Electrical Power and Energy Systems 24 (2002) 557±562

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Discrimination between fault and magnetizing inrush current in

transformers using short-time correlation transform
H. Zhang a,*, J.F. Wen a, P. Liu a, O.P. Malik b
a
Department of Electrical and Power Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 430074, Wuhan, People's Republic of China
b
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of Calgary, Calgary, Alb., Canada T2N 1N4
Received 23 January 2001; revised 3 July 2001; accepted 31 July 2001

Abstract
A new method to discriminate between internal fault current and inrush current is presented in this paper. A short time correlation function
is used to extract the dead angle from the differential current. The effect of CT saturation on inrush current is considered and test results with
the data obtained from a prototype device on a dynamic power system model verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. Another
advantage of this algorithm is that it has very small computation requirement. Thus can be applied for real-time applications. q 2002
Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Power transformer protection; Short-time correlation transform (STCT); CT saturation; Dead angle

1. Introduction disturbances, which limit their application in relay protec-

tion. Many new schemes are also affected by current distor-
Differential protection is commonly used in power trans- tion such as CT saturation.
former protection. In this approach, currents at all terminals A novel scheme based on current waveform symmetry
of the protected transformer are monitored and a differential analysis and dead angle identi®cation is proposed in this
current is computed. To avoid maloperation by magnetizing paper. Unlike traditional methods, this scheme is insensitive
inrush current, the second harmonic component is to irrelevant disturbances or CT saturation. Its computation
commonly used for blocking the differential relay in time is small. Therefore, it can be applied in practical
power transformers. systems.
Protection relay based on second harmonic restraint
principle operates with a delay in some cases [1]. As a
2. Principle of the scheme
result, some improved methods have been proposed to
obtain better identi®cation results. For example, voltages
2.1. Correlation function
at a bus are used for additional criteria. Second harmonic
restraint is cancelled when the voltage of a bus is less than For a random process X…t†; its correlation function can be
70% of its rated voltage. A scheme based on the similarity de®ned as
between the voltage waveform and the current waveform is
Z
proposed in Ref. [2]. Active power has also been employed Rx … t † ˆ X…t†X…t 1 t† dt …1†
for inrush identi®cation [3]. T
In recent years, wavelet transform [4,5], neural networks where T is a given time domain and t is the time delay. The
[6] and fuzzy logic [7] have been proposed to differentiate discrete form of the correlation function is given by
inrush and internal fault currents. These schemes have their
advantages and disadvantages. For instance, wavelet trans- 1 XN
Rx …n† ˆ X…r†X…r 1 n† …2†
form based methods have better ability of time±frequency N rˆ1
location. Their disadvantages are that they need long data
window and are also sensitive to noise and unpredicted where N is the sampling number, X…r† and X…r 1 n† are
samplings of the function X…t† at times r and r 1 n;
* Corresponding author. 186-27-875-44154. respectively.
E-mail address: sunpei@public.wh.hb.cn (H. Zhang). In order to compare between different quantities, the
0142-0615/02/$ - see front matter q 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0142-061 5(01)00065-5
558 H. Zhang et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 24 (2002) 557±562
correlation coef®cient is commonly used which is de®ned as
Rx …n†
rx …n† ˆ ; urx …n†u # 1 …
Rx …0†
where Rx …0† is the sum of the square of every data point in
the sequence, and is the largest value of Rx …n†; n ˆ 1; 2¼N:
If rx …n† ˆ 1 occurs when n ± 0; then the signal is a period-
ical sequence. If rx …n† ˆ 0:7; it means the signal has been
70% correlated.
Some related features of the correlation function and
coef®cients are as below
1. Suppose the expectation of the time sequence X…t† is mx ;
and the standard deviation is s x ; then
