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A Vibration Based Condition Monitoring System for Power Transformers

School Department

He Ting-ting , Wang Jing-di , Guo Jie , Huang Hai , Chen Xiang-xian and Pan Jie
of Instrumentation Science and Engineering,Zhejiang University,Hangzhou,310027,China of Mechanical Engineering,The University of Western Australia, Western Australia 6009, Australia
Large power transformer

AbstractThis paper is concerned with the design and development of an on-line condition monitoring system for large power transformers utilizing signals such as transformer vibration, voltages, currents, temperature and state of switches. The system consists of two parts which communicate each other via Ethernet or series port. The formal is a front-end computer subsystem used for data acquisition and processing, and the latter is a remote computer subsystem for analyzing and monitoring transformers operating conditions. It provides a reliable real-time service to power industry by integrating the transformers electrical properties with the mechanical properties for detecting potential problems in power transformers. The developed system has became useful platform for an on-going project on the condition monitoring and fault diagnosis for large power transformers. Keywordsvibration method; condition monitoring; power transformer

Vibration sensors
4 vibration signals

Voltage, current transducers


4 current signals

Temperature sensors
signal

Digital sensors
signals

4 voltage signals

1 temperature

8 switch

The front-end data acquisition subsystem Ethernet RS-232

The remote computer subsystem with the function software

Fig. 1.

architecture of TCMS

I. I NTRODUCTION Power transformers are one of the most expensive and critical assets in power system. The safe operation of power network relies on the reliability of power transformers. Failures in power transformers can lead to interruptions in electric supply and carry great costs [1]. The condition monitoring and fault diagnosis techniques have been used to detect transformers abnormity and faults. They can not only prevent the occurrence of unexpected incidents, but also perform the condition maintenance instead of regular maintenance to prolong transformers life and reduce operating costs greatly. Compared with oil chromatographic analysis method, vibration technique has demonstrated potential to detect transformers mechanical fault such as displacement, deformation, looseness or abrasion of core, winding and OLTC (on load tap changer). Further more, the technique can be applied without interfering the normal operation of transformers [2] [3]. According to the recent literatures, the existing on-line condition monitoring and fault diagnosis systems have some limitations [2]. They were mainly used for experimental studies, not suitable for practical applications. Also only vibration signals were monitored while other parameters which affect transformer vibration were ignored (i.e. voltages, currents, temperature, switch-on or off of air fans and pumps). There is also a lack of study of the general properties of transformer vibration in relation to the transformer fatigue and failures. To effectively implement the practical application and fundamental research in the eld of transformer condition monitoring, using the advanced embedded system technology and communication network technology, this paper proposes a

vibration-based multi-parameter (including transformer voltages, currents, temperature and switches) power transformer condition monitoring system [4]. II. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE The target of this system is to judge power transformers condition by monitoring and analyzing its vibration.Taking into account the affects of transformer voltages, currents, temperature, air fans and oil pumps on vibration signals, the system will monitor all these signals simultaneously to improve its effectiveness and accuracy. Based on these demands, the architecture of desired Transformer Condition Monitoring System (TCMS) is depicted in Fig.1. TCMS includes the front-end subsystem and the remote computer with functional software. The front-end subsystem can be installed near the transformer to carry out the tasks of sampling, processing, displaying and storage of all signals. The functional software in the remote computer communicates with the front-end subsystem through Ethernet or serial interface and performs displaying, analyzing, storage, management of signals and parameter setting of the whole system. The two subsystems are developed on different platforms. They can be executed in a distributed environment and possible changes made in one of them do not affect the others. III. FRONT-END SUBSYSTEM The front-end subsystem carries out data sampling, processing, displaying, storage and communicating with remote computer. It is designed based on embedded system architecture employing embedded computer and embedded operating

