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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 27, NO. 3, JULY 2012

Time-Domain Analysis of Differential Power Signal

to Detect Magnetizing Inrush in Power Transformers
Ali Hooshyar, Majid Sanaye-Pasand, Senior Member, IEEE, Saeed Afsharnia, Mahdi Davarpanah, and
Bashir Mahdi Ebrahimi

AbstractIn this paper, a novel power-based algorithm to

discriminate between switching and internal fault conditions
in power transformers is proposed and evaluated. First, the
differential power signal is scrutinized and its intrinsic features
during inrush conditions are introduced. Afterwards, a combined
time-domain-based waveshape classification technique is proposed. This technique exploits the suggested features and provides
two discriminative indices. Based on the values of these indices,
inrush power signals are identified after only half a cycle. This
method is founded upon some inherent low-frequency features of
power waveforms and is independent of the magnitude of differential power. The approach is also unaffected by power system
parameters, operating conditions, noise and transformer magnetizing curves. Simplicity of the suggested features and equations
describe how the proposed method can help make it a practical
solution for the inrush problem. Extensive simulations carried out
in PSCAD/EMTDC software validate the merit of this technique
for various conditions, such as current-transformer saturation.
Furthermore, real-time testing of the proposed method using real
fault and inrush signals confirms the possibility of implementing
this algorithm for industrial applications.
Index TermsMagnetizing inrush condition, power differential
protection, transformer relaying.

I. INTRODUCTION
IFFERENTIAL relaying is globally considered as the primary candidate for the protection of power transformers.
Despite their generally acceptable performance, differential relays suffer from some deficiencies. One of the problems is the
incorrect disconnection of transformers during magnetizing inrush conditions. Over the energization period of a transformer,
its iron core usually saturates and large current is drawn by the
magnetizing branch. The transformer relay has to differentiate
between unfaulted inrush conditions and internal short-circuit
events.
The differential relays are conventionally equipped with
second harmonic-based and dwell-time detection techniques to

Manuscript received July 10, 2011; revised November 03, 2011; accepted
April 25, 2012. Date of publication June 14, 2012; date of current version June
20, 2012. Paper no. TPWRD-00588-2011.
A. Hooshyar, S. Afsharnia, M. Davarpanah, and B. M. Ebrahimi are with
the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering,
University of Tehran, Tehran 1439957131, Iran (e-mail: alihooshyar@gmail.
com).
M. Sanaye-Pasand is with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran 1439957131,
Iran, and also with the Control and Intelligent Processing Center of Excellence,
University of Tehran, Tehran 1439957131, Iran (e-mail: msanaye@ut.ac.ir).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2012.2197869

identify the inrush condition [1], [2]. In practice, the second

harmonic component could be present in the differential current
after a fault due to current-transformer (CT) saturation [3].
So the second harmonic can rise above its threshold for some
faults and consequently the relay operates after a long delay.
Moreover, application of high-permeability core materials in
modern transformers or ultra-saturation phenomenon [4], [5]
could result in the reduction of the second harmonic of inrush
currents. Thus, the relay may falsely issue a trip command
due to the reduced harmonic content of inrush currents. This
problem can be more serious in the case of ultra-high-voltage
(UHV) transformers [6]. Gap detection techniques are subject
to malfunction if the CTs saturate during switching conditions
[2]. These problems have decreased the probability of correct
operation of transformer relays [7].
As a result, research has been directed toward new inrush
identification techniques. Some of these methods utilize neural
networks or fuzzy logic [8][10]. Most of these methods require
expert knowledge or information about system behavior, and
are thus system dependent. They might require a substantial
amount of training as well. Some other approaches have used
wavelet transform to extract certain features from current
or voltage [11][13]. Generally, these methods examine the
high-frequency content of fault and inrush signals. High-frequency studies are noise sensitive and may not be easily trusted
by the other protection engineers who are reasonably very
conservative.
Some algorithms are based on correlation analysis of current
[7], [14]. They exploit the waveshape differences between the
saturation and the nonsaturation zones of inrush currents. Inrush
identification has been the subject of some other recent papers
as well [15][17], indicating that this issue is currently an active field of research. Meanwhile, none of these methods have
replaced harmonic-based solutions in practical applications yet
[18].
The magnitude of the differential power signal was introduced in [19] to detect transformer switching conditions. In addition to its low speed, this algorithm is adversely affected by
CT saturation. In [20], waveshape properties of the differential
power signal were utilized to identify inrush conditions. Waveshape analysis of the power signal in the frequency domain led
to very fast and accurate discrimination between the inrush and
fault conditions.
As a sequel to our earlier paper [20], which emphasized
the frequency-domain characteristics of the power waveform,
in this research work, we attempt to complete the picture by
examining the power signal from a time-domain perspective.

