model

Moreover, some algorithms based on wavelet analysis are

reported in [12]. These approaches are still liable to cause Fig.3. Magnetizing inductance
malfunction of relays. In this paper, a novel inductance-based d di
((L m )i m )  L m m (6)
scheme is introduced for power transformer protection. This dt dt
method calculates differential inductance of every phase of the d m
transformer and by comparing it with a threshold, sent the trip  Lm  (7)
di m
signal.
di 1 di
II. METHODOLOGY u 1  u 2  ( r1i 1  r2 i 2 )  ( L1  L2 2 )
dt dt
d d
The effect of an inductor in a circuit is to oppose changes in ( (L i )  ( L i )) (8)
dt m m dt m m
current through it by developing a voltage across it Then, using (8), the differential inductance from primary and
proportional to the rate of change of the current. An ideal secondary sides of transformer can be calculated. It means that
inductor would offer no resistance to a constant direct current; using the differential current and the voltage with regarding
however, only superconducting inductors have truly zero the (8) and (9) get (10) and differential inductance (criterion)
electrical resistance. The relationship between the time- can be calculated by (11).
varying voltage v(t) across an inductor with inductance L and
the time-varying current i(t) passing through is described by
di
the differential equation: u  ri  L (9)
dt
di (t )
v (t )  L (1) n1 n n di
dt (1  )u1  (r1  r2 1 )i 1  (L1  L 2 1 ) 1 (10)
n2 n2 n 2 dt
When a sinusoidal alternating current (AC) through an
inductor is produced, a sinusoidal voltage is induced. The Suppose for i=k and i=k+1, it can be written:
amplitude of the voltage is proportional to the product of the
amplitude of the current and the frequency (f) of the current as
(u(k 2) i(k 1) u(k 2) i(k 1) )
follows: Criterion  L  k (11)
(i 2(k 2) i 2(k 1) 2i(k 1)i(k 1) 2i(k 2) i(k ) )
i (t )  I p sin(2 ft ) (2)
di (t ) Where i is differential current in sample kth, u is voltage
 2 fI p cos(2 ft ) (3) sample in sample kth and k is a constant. Magnetizing
dt
inductance shows itself in Fig. 3. It is found from Fig. 3,
v (t )  2 fLI p cos(2 ft ) (4)
magnetizing inductance is an intrinsic feature of an inrush
current, but internal fault does not have it. It is relates to this
According to KCL and KVL rules and Fig. 2, in a truth, which in internal fault, current does not pass from
transformer for every phase have: magnetizing branch, but in inrush it does. According to the
results, this criterion strongly differs for internal fault from
di1 d magnetizing inrush current. Fig.9, 10 and 11 shows the
u1  r1i1  L1  ((Lm )i m ) (5) criterion values for inrush current case. After faulty time, the
dt dt
criterion does not have large changes but in internal fault as
shown later, criterion changes by step state and will fix in
second value as soon as possible.

2
 Damavand 400 kV Pardis 400 kV Vard Avard 400 kV
Sub-Station Sub-Station Sub-Station Kan 400 kV
Sub-Station
T T T
CM918
I1 CV911 NV906
RL RRL

Damavand RL
RRL
Power Plant
T T T T
CM919 CV912 VZ910 NZ905
Kan
Tevinen
Ziaran 400 kV

RRL
Sub-Station

#1
Power Transformer 500 MVA
400/230 YND11 Ziaran

#2
Tevinen

RL
Pardis 230 kV
Sub-Station
T T
CK818 CV809

Kalan 230 kV Savad Kouh 230 kV

RRL
Sub-Station Sub-Station
T
LK821

Kalan 230 kV
RRL

Sub-Station Savad Kouh

RL

Tevinen

Kalan
RL

Tevinen

Fig. 4. Power system schematic.

1500
Amplitude(A)

1000

500

-500
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2
Time(S)
Fig. 5. Three-phase internal fault model. Fig. 6. Typical inrush current.

III. SIMULATION RESULTS B. Results

A. Simulated Network 1) Inrush Condition
Fig. 6 shows a typical inrush current. Due to inrush current,
Power system schematic is shown in Fig. 4. A 500 MVA differential current have special form and it is cause to such
transformer is used to this study. The transformer is a real criterion, which differs from internal fault criterion value.
power transformer in a real network in Iran. Single According to the Figs. 7, 8 and 9 inrush current, the
transformer model is depicted in Fig. 2. For internal modeling, calculated criterion have no large changes after the fault
according to the Fig. 5, fault is located between the CTs and detection, but in internal fault, which is show later, criterion
the transformer. Fig. 4 shows the simulated power system suddenly dropped. Figs. 7, 8 and 9 show the criterion in
schematic. The current and voltage of transformer are transformer energizing. The main flux of the core increases
generated by PSCAD/EMTDC. Transformer capacity is 500 greatly when the transformer switches on without load, which
MVA and its rated voltage U1/U2 is 400kV/230kV. The results the saturation of the core and generates the inrush
remnant magnetization is 0% Bm. The sampling frequency is current. This is because the core alternatively operates at the
64 sampling points per cycle, and Butterworth low-pass filter linear area and the saturation area of the excitation curve. The
with cutoff frequency 1920 Hz is used for filtering. Also, excitation current of this study is derived using CTs of every
noise-filtering have done for increasing the accuracy of the phase.
inductance calculation.