978-1-4244-2487-0/09/$25.00 2009 IEEE

system. The main components include sensors, conditioning circuits, A/D module, CPU module, operating system, and application software. These elements are described more in depth below. A. Sensors TCMS uses 21 external sensors: 13 analog and 8 digital. There are four ICP piezoelectric accelerometers for vibration measurement, the sensitivity and supply voltage of which are 500 MV/g and 24V respectively. Three of them are positioned on transformers oil tank, just under each phase where core and winding vibration can be most effectively detected [5]. Another one is used to capture OLTCs vibration signal. Four current sensors and four voltage sensors are used to monitor currents and voltages. For both voltages and currents, three sensors are positioned on the high-voltage side or lowvoltage side of the A, B, C phase (Generally, voltage is measured in high-voltage side, current is measured in lowvoltage side), another may be positioned on the other side of a phase. The temperature signal is captured by one PT100 sensor which has a temperature coefcient = 0.00392o C 1 . This one is used for measuring the temperature of the coolant oil such that its inuence on vibration can be analyzed and processed. Finally, the eight digital sensors monitor the status of the oil pump, air fans and OLTC of the power transformer. These sensors are relay contacts that show the ON or OFF status of the aforementioned elements. B. Conditioning circuit Before sampling, outputs of the sensors need to be conditioned. The function of the circuits used to adjust acceleration signal includes ICP sensors power supply, vibration signals isolation, amplication, 50Hz trap ltering and anti-aliasing ltering. The conditioning circuit for voltage and current transducer outputs which should be converted to 1-5 V or 4-20 mA standard signal by voltage and current Hall sensors rst performs current / voltage conversion (for current signal), signal anti-aliasing ltering and amplication to suit the A/ D module input range. Temperature signal is modulated by PT100 sensors typical conditioning module. Switch signals are isolated from conditioning circuit and converted to TTL level signals by using optocouplers. C. Acquisition module (A/D module) The data-acquisition card used is a PCM-3718H module from Advantech Company and has the following characteristics: 100 KHz for DMA mode, 16 analog input channels, 12 bits resolution, 2 eight bits digital input/output channels. D. CPU module Since TCMS front-end subsystem is installed near the eld transformers and requires high reliability, the hardware core is based on PC/104 module up to industrial standard and CPU module is PCM-3350 based on X86 architecture.

E. Software Considering the requirement for real-time ability, the frontend subsystem is developed using Windows CE operating system and the Visual C++ programming environment. It is a multithread application where three threads are being executed concurrently (Fig 2). Sampling thread performs the sampling, processing and storage of all signals. For all the analog sensors, 4000 samples are acquired with a sampling rate of 4000 Hz and the interval between two acquisitions is 10 seconds. In order to get the current conditions of in-service transformers, the measurements are divided into two groups: dynamic and static. The dynamic one includes vibrations, voltages and currents real-time waveform. The static one includes peak values, harmonic amplitudes from 100 to 800 Hz (vibration), RMS values (vibration, current, voltage and temperature) and switch values. The program interface displays the results of sampling process, in which a set of bar chart is designed to show static datas real-time change. Along with 10 seconds cycle of sampling and data updates, the main thread updates the corresponding values, so transformers current state can be monitored intuitively. Communication thread is responsible for receiving and transmitting data (all measurements and parameter setting) with remote subsystem and has been divided into two parts for serial port and network respectively. IV. REMOTE SUBSYSTEM The remote subsystem performs analysis and management of data from front-end subsystem and parameters setting for the whole system. After packing needed parameters into a request frame according to a specied protocol, the remote subsystem initiates a communication with the front-end subsystem. Then, the front-end subsystem responds to the request by performing corresponding setting or just returning the wanted data back. Finally, the remote subsystem performs various analysis and processing of the received data subject to administrators requirement. The functional software has been developed using LabVIEW graphic application development environment from National Instruments [6] [7]. Data analysis module analyzes instantaneous data, real-time data, trend data and alarm data. Instantaneous data (vibration, voltage and current data sampled during transformers transient process such as start-up and shut-down) is used to monitor the transient state of transformers while real-time data is used to monitor transformers state during continuous running. Trend analysis, including day trend and annual trend which was calculated from the real-time data, will show transformers state trend in one day and one year. When the real-time vibrations peak to peak value exceeds threshold value three times, alarm will be triggered and detail of the incident will be recorded by front-end subsystem. In addition, raw and processed data can be stored and inquired. V. TESTS TCMS has been tested on a 220KV power transformer at a transformer substation of Ningbo. Vibration on high-

Sampling thread

Main thread alarm status recording, zero alarm times one point value of day trend start

Communication thread

data sampling
vibration, voltage , current, temperature and switch signals

wait

alarm data

acquisition card initialization day trend points %12=0? Yes No system initialization and startup

data processing
p-p values, RMS values , mean values , switch values, harmonics No reckoning of realtime trend

communicate with the remote computer? Yes select data type No

No

year trend calculation

10 seconds past ? Yes

real- time trend points %30=0? Yes

send data

vibration p-p values exceed the threshold 3 times No

one point value of year trend

start sampling

Yes

wait update graphics

day trend calculation

end

Fig. 2.