0885-8977/$31.00 2012 IEEE

HOOSHYAR et al.: TIME-DOMAIN ANALYSIS OF DIFFERENTIAL POWER SIGNAL

This paper introduces two efficient techniques to detect inrush

conditions using time-domain features of average differential
power. The following advantages are the proposed time-domain
techniques over the frequency-domain approach.
1) The time-domain-based approach is mathematically simpler than the frequency-domain-based method. Instead of
employing the physically and mathematically complex
concept of instantaneous frequency, the time-domain
approach results in a comprehensible and intuitively understandable technique. This simplicity can increase the
possibility of implementing the proposed approach at a
practical level.
2) The decaying dc and even harmonic components of fault
current have to be studied in order to select a reliable
threshold for the frequency-domain approach, since these
components can increase the instantaneous frequency
of fault power signals. However, for the time-domain
method, these components do not negatively impact the
decision-making process. It will be shown that they may
even result in a more reliable output by using the proposed
algorithm in this paper.
3) The time-domain method works well using sampling frequencies that are much lower than those required by the
frequency-domain technique.
The two proposed time-domain techniques are combined in
a simple and efficient way in order to develop a highly reliable
algorithm.
II. ANALYTICAL SCRUTINY OF POWER WAVESHAPE
The characteristics of the power signal during inrush and noninrush conditions are analyzed very briefly in this section. Detailed scrutiny of the power waveshape can be found in [20].
A. Power Signal During Noninrush Conditions
In the normal operating condition of a power system, singlephase instantaneous power is the sum of a dc and a sinusoidal
component. If the frequency of the power system is , the frequency of this sinusoidal component becomes . Hence, by
applying half-cycle integration, the amount of average power is
obtained
(1)
is the th sample of instantaneous power and
is the
number of samples per cycle. In the steady-state condition,
calculated by (1) is almost a fixed dc value. During power
system faults, the frequency of instantaneous power remains
unchanged and applying (1) still yields an almost constant
value.
B. Power Signal During Inrush Condition
To derive an analytical expression for the power waveform
during inrush conditions, suppose that the primary voltage is
Volts and the transformer remanent flux is
Wb.
and
are considered as the base values for
the voltage and flux, respectively, where
is the number of

1395

Fig. 1. Primary voltage, current, and instantaneous power following the ener0.
gization of the transformer based on (2) for '

primary turns. Considering a two section linear piece-wise saturation curve, it is shown that the per-unit instantaneous power
in the first cycle after energizing the transformer is expressed by
otherwise
(2)
is the per-unit value of the core remanence,
In (2),
is the slope of the
curve in the saturation region, and the
is as follows:
interval
(3)
This interval is obtained by fitting a linear relation between
and and for
equal to 1, 0, and 1 p.u. Meanwhile,
the very exact values of and are not required for the development of this method. So this issue is not further elaborated.
, expressed by (2), is related to one full cycle of the power
system fundamental frequency component. Neglecting losses,
the instantaneous power has a similar waveform in all of the subsequent cycles. Hence, the period of instantaneous frequency is
the same as the power system fundamental frequency period.
The instantaneous power described by (2) has been depicted in
0. Other values of
would result in basically
Fig. 1 for
similar waveshapes. The instantaneous power expressed by (2)
and displayed in Fig. 1, has two distinct features which are different from the noninrush conditions:
1) Its dc offset is negligible.
2) Its frequency is , not .
Fig. 2(a) shows the instantaneous power for one phase of a
simulated transformer during the inrush condition. The parameters of this transformer are presented in the Appendix. The
instantaneous power curve shown in Fig. 2(a) can be well described by (2). The small differences between the curves of
Figs. 1 and 2(a) lie behind the simplifying assumptions of the
curve, neanalytical approach (e.g., utilizing an elementary
glecting system losses, etc.). Indeed, the two distinguishing features mentioned before hold true for the analytical and simulation cases.
Since the frequency of the instantaneous power signal in inrush conditions is halved, applying (1) in this case does not result in a fixed dc waveshape. Instead, the resulting waveform
would be a completely oscillatory one with a frequency equal
to the power system frequency. Fig. 2(b) displays the average
power calculated by (1) for the case depicted in Fig. 2(a).
The average differential power of the transformer is calculated by subtracting the average power computed separately at

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 27, NO. 3, JULY 2012

Fig. 2. Power waveform for one phase of a simulated transformer during inrush
condition. (a) Instantaneous power. (b) Average power computed by (1).
Fig. 4. Generated sinusoid inside the half-cycle window. (a) Inrush condition.
(b) Fault condition.

Fig. 3. Average differential power for a single-phase-to-ground internal fault.

the two sides of the transformer by using (1). Fig. 3 shows the
average differential power for phase A during a single-phase
fault in the same simulated transformer. Comparing Fig. 2(b)
with Fig. 3, the differences between the fault and inrush power
waveshapes would become evident. Fig. 3 illustrates that during
a fault, the average power increases from nearly zero to a higher
value in a half-cycle period and afterwards. It does not change
significantly. However, for the inrush case, the waveshape is
oscillatory.