2s x2 1 m2x # Rx …t† # s x2 1 m2x …
R …t† 2 m2
rx …t† ˆ x 2 x …
sx
2. For a random process, when t ! 1; rx …t† ! 0; Rx …t† !
m2x :
3. For periodical signals, the correlation function has the
same cycle period T as the signal itself. That is, to say,
the peaks of correlation function arrive at almost the
same time as the periodical signal.
4. If signal X…t† is composed of useful signal l…t† and noise
p…t†; then the correlation function of X…t† is the addition
of the two parts. That is, Rx …t† ˆ Rl …t† 1 Rp …t†:
5. Suppose p…t† is a random signal, then Rp …t† ˆ constant
and rp …t† ! 0 when t ! 1: If l…t† is a periodical signal,
then Rl …t† and rl …t† are also periodical. Therefore, the
periodical signals in white noise can be extracted using
correlation function.
2.2. The short-time correlation transform
The short-time correlation function (STCT) of xn is
de®ned as below
n0 1X
l=2 2 1
STCT…x† ˆ Rxx …n0 ; k† ˆ xn xn1k …
nˆn0 2 l=2
where l is the length of the computation window and n0 is
the window center. For white noise xn ; STCT…x† < 0: Set
Fig. 1. The STCT of a symmetrical waveform.
3†
Fig. 2. The STCT of asymmetrical waveform.
k ˆ 1 and de®ne y…n† to be the STCT of the differential
current i…n†: Then, y…n† can be simply described as
y…n† ˆ i…n†i…n 1 1† 1 i…n 2 1†i…n† …7†
The STCT has the following futures:
4†
1. Suppose i…n† ˆ sin…n† is a sinusoidal wave, the waveform
and its STCT are shown in Fig. 1, the solid line represents
5†
the original signal and the dotted line represents the
STCT results.
2. The STCT algorithm can magnify the asymmetry of the
waveforms. A STCT result of an asymmetrical signal is
shown in Fig. 2. The peak value of the original signal in
the ®rst half cycle is 1/2 of that in the second half cycle.
After performing the STCT, the ratio of their peak values
is 1/4.
Asymmetry of inrush current is decreased by saturation of
CT when dead angles disappear, but the residue of dead
angles can be detected by STCT. A single-phase transfor-
mer inrush current (solid line) simulated by EMTP with the
consideration of CT saturation and its STCT result are
shown in Fig. 3. The result indicates that the STCT can
`press' the ¯at part and extract the dead angle.
3. STCT inrush identi®cation
The STCT results are quite different for inrush or internal
fault current signal. The asymmetry of the two half cycles
and the dead angles are special characteristics of inrush
current which can be extracted by the STCT. The STCT
result of the original signal can be called the decomposition
6† result in the ®rst scale. In the same way, the data in the ®rst
scale can be the target of the STCT and the result is called
decomposition in the second scale. STCT are performed a
number of times according to practical need. For inrush
Fig. 3. The STCT of inrush current.
 H. Zhang et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 24 (2002) 557±562
Fig. 4. The procedure of STCT.
identi®cation, decomposition into two scales is proper for
characteristic extraction, which means that obvious
asymmetry of inrush current is obtained, while internal
current will not be mistaken for inrush current. The identi-
®cation algorithm is described below:
² Perform STCT two times. Because of the attenuated DC
component, magnitudes in each cycle are different.
Therefore, the standardization in each cycle is important.
² Find the corresponding time t1 and t2 when the ®rst and
second peak values of the same sign occur.
² Compare each value of the STCT result with a prescribed
threshold d (here it is set to 0.01) from t1 to t2 : The point
whose value is lower than the threshold can be thought as
a point among the dead angle.
² Only if the point number in dead angle does not reach a
given number M (decided by the sampling frequency, in
this paper M ˆ 6 for the sampling frequency of
1200 Hz), the transformer can be allowed to operate.
The general procedure is shown in Fig. 4. Suppose the
number of sampled data point is N. Then this algorithm
needs 2…N 2 2† multiplications and …N 2 2† additions. It
can be seen that the computation requirements of the
STCT are small and, therefore, the proposed technique
has good prospect for practical application.
4. Results and analysis
The experimental set-up consisted of a three-phase
transformer bank of three 2 kVA, 462 V:200 V, 50 Hz
single phase transformers, with a star connected primary
and delta connected secondary. A model of a 500 kV,
