DIOGNOSTIC TESTING OF HIGH VOLTAGE INSULATION FOR CONDITION MONITORING RAJANI MENON, S.S.KOLAMBEKAR & N.J.BUCH Electrical Research & Development Association Makarpura Road, Vadodara, Gujarat. 0 ABSTRA\ To have a reliable and efficient power network, it is necessary to keep the various equipment of the. system in’ healthy working condition. The condition monitoring of the power system equipment plays a vital role in foreseeing any deterioration of performance of the systenv equipment and to facilitate corrective actions to be taken in advance to prevent partial/eomplete unplanned outages of the system. This paper is based on the ERDA’s experience in the periodic condition monitoring of high voltage equipment in various power plants et., by capacitance and tan delta measurements’and other evaluation tests. 2.0 KEYWORDS Condition monitoring, capacitance & tan delta, Polarization index: 3.0 INTRODUCTION Forced/aplanned outages of critical electrical equipment of the power system can lead to instabi- lity and revenue loss by way of loss of generation and repairs and replacements. The reliable operation of any high voltage equipment depends critically on the integrity of the insulation system. Hence it becomes essential to have a condition — monitoring/predictive _ maintenance Program. that can ‘give a timely and reliable evaluation of the equipment. Hence a need arises to have various” diagnostic measurements for assessing the condition of critical equipment of the * system. Such diagnostic measurements help to identify/ foresee the possible:failures and to plan maintenance & repai schedules thereby avoiding. expensive repairs and forced outages. ‘The advancement of latest technology has developed many test equipment and methods that can be effectively used for diagnostic testing and 15 to study and analyze the condition of insulation. Some of the effective, quick and economical, off line diagnostic testing methods are: 1. Measurement of Capacitance and Tan delta. 2. Insulation Resistance and Polarization Index measurement, 4.0 CAPACITANCE AND TAN DELTA MEASUREMENT ‘The measurement of capacitance and tan delta is one of the most useful, reliable, and effective diagnostic tool for condition monitoring Program. The tan d, which is a direct indication of power dissipated by insulation, is a very important measure of the quality of insulation. The tan d Provides @ measure of the over-all operating, Condition of the insulation. The variation of tan d with applied voltage (tan d tip-up) provides usefal information about the source of any imperfections in the insulation and. serves as an early indicator of failure hazards. Some typical capacitance & tan d Curves Vs voltage are shown in fig. 1(a) and (b). A good initial value of tan d alone does not necessarily ascertain a good quality of insulation, If the tan d values starts to increase at a certain applied voltage, it indicates presence of impurities/ voids in the insulation and the inception of partial discharges at this voltage. The increase in tan d with passing of time also indicates the possible deterioration of insulation, ‘Normally, the initial test values of capacitance and tan d obtained on yent_ during commissioning form the refoence fot ‘hae periodic measurements. By comparing the latest values with those of previous values. monitored earlier, the condition of insulation can be ascertained.APRCITANCE tone CAPACITANCE tan «_. GOOD INSULATION VOLTAGE—— (a) CAPACITANCE tan 8 ‘CAPACITANCE = sands ‘GOOD INSULATION, (b) FIGURE-1 4.1 METHODS OF MEASUREMENT: ‘The capacitance and tan delta measurements are.performed by applying the test voltages to the high voltage terminals and measuring, using. ac bridges such as conventional Schering _bridge/ transformer ratio type bridge. Depending on the Configuration of equipment under test, such as ungrounded mode (UST) in which both electrodes of measurements. are not connected to ground and grounded mode (GST) in which one of the electrodes is permanently connected to ground, various connection methods. are utilized. ‘These measurements can be performed at various percentages of the rated voltage but with- in the normal operating voltage of the equipment. However, for field tests, usually a maximum test voltage of 10- 12 kV is widely used. 4.2 MEASUREMENT AND RESULTS - DISCUSSION ERDA is equipped with both types of bridges, ¢ Schering bridge and transformer ratio type bridge, for the field measurement of various high voltage equipment. In case of condition monitoring, it is to bbe noted that, the concentration is more on the change in trend or values of capacitance and tan delta rather than its absolute values. Herice during ‘measurement, care shall be taken on the following Aspects such as resolution, accuracy and reliability of bridge and repeatability of measurement. 