III. WAVEFORM CORRELATION SCHEME

This section proposes the waveform correlation scheme
to distinguish between fault and inrush power signals. This
technique is based on the fact that the average power signal has
a sinusoidal-like shape during inrush conditions. Conversely,
in faulty conditions, the average power signal does not include
these sinusoidal-like oscillations and has a straightforward
increasing trend. Therefore, evaluating the degree of similarity
between the average power signal and an adaptively generated
sinusoid could differentiate between fault and inrush power
signals.
The waveform correlation scheme contains a fault-detector
(FD) unit which discriminates abnormal states from normal
operating conditions using just a few current samples. The
first half-cycle after activation of the FD is selected as the
data window under study. If the sampling frequency is

times greater than the fundamental frequency, the window will

consist of
samples. If
is an even number, the window is
samples. Fig. 4 shows this window for the
extended to
previously depicted inrush and internal fault cases of Figs. 2(b)
and 3. A normal sinusoid is formed inside this window. The
maximum of this sinusoid is equal to the maximum of average
power among the
samples inside the window, denoted by
. The peak value of the sinusoid is located in the center
of the window. The developed sinusoids for the two inrush
and fault power signals are illustrated in Fig. 4. In this paper,
the frequency of the simulated power system and the sampling
frequency are 60 and 2880 Hz, respectively. So
24, and
the window is extended to
25 samples. The sinusoid
can be evaluated by
(4)
For the inrush case of Fig. 4(a), the maximum of average
power samples is in the middle of the window and the signal
shows increasing and decreasing trends before and after this
maximum. The generated sinusoid follows the same increasing
and decreasing patterns too. So the power signal and the sinusoid are very similar. Meanwhile, for the fault case of Fig. 4(b),
the power signal shows a purely increasing trend throughout the
entire span of the window and its maximum is at the end of
the window. Hence, unlike the inrush case, it is totally different
from the generated sinusoid.
Correlation analysis is an efficient tool for quantitative
evaluation of the degree of similarity between two signals. The
correlation analysis provides a coefficient which expresses the
strength of relationship between two signals. Various correlation coefficients have been proposed in the literature. The best
known one is the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient [21]. If the sequence of average power samples inside the
window is denoted by , and the generated sinusoid is denoted

HOOSHYAR et al.: TIME-DOMAIN ANALYSIS OF DIFFERENTIAL POWER SIGNAL

1397

by , then the half-cycle Pearson correlation coefficient

is expressed by

(5)

and
are the mean values of and in the halfwhere
cycle window.
lies in the interval
. The higher
the degree of similarity between and , the closer
is to
. For the inrush case of Fig. 4(a), where there is a remarkable
resemblance between the power signal and the sinusoid,
is 0.977, but for the fault case of Fig. 4(b),
is 0.254.
Comparing the power signal and the sinusoid of Fig. 4(b) indicates that the dissimilarity between these two signals in the
second half of the window is more obvious than the dissimilarity in the first half of the window (i.e., the greatest difference
between the sinusoid and the power signal of Fig. 4(b) lies in
the second-quarter cycle after the fault inception). It is this part
where the sinusoid is decreasing but the power signal is slowly
increasing or is eventually fixed. For the inrush case of Fig. 4(a),
there is no difference between the first and the second half of the
window in terms of similarity between the power and the sinusoid. So the quarter-cycle correlation coefficient, which is the
correlation coefficient between the power signal and the sinusoid in the second quarter cycle of the window, is defined as

(6)

Fig. 5. Application of the odd and even part extraction method with a half-cycle
window and shift of the origin for the: (a) inrush case and (b) fault case.

IV. ODD AND EVEN PART EXTRACTION METHOD

The second technique is based on the fact that any signal can
be broken uniquely into the sum of two signals, one of which
, this can be
is even and the other is odd [22]. For signal
written as
(8)
where
and
are the even and odd parts of
,
is symmetric with respect to the axis,
respectively.
has rotational symmetry with respect to the
while
at any time could be obtained
origin. Even and odd parts of
by
(9)
(10)

where
and
are the mean values of and in the second
quarter-cycle inside the window.
for the inrush power
signal of Fig. 4(a) is 0.992, approximately the same as
for
this signal. But for the fault case of Fig. 4(b),
is 0.446,
which is much smaller than its
. Through various studies,
it was found that
was smaller than
for all of the
simulated fault cases and, therefore, it could detect fault conditions more reliably. The only condition where
has better
performance is when CTs undergo saturation during transformer
energization. In such a condition,
is larger than
and
can identify inrush condition more securely. So a combination
of these two coefficients provides a more reliable index which
operates correctly in various possible cases.
, which is the
final output of the waveform correlation scheme, is given by

