LLNL-CONF-497353

Case Study of the Failure of two 13.8kV

Control & Metering Transformers that
caused significant Equipment Damage

G. R. Dreifuerst, D. B. Chew, H. L. Mangonon, P.

W. Swyers

September 1, 2011

IEEE Electrical Safety Workshop

Daytona Beach, FL, United States
January 30, 2012 through February 3, 2012
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CASE STUDY OF THE FAILURE OF TWO 13.8KV CONTROL & METERING
TRANSFORMERS THAT CAUSED SIGNIFICANT EQUIPMENT DAMAGE
Copyright Material IEEE
Paper No. ESW-12 (do not insert number)
Gary Dreifuerst PhDEE Dennis Chew, P.E.
Member, IEEE Member, IEEE
LLNL M/S L-449 LLNL M/S L-601
Livermore, CA 94550 Livermore, CA 94550
USA USA
dreifuerst1@llnl.gov chew7@llnl.gov
Abstract - The degradation and failure of cast-coil epoxy
windings within 13.8kV control power transformers and
metering potential transformers has been shown to be
dangerous to both equipment and personnel, even though best
industrial design practices were followed. Accident scenes will
be examined for two events at a U.S. Department of Energy
laboratory. Failure modes will be explained and current design
practices discussed with changes suggested to prevent a
recurrence and to minimize future risk. New maintenance
philosophies utilizing partial discharge testing of the
transformers as a prediction of end-of-life will be examined.
Index Terms — 13.8kV, arc flash, arc blast, CPT, MPT,
designing for safety
Auspices — This work performed under the auspices of the
U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344.
I. INTRODUCTION
This Department of Energy lab was founded in 1952 with the
mission to ensure the safety and security of the nation through
applied science and technology. This lab houses world-class
high performance computing facilities, the world’s most
powerful laser and numerous other high technology facilities on
its one square mile location. The electric utility supply for these
requires high availability and quality of service. The base line
power supply is about 180MVA. This is distributed on-site
through double-ended 15kV-class metal-clad switchgear line-
ups. The line-up circuit breakers are switchable through a
Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) system.
Each line-up has two sets of Control Power Transformers
(CPT) and four sets of Metering Potential Transformers (MPT)
to drive local relaying protection networks and automatic
transfer schemes. These are all 15kV-class transformers using
cast-epoxy solid dielectrics.
II. CPT FAILURE AUGUST 29, 2007 [1]
A. Background
The first failure of a cast-epoxy 15kVA 13.8kV primary
transformer in our recent history was destructive to the
transformer and to the 13.8kV line-up. Substantial debris was
circulated through the medium-voltage switchgear with very
[Type text]
Harry Mangonon, P.E. Paul Swyers, P.E.
LLNL M/S L-604 Member, IEEE
Livermore, CA 94550 LLNL M/S L-604
USA Livermore, CA 94550
mangonon2@llnl.gov USA
swyers1@llnl.gov
little mechanical damage to the surrounding structure. A risk
would have existed for any worker present during this incident.
The CPT, which feeds one side of the line-up, failed its primary
(13.8kV winding) side insulation. It experienced turn-turn and
layer-layer shorting (i.e., the transformer shorted-out and failed)
during the failure event. The failure was not sufficient to cause
the “E” type primary fuse (7E) to clear the fault. This device is
constructed using a cast-epoxy, copper primary winding. The
failure of this transformer caused the loss of AC power to
various transducers. This event was logged by the SCADA
system. Protective actions resulted in shutting down power to
107 buildings.
B. Technical Review
The metal-clad switchgear line-up was manufactured in the
1990s. There are six line-ups on the lab’s 13.8kV system. Four
of the line-ups have identical layouts and CPTs. The rest of the
line-ups have slightly different CPTs. This was the first failure of
a CPT. It is not possible to perform an accident reconstruction
because of the magnitude of the damage to the CPT.
The specific initiator is not known. It is known that no power
system disturbances were observed by the SCADA system until
the CPT started to fail at 07:14:40. The 13.8kV primary power
was still applied until 07:25:21 when the bus differential relays
tripped. Over that time, the CPT failure progressed until the
epoxy cast primary was sufficiently overheated, which boiled off
resin creating substantial smoke which prompted the call to the
Fire Department.
The CPT failure may have started with a simple shorted-turn
in the winding due to interwinding (turn-turn or layer-layer)
insulation failure. That would have increased the primary
current, in order to apply more power to the failed winding area.
As the temperature increases, the remaining insulation starts to
fail, causing additional damage sites to develop and to deposit