4.2.1 ROTATING MACHINES: In case of rotating machines, the C and tan d measurement enables the assessment of the total condition of the main slot insulation. The Comparisons of measured “values of different Phases and/or of two or more identical machines are done for evaluation. The measurement can be Performed between phases (fig 2) and between Phase and earth (fig 3) and are made at voltages that range from 20% to 100% of the rated voltage. ‘The magnitude of tan d at each step and increment in tan d with increment in test voltage are verified. TEST SET UP FOR H.X MOTORS. FIGURE~3 “AN DELIA TEST ON 66 xv MorGRS, TAN DELTA v8 VOLTAGE AMO TIME ra oy 14520 a a0 APPLIED vottAGe Ina em eto em eases FIGURE~ 4 A typical example is shown in fig 4, where Variations of tan d with voltage of motor foraperiod of 2 years are’ shown: Here, motor. 1 is having insulation of good condition where the Variation of tan d with voltage and time are fairly constant. In case of motor-2, the deterioration of insulation is clearly seen by the higher values of tan d tip-up. In this particular case, the insulation degradation was also confirmed by very high rise in temperature of the motor. 4.2.2 TRANSFORMERS: The C/tan d measurements of transformer are performed between windings and between windings & tank (fig. 5), The normal range of observed values are tabulated (Table 1) on TRANSFORMER TAME ey TEST SET UP FOR TRANSFORMER FIGURE- 5. During the measurements, the transformer oil and winding temperatures shall be recorded. The oil may contain floating metal/. dust particles, moisture etc., due to which the tan-d values vary drastically. Many often after oil filtration, it is observed that the tan'd value has been improved. ‘The capacitance values measured between HV and LV windings are useful in surge transfer studies of insulation co-ordination also. 4.2.3 HIGH VOLTAGE BUSHINGS: By conducting this test on high voltage nv SUPPLY ‘Test Set UP FoR W.¥. 8USHING FIGUR bushings; the general health of the insulation and any deterioration and defects such as. improper 7 impregnation, oil leakage, cracks, high, values of pitaidedemacheeanaatieg Fig 6 shows the test set up of the measure- ment of bushing mounted on a transformer. The bridge connections are taken out from the C-point provided on the bushing. For periodic condition monitoring, the~standard recommends a test voltage, which is between 2.5 and 10 kV. These measurements are performed at 3 to 5 different voltage levels. The normal range of values observed during measurements is given in Table 2. AN DEL TEST OM musinc TAN DELTA wr VOLUGE A typical example is given in fig, 7. the bashing“ is healthy, since the yattaion oP d values with voltage is negligible, The case of bushing 2 is also normal as in case of actual service conditions, But in case of bushing- 3, tan d steeply increases with increase in applied voltage, which indicates the need of immediate attention. 4.2.4. HIGH VOLTAGE CABLES : The test set up is shown in Fig 8. The applic test voltage varies ffom 20% 110% ofthe meed voltage. The variation of tan d values of a few cables with respect to voltage and time are shown in fig 9 & 10. In fig. 9, typical curves of tan d with rise in voltages are shown. The steep decrease in tan d with voltage may be an indication of the trecing phenomena present in XLPE cable. In fig.10, one cable is evaluated for a period of 3years, In this case, the variation of tan’d with rise in voltage (tan d tip- up) is “high, and ‘also’ the variation with passing of time is very high. This shows the progressive deterioration of insulation TAN DELIA TEST On caaLes TAW DELTA vs vottce on oo ool Ne er ee er APRLIED WoLTACE in ia FIGURE- 9 TAN DELTA Test on CABLES TAN DELTA v8 TIME Sos a0 20 7 ‘APPLIED VOLTAGE IM Kv +199 ot FIGURE - 10. that needs immediate attention. In a. particular ‘case, the insulation deterioration of an 11 kV PVC cable was predicted based on the measurements and before the utility could undertake any Preventive steps, breakdown of the cable took Place. This shows the importance of the periodic ‘measurements, 5.0 INSULATION RESISTANCE AND Pe ISA TION INDEX MEASUREMENT ‘The insulation resistance and polarization index ‘measurements are very. useful. indicators of contamination and moisture present in insulation 5, INSULATION RESISTANCE (IR) TEST: Sy», These. tieasurements are Performed to verify the overall cleanliness, dryness, localized defeets and general. condition of “insulation Systems,.The IRvis.the ratio of the voltage (V) 18 applied between'the windings and-ground:to the resultant current (I). When a voltage is applied to the insulation, three:components of current flow (fig 11): TOTAL CURRENT LEAKAGE cuRReat SQHRONENTS OF INSULATION re sr FIGUR ‘The magnitude of these two components decay With ‘time. and the presence of moisture has ay effect on these components dats, third component. the leakage current, is