The odd and even parts extraction algorithm is initiated after

the activation of the FD unit. The average power inside the
half-cycle window is again considered as the signal to be analyzed. The inrush power signal of Fig. 2(b) and the half-cycle
window are shown in Fig. 5(a). The signal under study is bolded
inside the window. This bolded segment can be considered almost entirely as an even signal after a shift of the origin. As
shown in Fig. 5(a), the origin is shifted to the locus of power
signal in the center of the window. If the time and the value of
and
power in the center of the window are denoted by
, respectively, the new signal after the shift of the origin
is obtained by

(7)

Fig. 6(a) shows

, along with its odd and even parts and
depicted in this figure is almost
the new coordinates.
completely an even signal (i.e., it is symmetrical with respect
to the
axis). Therefore, the extraction of the odd and even
could result in fast and correct identification of
parts of

is 0.985 and
For the inrush and fault cases of Fig. 4,
0.096, respectively. Thus, it is concluded that the inrush condition can be identified if
is close to
.

(11)
(12)

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is
for an absolutely even signal, while it is
for an
is 0.984 and
absolutely odd signal. For Fig. 6(a) and (b),
0.980, respectively.
V. PROPOSED DECISION-MAKING ALGORITHM

Fig. 6.

P (t ) and its odd and even parts. (a) Inrush case. (b) Fault case.

inrush power signals. As shown in Fig. 6(a), the odd part is near
.
zero, while the even part is nearly the same as
The fault power signal of Fig. 3 and the half-cycle window are
depicted in Fig. 5(b). Using (11) and (12), the origin is shifted
to the locus of the power signal in the center of the window to
. Fig. 6(b) illustrates
along with its odd and
obtain
even parts and the new coordinates. It is observed that
is almost an odd signal (i.e., it has rotational symmetry with
respect to the new origin). Unlike the inrush case, here, the even
is insignificant, while the odd part is very close to
part of
.
In order to provide a quantitative measure for evaluation of
, the notion of
the strength of the odd and even parts of
signal energy is applied. The total energy of a continuous time
over time interval
is defined by [22]
signal
(13)
is squared in (13), the large or small
Since the signal
is reflected more emphatically in its energy
magnitude of
value. This intensification property of signal energy makes it a
suitable index for event classification. Hence, energy of the even
, denoted by
and
are used to
and odd parts of
develop a new criterion for the classification of fault and inrush
powers. These energy values construct the odd and even energy
ratios

(14)
takes higher values and
During inrush conditions,
is small. For the inrush power of Fig. 2(b), the energy ratios at the end of the window are
0.992 and
0.008. The odd and even energy ratios for the fault case of Fig. 3
0.010 and
0.990 at the end of the
are
and
at the
window. So the difference between
end of the window, denoted by
, can well be distinguished
inrush from fault power signals
(15)

Both of the two waveshape recognition techniques introduced

in the previous sections could effectively discriminate between
fault and inrush conditions. A combination of these two techniques is proposed to derive a very secure and reliable algorithm.
In the first step, appropriate thresholds are selected for
and
which were defined in the two techniques. Each of
these techniques identifies an inrush condition if its index is
higher than the chosen threshold. The threshold setting criteand
for the worst studied
rion is based on the values of
inrush and fault simulation cases. As will be seen later on, the
worst inrush and fault cases are the ones accompanied by CT
saturation. Through various studies, it was found that the reliis 0.5. On the other hand, 0.2 is an
able threshold for
.
appropriate threshold for
In the next step, the two techniques are combined in a way to
ensure an accurate decision even for the worst inrush and fault
cases. The power waveshape index, which is the final output of
, is defined as the
the combined method and is denoted by
sum of the margins between
and
and their thresholds
(16)
is evaluated half-cycle after the activation of the FD. The
is zero. If
is a positive number, the power
threshold of
signal is classified as an inrush case; otherwise, it is a fault case.
, as a single index, incorporates the two proposed techniques,
and can thus guarantee a reliable classification of power signals
for all of the possible cases. For instance, if there is any ambior
), the other index would
guity in any of the indices (
improve the overall output of the algorithm by maintaining a
and its zero threshold.
for
safely wide margin between
the inrush and the fault of Figs. 2(b) and 3 is 1.269 and 1.776,
respectively.
Fig. 7 shows the flowchart of the proposed combined method
for one phase of a transformer. The detection of inrush in any of
the phases blocks the main differential relay of the transformer.
Compared to some of the previous inrush detection methods,
the proposed algorithm includes the following advantages:
1) The accuracy of the harmonic-based techniques is dependent on the magnetization curve of the transformer,
as a higher core saturation flux results in a lower amount
of second harmonic for inrush currents. However, the
waveshape properties of the power waveform described in
Section II were independent of the transformer magnetization curve. Furthermore, as will be shown in Section VI,
the accuracy of the proposed method is guaranteed for fault
currents which are heavily contaminated by the second
harmonic. Moreover, the speed of the proposed method is
almost twice that of the harmonic-based approaches, as
these approaches require at least one full cycle to respond.
2) Dwell-time detection techniques may fail to detect inrush
currents which are accompanied by CT saturation. As will