even more heat. This dynamic would not require a substantial
amount of current to destroy the transformer.
Figure 1 shows the result that the extreme heat caused by
the arcing, progressively destroying the insulation and welding
the wire fragments together. The arc debris damaged the two
vertical compartments which were exposed to the CPT. Just
above the CPT is the compartment for the Main Breaker for the
main bus. After disassembly for cleaning and rewiring, arc
spots to the frame were observed in the rear of the CPT
compartment. The presence of these arcs is the likely reason
that the bus differential relay opened the bus breakers at
07:25:21. The action of the differential relay properly opened
the main, tie and all feeder breakers, but could not open the
source side breaker (remote from this line-up) which powers the
main breaker. The extent of the debris from the CPT failure
bridged the bus insulators to ground. The source feeder
breaker tripped on overcurrent.
Figure 1: Damaged 15kVA CPT protected by 7E fuses
C. Manufacturer’s Installation Instructions for Replacement
CPTs reveals likely fault scenario
“If a transformer develops a winding fault, in many instances
the primary fuses do not clear the fault until the transformer has
split open from internal pressure and vented ionized gases.
These gases can travel to the top of the vertical section and can
cause a phase-to-phase or phase-to-ground fault on an
uninsulated bus, which can then travel to adjacent sections in a
line-up. Good practice would indicate that the sections with a
transformer should be designed to prevent ionized gas traveling
into adjacent sections.”
III. MPT Failure December 17, 2010 [2]
A. Background
The s e c o n d f a i l u r e o f a c a s t-epoxy 13.8kV primary
transformer was destructive to the transformer and to the
13.8kV switchgear line-up. A major risk of harm would have
existed for any worker present during this incident. The failure
was not sufficient to cause the “E” type primary fuse (0.5E) to
clear the fault. Substantial debris was circulated through the
medium-voltage switchgear with significant mechanical damage
to the surrounding structure and observable over-pressurization
effects for the building.
B. Technical Review
At approximately 11:37, an electrical outage occurred due to
the unintentional opening of a tie breaker. This outage affected
Revision 2, 2008
124 buildings for at least 2 seconds and 173 buildings for
approximately 4 hours.
An internal failure in one of the two single-phase MPTs—
located in the lower compartment of the vertical section
containing the tie breaker—caused a short-circuit and ground
fault at the MPT’s input contacts, melting and vaporizing the
contacts. The resulting damage is shown in Figure 2. This
created an arc across the 13.8kV input contacts of the MPT,
resulting in an arc flash and an arc blast (an arc flash of
significant power and energy sufficient to create a pressure
wave able to mechanically destroy facility equipment) that blew
the lower compartment front door off the enclosure and
damaged the rear panels in that compartment.
Figure 2: MPT failure in bottom drawer of feeder breaker
cabinet.
The tie breaker, located in the upper compartment above the
MPTs, began to open in order to clear the fault condition.
However, the tie breaker experienced a failure at its input
connections due to the arc blast originating in the lower
compartment, which created a second arc flash and resulting
arc blast. The section’s front panel and the upper compartment
door were blown off. See Figure 3.
The building showed minor evidence of overpressurization,
with some sheet metal screws popped out of the metal siding
and a double-hung window tipped outward after shearing off
two of the four framing screws.
The extent of damage resulted in the Incident Analysis
Report [2] concluding that death may have resulted for
someone in front of the line-up’s faulted vertical section, and
organ or hearing damage for anyone in the room.
Figure 3: Line-up with damaged feeder breaker cabinet.
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 IV. CONCLUSIONS
A. Transformer Issues
The first failure led us to believe that the temperature rise in
the epoxy core and resulting insulation degradation was the
likely initiator, so we implemented a pro-active replacement of
all CPTs, regardless of their age, in our metal-clad switchgear
line-ups. The second failure changed our thinking about
temperature rise, because the MPTs are not a power-handling
transformer. MPTs have no appreciable temperature rise in
service. In reviewing the switchgear design, we confirmed that
locating MPTs in switchgear is not a disallowed practice by API
[3] and by IEEE [4]. Overcurrent HV-side fusing is set up to
protect the buses and not the PTs. The insulation failure in both
manufactured transformer types is now believed to be due to
partial discharge (PD) activity. A regular measurement and
