Distinction between Arcing Faults and Oil Contamination from OLTC Gases

Power transformers are the most important and expensive assets in high-voltage power systems. To ensure an adequate level of reliability throughout the transformer’s lifetime, its maintenance strategy must be well defined. When an incipient fault occurs in the transformer insulation, a gas concentra...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Electronics (Basel) 2024-04, Vol.13 (7), p.1338
Main Authors: Bustamante, Sergio, Martinez Lastra, Jose L., Manana, Mario, Arroyo, Alberto
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Contamination
Dissolved gases
Electric power systems
Electric transformers
Fault detection
Gas analysis
Gases
Graphical representations
Identification
Identification methods
Methods
Ratios
Tap changers
Transformers
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Summary:Power transformers are the most important and expensive assets in high-voltage power systems. To ensure an adequate level of reliability throughout the transformer’s lifetime, its maintenance strategy must be well defined. When an incipient fault occurs in the transformer insulation, a gas concentration pattern, representative of the type of fault, is generated. Fault-identification methods use gas concentrations and their ratios to identify the type of fault. None of the traditional or new fault-identification methods attempt to detect transformer oil contamination from on-load tap changer (OLTC) gases. In this study, from dissolved gas analysis (DGA) samples of transformers identified as contaminated in a previous study, fault-identification methods based on graphical representations were used to observe the patterns of results. From such patterns, Duval’s triangle and pentagon methods were modified to include a new zone indicating oil contamination (OC) from OLTC gases. Finally, the proposed modifications were validated using 75 DGA samples extracted from previous studies that were identified as D1 or D2 faults or contaminated from OLTC. This validation showed that only 14.7% and 13.3% of the DGA samples fell within the new OC zone of the proposed triangle and pentagon, respectively.
ISSN:2079-9292
2079-9292
DOI:10.3390/electronics13071338