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1399

TABLE I
OBTAINED RESULTS FOR SOME OF THE SIMULATED INRUSH CASES

Fig. 7. Flowchart of the proposed algorithm for one phase of a transformer.

be shown in Sections VIIX, the proposed method can reliably identify such inrush cases. In addition, the response
time of dwell-time detection techniques is one full cycle.
3) Compared with the neural-network and fuzzy-logic-based
techniques [8][10], the complexity of the proposed
method is much lower and it requires a significantly
smaller amount of computations.
4) Unlike wavelet-based techniques [11][13], the proposed
method is immune to high-frequency noise which is often
present in power system signals. This property is mainly
due to the integration process of (1). Moreover, the features
proposed for the power waveform are related to its lowfrequency content.
5) As will be shown later, unlike some inrush detection
methods [16][19], the accuracy of this method is not
reduced by CT saturation, neither during fault, nor during
the inrush condition.
VI. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
To study the performance of the proposed algorithm, a
power system containing a power transformer is simulated in
PSCAD-EMTDC software. The configuration and parameters
of this power system are presented in the Appendix. Current
and voltage signals of the simulated transformer are exported
to MATLAB where a software package combines them with
white Gaussian noise. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is 35 dB.
Then, the power signals are processed according to the proposed techniques.
One-thousand five-hundred simulation cases were studied,
and encouraging results were obtained. The response time of
the algorithm is only a half cycle plus the short time required for
calculations. In addition to the transformer winding connection
and the core structure mentioned in the Appendix, the performance of the proposed method was tested using other winding

connections and core structures for the simulated transformer

as well. Furthermore, the operation of this technique for several
other distinct scenarios and conditions, such as the variation of
the transformer load, different transformer magnetizing curves,
and changing the source impedance, were investigated and similar successful results were obtained.
Table I highlights the performance of the proposed algorithm
for some of the simulated inrush cases. The displayed indices for
each case are associated with the phase which has the largest inin this table is 1.084.
rush current. The minimum value of
So the inrush condition can be reliably detected by the proposed method. The last column of Table I displays the ratio of
the second harmonic to the fundamental component of inrush
current one cycle after switching the transformer. As shown,
some of these values are less than 20%, which is quite close
to or even lower than the thresholds used by commercial relays for inrush detection. So the accuracy and reliability of harmonic-based techniques for these cases can be questionable. In
addition, as will be seen later on, more serious shortcomings are
associated with harmonic-based methods during some internal
fault conditions.
Some of the obtained results for the simulated faults are
shown in Table II. The displayed indices are related to phase
in this table is 1.776, which is
A. The maximum value of
well below the zero threshold.
It was found that the presence of decaying dc component
and even harmonics in the fault current could generate some
oscillations in the average power waveform. Initially, it seems
that these oscillations might lead to a malfunction of the algorithm, as they affect the regular pattern of fault power signals. Therefore, in this section, the immunity of the proposed

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TABLE II
OBTAINED RESULTS FOR SOME OF THE SIMULATED FAULT CASES

Fig. 8. Fault including the decaying dc offset. (a) Average power and the correlation scheme sinusoid. (b) P (t ) and its odd and even parts.

technique against the decaying dc and even harmonic components is studied. The issue of CT saturation will be discussed in
Section VII.
A. Faults Including Decaying DC Components
Exponentially decaying dc offset is often present in the fault
current. The presence of this component results in an instantaneous power signal which is no more periodic and, thus, its finite
time periodic averaging yields an oscillatory curve. So after the
inception of a transformer internal fault where the fault current
includes an appreciable amount of decaying dc offset, the average power waveform increases to a higher value and concurrently undergoes a few oscillations. The addition of these oscillations leads to a notable change in the pattern of the fault power
signal, compared with the power waveshape shown in Fig. 3.
Fig. 8(a) depicts the average differential power signal of
phase A during an internal double-phase-to-ground fault where
the initial value of the decaying dc is equal to the amplitude of
the steady-state sinusoidal component of the fault current. The
time constant of the decaying dc is 94 ms. Although it is rare
to have a time constant as high as 94 ms in power systems, this
value has been considered in this simulation to examine the response of the proposed technique for the most severe condition.
Depending on the magnitude and polarity of the residual flux in
CT cores, such a large and long-lasting decaying dc can lead to
saturation of the CTs. However, in order to study the effect of
the decaying dc exclusively, the currents of the primary sides
of the CTs are used for computing the average power signal in
this part.
The performance of the waveform correlation scheme is also
illustrated in Fig. 8(a). The degree of similarity between the
power signal and the generated sinusoid inside the window is
obviously very low. The power signal has an increasing trend inside the window and the decreasing part is outside the window.
So its maximum is almost on the edge of the window. Meanwhile, the sinusoid has increasing and decreasing trends before and after its maximum which is located in the center of
the window. The half-cycle and quarter-cycle correlation coef0.026 and
0.793. It is observed
ficients are