trending of PD levels for the 13.8kV transformers is being
planned to look for degradation tendencies, with replacement
as part of the Preventative Maintenance (PM) program. This
PM effort is being used to decrease not just the equipment
failure rate, but also to reduce the risk exposure to the
engineers and electricians that work on and around the line-
ups.
The second incident had the good fortune to be monitored by
a computer-based relay. The waveform data gathered by this
relay provided a clear picture of exactly how fast the failure
mechanism occurred. What showed up as an intermittent
SCADA undervoltage relay error message overnight, became a
fully involved 30kA three phase fault in less than 7 cycles (0.12
seconds)
B. Safe Work Practices
The standard work practices for the High Voltage Electricians
included reviewing the status of panel mounted instruments and
verifying connections or settings of components that are
housed in the control compartments of the energized metal clad
switchgear line-ups are operating correctly. Following the first
incident detailed in section II above, there was no modification
to that work practice. The engineering action of replacing all the
CPTs was thought to have significantly decreased the
probability of exposure to a repeat of that failure and therefore
was viewed as an appropriate action that mitigated the risk.
Both engineering and electrician personnel recognized that a
risk still exists due to the destruction brought about from the
second incident detailed in section III. Any work where a
compartment must be opened while the line-up is energized is
no longer allowed. The time that a worker must be in the vicinity
of an energized line-up is also minimized. As PM data is
gathered, further work modifications may be incorporated.
V. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
An outside consultant was hired to help analyze the second
fault [5]. He agreed that the transformer location complied with
industry practice and that the primary fusing for the transformer
would not protect against the destruction of the transformer.
Revision 2, 2008
VI. REFERENCES
[1] Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Investigation of
the LLNL Power Outage due to a Transformer Failure in
LGS-15 on August 29, 2007, Incident Analysis Report
200740, March 3, 2008.
[2] Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Building U424
Electrical Utility Incident, December 17, 2010, Incident
Analysis Report 201064, March 7, 2011, LLNL-AR-
471633.
[3] Electrical Installations in Petroleum Processing Plants,
API Recommended Practice 540, Fourth Edition, April
1999.
[4] IEEE Std C37.20.2-1999 Standard for Metal-Clad
Switchgear.
[5] Hank Lee, LLNL-Bldg 424, T200 15kV Switchgear West
Bus Fault Investigation and Analysis, Electrolink
Engineering Services, Inc., report, January 25, 2011.
VII. VITA
Gary R. Dreifuerst (M’1970) is an electronics engineer at
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) since June
1981 working in the Inertial Confinement Fusion Laser
programs after receiving his electrical engineering PhD degree
from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Gary is the Electrical Safety Officer for the National Ignition
Facility and the chair of the LLNL Electrical Safety Committee.
Dennis B. Chew (M’2001) received his BSEE degree in 2002
from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
and is a registered Professional Electrical Engineer in
California. Dennis has worked at Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory (LLNL) since 2002 as an Electrical Engineer. In
2008, Dennis began working for the LLNL Electric Utility Group
and is currently the Electric Utilities Services Supervisor as well
as a member of the LLNL Electrical Safety Committee.
Harry L. Mangonon received his BSEE degree in 1971 from the
University of the Philippines. He has been a Utility Engineer at
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory since 2004. He is a
registered Professional Electrical Engineer in California and
Wyoming. Harry has over 40 years experience as an engineer
that included stints at Bechtel and Aker Kvaerner in the
petrochemical, non-ferrous metals and power industries; and as
a Field Service Engineer for Westinghouse Electric
Corporation.
Paul W. Swyers (M’1983) received his BSEE degree in 1984
from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
and his MSEE degree in 1994 from Santa Clara University.
Paul worked at Pacific Gas & Electric Company from 1984 to
1989 as an electric utility distribution engineer. Since 1989,
Paul has worked at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
(LLNL) in the Electric Utility Group. Paul is currently the LLNL
Electric Utility Group Leader and a member of the LLNL
Electrical Safety Committee. Paul is a registered Professional
Electrical Engineer in California.
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