Three process running within the front-end subsystem

Fig. 3.

vibration of A, B phase (LV)

Fig. 5.

spectra of vibration in B phase, (LV)

Fig. 6. Fig. 4. spectra of vibration in A, B phase, (LV)

spectra of vibration in B phase, (HV)

voltage side, low-voltage side, air fans and oil pumps has been measured. The key results are summarized as follows:

1 Fig.3 shows vibration waveforms of A, B phase in lowvoltage side and Fig4 shows their spectra. As we can see, core and windings fundamental frequency is 100Hz, and other harmonics exist due to power harmonic and magnetostrictions

communication and network technology. The functional software of the remote subsystem is designed based on LabVIEW platform and realizes signal real-time analysis, trend analysis, instantaneous analysis, alarm analysis and data management for power transformer monitoring. The system was tested and used in laboratory and in the eld. The results show that TCMS satises the requirements of practical on-line monitoring for large power transformers and is also useful as a reliable system platform for the further work of condition monitoring and fault diagnosis for power transformers.
Fig. 7. spectra of vibration in C phase, (HV)

ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to thank all the project group members for their hard work. This work was supported by the National High-tech R&D Program (863 Program, China) through Grant No. 2007AA04Z439 and the International Cooperation Project of Zhejiang Province (Grant No. 2008C24004). R EFERENCES
[1] F. Poza, P. Marino, M. Ubeira, and F. Machado, Programmable electronic instrument for condition monitoring of in service power transformers, Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference, 2004. IMTC 04. Proceedings of the 21st IEEE, vol. 3, pp. 21262131, May 2004. [2] B. Garcia, J. C. Burgos, and A. M. Alonso, Transformer tank vibration modeling as a method of detecting winding deformations - part i: Theoretical foundation, IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 157163, 2006. [3] J. Shengchang, L. Yongfen, and L. Yanming, Research on extraction technique of transformer core fundamental frequency vibration based on olcm, Power Delivery, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 1981 1988, Oct. 2006. [4] M. Sanz-Bobi, A. Garcia-Cerrada, R. Palacios, J. Villar, J. Rolan, and B. Moran, Experiences learned from the on-line internal monitoring of the behaviour of a transformer, Electric Machines and Drives Conference Record, 1997. IEEE International, pp. TC3/11.1TC3/11.3, May 1997. [5] B. Garcia, J. C. Burgos, and A. M. Alonso, Transformer tank vibration modeling as a method of detecting winding deformations - part ii: Experimental verication, IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 164169, 2006. [6] LabVIEW Measurements Manual, National Instruments, 2001. [7] LabVIEW User Manual, National Instruments, 2001.

Fig. 8.

spectra of vibration in A phase side, (HV)

nonlinearity [2]. 2 Comparison between Fig.5 and Fig.6 shows 100Hz, 200Hz and 300Hz harmonics in low-voltage side have greater amplitude which could be due to winding in lower-voltage side having more severe vibration. 3 For high-voltage side, vibration of the A phases side is showed in Fig.8. As can been seen, the harmonic content is very similar to the vibration of the B phase and C phase (Fig.6, Fig. 7) which has largest amplitude in 400Hz, this phenomenon is caused by Transformer windings natural frequency which is always an important index to judge windings deformation [2] [5]. These data are very useful for further detection of transformers mechanical condition.The harmonic components reveal the cause which leads to vibration and the amplitudes reveal core and windings mechnical condition such as displacement,deformation,looseness and abrasion.Further study including modeling, signal separation and feature extraction will benet from the whole system for its accuracy and reliablity. VI. C ONCLUSION We have designed and developed an on-line condition monitoring system for power transformers utilizing the vibration signals and other signals such as voltages, currents, temperature and switches status. Based on embedded system architecture, the front-end subsystem establishes a real-time and reliable interactive control and analysis environment using

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