that adding
to
results in a wider margin between
and the 0.5 threshold and, thus, a more reliable classification
of the power signal is obtained. The final output of this method
0.384.
is
is smaller than the
of the fault power
In this case,
signal of Fig. 4(b), which did not include any oscillation generated by the fault current dc component. An illustrative comparison between Figs. 4(b) and 8(a) shows that in the second half
of the window in Fig. 4(b), where the sinusoid is decreasing,
the power is increasing very slowly. Meanwhile, in the second
half of the window in Fig. 8(a), the power is increasing much
more rapidly. This means that the decaying dc component actually increases the difference between the power signal and the
sinusoid inside the window. Hence, the waveform correlation
scheme does not malfunction in this condition; indeed its performance improves.
, defined by the second technique along with its odd
and even parts, are plotted in Fig. 8(b). The odd part is very
close to the power signal, whereas the even part is near zero. The
significant magnitude of the odd part and the low value of the
even part are directly reflected in their energy ratios. The final
and
are 0.998 and 0.002, respectively,
values of
is 0.996. These indices show that the presence
and, thus,
of the decaying dc in current results in a slightly wider margin
between the energy ratios compared with the energy ratios of
Fig. 6(b) (i.e., the decaying dc has enhanced the performance of
this technique too).
for this case is 2.080. The previous discussion demonstrates that the decaying dc, which was initially thought to
pose a threat to the dependability of this method, improved its
performance.
B. Faults Including Even Harmonics
Even harmonics of fault current add extra sinusoids to the instantaneous power which lead to inevitable oscillations in the
average power computed by (1). The average differential power
of the simulated transformer for phase A during an internal
single-phase-to-ground fault is shown in Fig. 9(a). During this
fault, the second and fourth harmonics of current are 35% and

HOOSHYAR et al.: TIME-DOMAIN ANALYSIS OF DIFFERENTIAL POWER SIGNAL

Fig. 9. Fault including even harmonics. (a) Average power and the correlation
scheme sinusoid. (b) P (t ) and its odd and even parts.

15% of the fundamental component, respectively. Fig. 9(a) illustrates that although the integration process of (1) does not
eliminate the harmonically generated components of instantaneous power, it results in smaller and less rapid oscillations in
the average power.
Fig. 9(a) shows the half-cycle window and the waveshape correlation scheme sinusoid as well. Correlation coefficients are expected to be small, as the pattern of the power signal is different
0.055
from that of the sinusoid. These coefficients are
and
0.703, and their average is
0.324. Thus,
in the presence of even harmonics in the fault current, the performance of the correlation method not only did not degrade, but
also improved compared to its performance for the power signal
of Fig. 4(b). Similar to the decaying dc case, an illustrative comparison between Figs. 4(b) and 9(a) justifies this improvement.
for this power signal, along with its odd and even
parts, is shown in Fig. 9(b). The odd part is too close to
and the even part is very small. As a result, at the end of the
is 0.005 and
is 0.995 and
bewindow,
comes 0.990. Compared with Fig. 6(b), it can be inferred
that the presence of even harmonics leads to a slight enhancement in the performance of this technique too. The obtained
for this case is 2.014. Harmonic-based inrush detection
methods falsely detect the inrush condition for this fault due to
the 35% second harmonic component. Reliable operation of the
proposed method for these faults is among the advantages over
the harmonic-based approaches.

VII. EFFECT OF CT SATURATION

CT saturation during fault or inrush conditions can distort the
current waveform. Distorted currents result in the deformation
of power signals and can threaten their accurate classification. In
order to investigate the effect of CT saturation on the proposed
algorithm, appropriate CTs are designed in the simulated power
system. CT parameters are selected based on the minimum CT
requirements of a modern and widely used relay [23]. The specifications of the CTs are provided in the Appendix.

1401

Fig. 10. CT saturation during the internal fault. (a) Average power and the correlation scheme sinusoid. (b)P (t ) and its odd and even parts.