3
 Criterion for Phase A Criterion for Phase A
40 30

25
30

Amplitude(H)
Amplitude(H)

20

20 15

10
10
5

0 0
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2
Time(s) Time(s)
Fig. 7. Criterion value due to inrush current for phase A. Fig.10. Criterion value due to internal fault for phase B (A-B-fault).

Criterion for Phase B Criterion for Phase B

40 30

25
30
Amplitude(H)

Amplitude(H)
20

20 15

10
10
5

0 0
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2
Time(s) Time(s)
Fig. 8. Criterion value due to inrush current for phase B. Fig. 11. Criterion value due to internal fault for phase A (A-B-fault).

Criterion for Phase C Criterion for Phase C

40 30

29
30
Amplitude(H)

Amplitude(H)

28
20 27

26
10
25

0 24
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2
Time(s) Time(s)
Fig. 9. Criterion value due to inrush current for phase C Fig. 12. Criterion value due to internal fault for phase C (A-B-fault).

2) Internal Fault 10 to 12 that in internal fault, criterion value changes in step

As told previously, due to the internal fault, because of the state, which it is significantly different from inrush current.
differential current and voltage, calculated criterion differs
from magnetizing inrush current case. Also, this change is 3) External Fault with CT Saturation
differed to inrush current case. Nevertheless, this change gives Current Transformers (CT) are transformer instruments that
a good criterion, which is introduced previously. Figs. 10, 11 are used to supply a reduced value of current to meters,
and 12 shows the criterion for internal fault cases, which is protective relays, and other instruments. CT provides isolation
strongly different from inrush case. It is found from the Figs.

4
 Criterion for Phase A Criterion for Phase A
800 35

30
600

Amplitude(H)
Amplitude(H)

25

400 20

15
200
10

0 5
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2
Time(s) Time(s)
Fig. 13. Criterion value due to external fault with CT saturation for phase A Fig. 16. Criterion value due to over-flux condition for phase A.

4 Criterion for Phase B Criterion for Phase B

x 10 30
6

5
28

Amplitude(H)
Amplitude(H)

3 26

2
24
1

0 22
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2
Time(s) Time(s)
Fig. 14. Criterion value due to external fault with CT saturation for phase B Fig. 17. Criterion value due to over-flux condition for phase A.

Criterion for Phase C Criterion for Phase A

10000 35

30
8000
Amplitude(H)

25
Amplitude(H)

6000
20
4000
15

2000 10

0 5
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2
Time(s) Time(s)
Fig. 18. Criterion value due to over-flux condition for phase A.
Fig. 15. Criterion value due to external fault with CT saturation for phase C

from the high voltage primary, permit grounding of the 13, 14 and 15 show the results for CT saturation condition.
secondary for safety, and step-down the magnitude of the Results show the introduced criterion has the ability to identify
measured current to a value that can be safely handled by the inrush current from internal fault in this situation too. Because
instruments. Due to the CT saturation condition, formation of of current formation in criterion calculation, there are some
the current are changed, as a results, current estimation goes to high peaks.
wrong and this cause to mal-operation of some relay such as 4) Over-Flux Condition
differential or distance relays. Some external fault leads to CT There are several reasons for over-flux condition. Transformers
saturation, which are near to transformer. In this regard Figs over voltage or frequency dropt are some of that reasons.
Protection against over-flux conditions does not require high

5
 inductance from primary view of the transformer sides. The
validity of the proposed criterion was exhaustively tested by
simulating various types of internal faults, external faults and
energization conditions in PSCAD/EMTDC with a 500 MVA,
400kV/230kV, Y–Delta transformer. The proposed algorithm
is able to properly discriminate between internal faults,
external faults and non-fault disturbances for almost cases
such as CT saturation and over-flux condition.

REFERENCES
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Fig. 19. Proposed flowchart January 2007.
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currents in power system. Therefore, flowchart Fig. 23 is
introduced to discriminate inrush from internal fault current. A
good Cth(Criterion Threshold) can be about 0.1-0.2.
IV. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a new inductance based-algorithm introduced
for discrimination between inrush currents and internal faults.
This method calculates the instantaneous differential