determined primarily by the presence of moisture, leakage current reading are taken after eae ‘components have become negligible,Normally the IR values are corrected to the standard temperature, usually 200C and compared. The test voltage magnitude must be restricted to a value appropriate to the voltage rating and: basic insulation quality of the equipment. The IR value decreases somewhat with an increase in applied voltage, but for a very good insulation, the change is negligible. If the IR decreases significantly with rise in applied voltage, it may be an indication of imperfection of insulation aggravated by —moisture/contaminants. ‘The decreasing trend in IR values over the years indicates gradual deterioration of insulation quality. In some cases, this test tends to reflect surface conditions and a realistic assessment of the state of the bulk of the insulation is not possible. A further consideration is the need to take account of the size and capacitance of the insulation when assessing the level of IR. 5.2 POLARISATION INDEX TEST: ‘The PI measurement is a ratiometric test used to assess the performance of insulation. Moisture may be absorbed within the insulation and/or condensed on the connection surfaces, which is often dirty. If the leakage current is larger than the first two components, then the total charging current and hence the IR will not change significantly with time. Thus, to help determine how dry and clean the insulation is, the IR is usually measured after 1 minute and after 10 minutes. The PI is the ratio of ten minutes reading, to one minute reading. This, being a ratio, is independent of temperature and no temperature correction is required. A low value of IR with a low value of PI definitely indicates deteriorated condition of insulation and steps should be taken to dry the insulation and remove the contamination before proceeding with other tests. A very high value of PI is also an indication of imperfection/ brittleness of insulation. Some typical IR values of transformers measured are shown in Table 3 {In some cases the measured PI values may be misguiding: for example, if multi-layered insulation fails in one of the layers while the others retain high resistances, the effect on the test current will tend to increase the PI value, masking the possible problems from surface leakage caused by dirt and contamination. 19 6.0 CONCLUSION/ STIONS: ‘The simportance of the periodic condition monitoring of high voltage electrical equipment hhas been discussed so far in this paper The utilization of the full potential life of the equipment can be possible by regular condition monitoring. Hence the periodi¢ condition monitor- ing of all the electrical equipment shall be made a art of the operation and maintenance schedule and the data hence collected shall be evaluated for trend analysis and preventive action by all utilities / SEBs / industries. The large amount of condition monitoring data generated and compiled by various utilities! industries can well be utilized for standardization of condition monitoring parameters L0 ACNOWLEDGEMENTS, The authors wish to thank the Electrical Research and Development Association, Vadodara for permission to present the paper. 0 REFE} Si [i] RAJANI MENON, S.KOLAMBEKAR, N. S. RAJE and N.J.BUCH, "ERDA's EXPERIENCE IN CONDITION MONITORING OF HIGH VOLTAGE EQUIPMENT” Refresher Course on condition monitoring and predictive maintenance of power plant equipment, CBIP, New Delhi-1997 [2] CAJETAN PINTO: AN APPROACH FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF THE INSULATION CONDITION OF HIGH VOLTAGE STATOR WINDINGS. [3] RAJANI MENON, S.KOLAMBEKAR AND NJ.BUCH, "CONDITION MONITORING OF HIGH VOLTAGE EQUIPMENT BY DISSIPATI- ON FACTOR (TAN d) MEASUREMENT", Second Intemational R & D conference on Water Energy, CBIP, Vadodara -1997. [4] RAJANI MENON, S.KOLAMBEKAR AND NJ.BUCH, "CAPACITANCE AND TAN DELTA MEASUREMENTS - A TOOL FOR INSULATION EVALUATION", _ National seminar on High voltage testing. techni DNase ee tyTABLET TYPICAL VALUES OF CAPACITANCE & TAN d FOR TRANSFORMERS, NO, |” CONFIG. | VOLTAGERATING | _ CAPACITANCE GF) TAN DELTA 1 HV-LV 4-5 0.002 — 0.005 HY-TANK 400-200 kV. 13-15 0,007 - 0,009 LV-TANK 23-24 0.004 — 0.008. as HV-LV 3-6 0.003 - 0.006 HV-TANK 66/11 kV 29-35 0.005 - 0.010 LV-TANK, 6-10 0.004 - 0.010 3 HV-LV 3x7 0.003 - 0.006 HV-TANK 1321 kV 10-12 0,006 - 0.008 LV-TANK 19-22 0.005 — 0.008 a HV-LV 8-10 0.015 - 0.018 HV-TANK IVALKV. 11-13 0.015 0.020 LV-TANK_ 15-17, 0.015 ~ 0.020 _ ‘TABLE IL TABLE I VALUES OF CAPACITANCE & TAN d FOR Rating of TR/PI between BUSHINGS F Transform er=MVA | HV-LV_HV-TANK_LV-TANK No | Ramee alan Tan delta 3. -IR KV = ie Fae ee apt} 2326 | 1213. | 12-16 2 220 380 — 400. 0.003 - 0.006 aed Seer ots =onn 2 =~ 1719 | 1416 | 1719 | 4 [66 225 —250___| 0,002 0.008 ee 360 =280 | _0.00T 0.008 PL | .243 | 1.213 | 1243