A. CT Saturation During Fault Conditions

In the previous section, it was shown that the presence of
decaying dc in the fault current does not adversely influence
the proposed algorithm. The decaying dc can affect the pattern
of the power signal in another way as well. It may cause CT
saturation and consequently power waveform distortion.
Simulation of the decaying dc case of the previous section is
repeated, but this time the distorted currents of the secondary
sides of the CTs are used for calculating the average power.
To study the response of the proposed method for the worst
case, the CT remanent flux is set to 80% of the saturation point
flux. This amount is the maximum possible residual flux for a
practical CT [24]. The power signal for this case is depicted in
Fig. 10(a). Phase A CT at the primary side of the transformer is
saturated 3.9 ms after the onset of the fault. However, as shown
in Fig. 10(a), CT saturation does not have an immediate major
effect on the average power. This is due to the fact that in (1) all
of the instantaneous power samples over a half-cycle interval
have to be added up, and the distortion of only a few samples
could not have a significant impact on the overall output. In
other words, the average power is distorted when a considerable
number of samples used in (1) suffer from CT saturation. So the
pattern of average power remains unchanged for the majority of
the half-cycle window in Fig. 10(a).
Fig. 10(a) also shows the correlation scheme sinusoid. Unlike
the previously studied faults, the power signal has a decreasing
trend in the second half of the window, but its decreasing rate
is much lower than that of the sinusoid. That is why the correlation coefficients are small enough to classify the power signal
and
are 0.323 and 0.027, respecas a fault case.
0.148. It is
tively. So the output of this method will be
observed that for this severe fault condition,
is once again
and it widens the margin between
and its
lower than
threshold.
The application of the second method is illustrated in
are extracted.
Fig. 10(b) where odd and even parts of
. As a
The odd part constitutes a greater percentage of
and
at the end of the window are 0.695
result,
is 0.390.
and 0.305, respectively and, thus,

1402

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 27, NO. 3, JULY 2012

Fig. 12. Inrush signal of a real power transformer.

TABLE III
REAL-TIME RESULTS FOR A 115/13-kV TRANSFORMER

Fig. 11. CT saturation during magnetizing inrush. (a) Average power and the
correlation scheme sinusoid. (b) P (t ) and its odd and even parts.

The obtained
for this case is 0.942.
has increased
compared to the previously discussed faults; however, it is still
small enough to identify the fault condition by a safe margin.
The second harmonic of current for this fault is as high as 17%
of the fundamental component. This can lead to a long delay in
operation of the relay if it uses harmonic-based techniques.
B. CT Saturation During Inrush Conditions
CT saturation during transformer switching is probable due
to the appreciable dc component of inrush currents. To demonstrate the complete immunity of the proposed algorithm against
CT saturation, an extremely severe condition is studied. In the
simulation, various parameters, such as voltage phase angle,
transformer remanence, and source impedance have been selected in a way to obtain the largest possible inrush current.
Therefore, a large dc flux is generated in the CT core. Moreover,
the CT remanence is set to be 80%, so that the CT is heavily saturated. The CT saturates 5.3 ms after the flow of inrush current.
Fig. 11(a) depicts the average power. Here again, CT saturation
does not have an immediate major effect on the average power.
Fig. 11(a), which depicts the waveform correlation scheme
sinusoid, shows that a small part of the power signal at the end
of the window differs from the sinusoid. However, the pattern
of a major part of the power signal is still similar to that of the
sinusoid. Hence, the reduction in the coefficients is not so large
and
are
that the correlation scheme fails to operate.
0.774 and 0.650, respectively. Unlike the previous cases, here
is a more reliable index and results in a wider margin with
the threshold. The output of the correlation scheme is
0.712.
, together with its extracted odd and even parts, are deat the
picted in Fig. 11(b). The even part deviates from
is still very
beginning and end parts of the window, but
similar to its even part in size and shape. This size and shape
is different from that of the odd part. The ultimate values of
and
are 0.096 and 0.904, respectively, which
0.808.
yields
,
is only slightly affected by CT satCompared with
uration. So it is a more reliable index in this condition.
is

0.820 and, thus, the power signal is safely classified as an inrush case. Correct operation of the proposed method for such
conditions is one of its advantages over the dwell-time detection algorithms.
VIII. REAL-TIME HARDWARE IMPLEMENTATION
The proposed method was implemented by a hardware setup
to verify whether this algorithm is able to fulfill the real-time
requirements of a digital relay for real power system signals.
Two sets of fault and inrush signals of two physical power transformers were examined. The first set is related to a 115/13-kV,
40-MVA, YNd transformer recorded at 2.4 kHz. The second set
is related to a 230/63-kV, 90-MVA, YNd transformer recorded
at 3.2 kHz. As a representative case, one of the inrush currents
is shown in Fig. 12. The depicted current is similar to a typical
inrush current until the fourth cycle in which the CT saturates.
The signals are fed to a 14-b digital-to-analog converter
(DAC) through the parallel port of a computer. The obtained
analog signals are passed through a low-pass filter and are
then fed to a 14-b analog-to-digital converter (ADC). The
final sampling rate is 2.4 kHz for the first set and 3.2 kHz
for the second set. The discrete signals are analyzed using a
150-MHz TMS320C6712D digital signal processor (DSP). The
maximum memory required for this algorithm is about 2 kB.
The maximum execution is 4050 DSP cycles. Considering the
150-MHz frequency of the DSP, this corresponds to a maximum
of 27- s execution time. This is much lower than the duty cycle
of the DSP based on the minimum 312.5- s sampling period.
Table III displays the results obtained by the developed hardware for the first set of signals. This table includes one inrush
and two fault events. The displayed indices correspond to the
two phases which have the largest fault or inrush currents. For
case I, large inrush currents flow in transformer windings and
are positive. For case II, in both of the displayed
the related
phases, the CT is severely saturated. Nevertheless, for both of
values are negative by a reliable margin.
the fault cases,
Table IV highlights the results for the second set. Phase 2 of
case II corresponds to the waveform depicted in Fig. 12. For this
set, neither the fault, nor the inrush currents are distorted by CT
saturation in the first half-cycle window. As shown, all of the

HOOSHYAR et al.: TIME-DOMAIN ANALYSIS OF DIFFERENTIAL POWER SIGNAL

1403

TABLE IV
REAL-TIME RESULTS FOR A 230/63-kV TRANSFORMER

Fig. 13. Simulated power system.

obtained indices are far from their thresholds by a wide margin.

Successful real-time implementation of the proposed method
for fault and inrush signals of real power transformers confirms
the feasibility of this algorithm for industrial applications.
IX. CONCLUSION
In this paper, the power signal was processed in order to discriminate between transformer inrush and fault conditions. It
was illustrated that the power waveform has unique behavior
during inrush conditions which is completely different from
that of fault conditions. Using time-domain characteristics of
the power signal, two waveshape recognition techniques were
proposed. The waveform correlation technique computed the
degree of similarity between the power signal and an adaptively generated sinusoid. Inside the half-cycle window after
switching the transformer, an inrush power signal has an even
waveform, while a fault power signal possesses an odd waveshape. Making use of this distinction, the odd and even part
extraction technique could identify inrush conditions. The final
output of this algorithm, which is a combination of the two proposed techniques, has a wide margin with its threshold for all of
the fault and inrush cases and, thus, highly reliable classification
is guaranteed.
Although the presence of the decaying dc and even harmonics
in fault current affects the regular pattern of fault power signals, it was shown that the performance of this approach is
not only unaffected, but also improved by these components.
Moreover, extreme CT saturation cases during inrush and fault
were studied, and accurate performance of the proposed approach was verified. Real-time hardware implementation using
real recorded signals confirms the feasibility of the proposed
algorithm.
APPENDIX
The 60-Hz simulated power system is shown in Fig. 13. Most
of the data and parameters of this power system are identical to
those of the test system used in [14] and are as follows.
500 kV,
600 MVA,
Source:
10 GVA.
TL1: length 5 mile
0.0330
mi),
0.2426
mi);
0.3192
mi),
0.7803
mi);
0.0163 F mi);
0.0130 F/mi).
TL2: length 120 mi, parameters identical to those of TL1.
Load 500 MVA.
Transformer: three-phase, two-winding, three-limb,
Ynd11 connection, core saturation characteristics: M5,
500 MVA,
8.5 GVA, 500/230-kV,

no-load losses: 0.08%, copper losses: 0.27%, leakage reactance: 0.24 p.u.
0.61 ,
Primary side CTs: 1000:1,
, Area: 15.3
, Magnetic path length: 0.6
m, Burden 2.25 .
0.53 ,
7.8
Secondary side CTs: 2000:1,
, Area: 32.0
, Magnetic path length: 0.8
2.25 .
m,
Magnetic material of the CTs: Silectron 53.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank B. Nasr and A. Masoudi
from the Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran, for
their help with the real-time implementation of the proposed
algorithm.
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Ali Hooshyar received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees

in electrical engineering from Isfahan University
of Technology, Isfahan, Iran, and the University
of Tehran, Tehran, Iran, in 2006 and 2009, respectively. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in
electrical engineering at the University of Waterloo,
Waterloo, ON, Canada.
His research interests include renewable energy
and the application of digital signal processing in
power system analysis.

Majid Sanaye-Pasand (M98SM05) received the

B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran, in 1988 and the M.Sc.
and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the
University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada, in 1994
and 1998, respectively.
Currently, he is a Professor with the School of
Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of
Tehran. His research interests include power system
protection, control, and transients.

Saeed Afsharnia received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of
Amirkabir, Tehran, Iran, in 1987 and 1990, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering
from the Institute National Polytechnique de Lorraine
(INPL), Lorraine, France, in 1995.
Currently, he is an Associate Professor in the
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
University of Tehran, Tehran. His research interests are the application of power electronics to
power-quality problems and distributed generation.

Mahdi Davarpanah received the B.Sc. degree in

electrical engineering from the Power and Water
University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 2002 and
the M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from The
University of Tehran, Tehran, in 2005, where he is
currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree.
His research interests include power system protection and distribution systems.

Bashir Mahdi Ebrahimi was born in Iran in 1979.

He received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees (Hons.) in
electrical engineering from the University of Tabriz,
Tabriz, Iran, in 2004 and 2006, respectively, and
the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
University of Tehran, Tehran.
His research interests include the design, modeling, control, and fault diagnosis of electrical
machines and finite-element analysis of electromagnetic devices.