340 km long line was connected on the primary side of
the transformer as shown in Fig. 5. The six currents, three
Fig. 5. Dynamic power system model.
559
Fig. 6. Asymmetrical inrush and its STCT result.
primary and three secondary were sampled in real time by a
single-board computer with Intel 8086 cpu. The sampling
frequency is 1200 Hz, that is, 24 points sampled in each
cycle. Currents for various types of internal fault and inrush
currents were sampled and analyzed with the STCT method.
For a transformer with a star connected primary and delta
connected secondary, the differential current is phase to
phase current. The inrush currents are classi®ed into two
classes: symmetrical inrush and asymmetrical inrush.
Symmetrical inrush has wider dead angle and is compara-
tively easy to identify using the STCT.
An asymmetrical inrush (solid line) and the analyzed
STCT result (dotted line) is given in Fig. 6. The results
shown in Figs. 7 and 8 include only symmetrical inrush
identi®cation. Percentages of the second harmonic to the
fundamental of differential currents are given in Fig. 7(b)
and Fig. 8(b). The restraint index is set at 15%. If the ratio of
the second harmonic to the fundamental is less than 15%,
then the traditional scheme will open the differential
protection; otherwise, the protection should be blocked by
the traditional method.
Fig. 7. Symmetrical inrush current without a long line, (a) inrush current
and its STCT result, (b) change of restraint percentage.
560 H. Zhang et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 24 (2002) 557±562
Fig. 8. Analysis of inrush current with a long line, (a) inrush current and its
STCT result, (b) change of restraint percentage.
Results of a phase B to ground fault are shown in Figs. 9±
11 for the models without any loads and lines, with a long
line, only and with both loads and a long line, respectively.
It can be seen from a comparison of Figs. 9(b), 10(b) and
11(b) that, the second harmonic content is higher when the
Fig. 9. Analysis of a phase to ground fault withoutloads and long if
connected, (a) internal fault current and its STCT result, (b) change of
restraint percentage.
Fig. 10. Analysis of a phase to ground fault with a long line connected,
(a) internal fault current and its STCT result, (b) change of restraint
percentage.
tested system is loaded and a long line is connected to it. It
will operate with a time delay for the second harmonic
restraint scheme. Therefore, the tests shown in Fig. 12
through Fig. 15 are with the transformer loaded and a
long line connected to it.
A phase B to phase C internal fault on the primary
winding is shown in Fig. 12. The current at 20 ms is
distorted but no dead angle is detected. From the ®rst posi-
tive peak value (5 ms) to the second one (32 ms) of the
Fig. 11. Analysis of a phase to a ground fault with load and line, (a) inrush
current and its STCT result, (b) change of restraint percentage.
 H. Zhang et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 24 (2002) 557±562
Fig. 12. B to C phase internal fault on primary, (a) internal fault current and
its STCT result, (b) change of restraint percentage.
original signal, no continuous zero points are detected.
Therefore, the operation time is about 32 ms using the
STCT. Whereas, the transformer is allowed to operate
only at about 90 ms using a traditional scheme based on
the detection of the second harmonic component of the
current because the ratio of the second harmonic to the
fundamental is not less than 0.15 until after 32 ms.
A phase A to phase B internal fault on the secondary
Fig. 13. A to B phase internal fault on secondary, (a) internal fault current
and its STCT result, (b) change of restraint percentage.
561
Fig. 14. B phase 4.35% winding fault on primary, (a) internal fault current
and its STCT result, (b) change of restraint percentage.
winding is shown in Fig. 13. The operation time of second
harmonic restraint principle is 58 ms while the STCT result
shows that it has a faster operation, operating at 30 ms.
Results of a phase B 4.35% winding internal fault on the
primary, are shown in Fig. 14. It can be seen from Fig. 14(b)
that the harmonic content is very small and thus both
schemes will operate quickly.
Energization with an internal phase B to ground fault on
Fig. 15. Energization with a B to ground fault on primary (a) internal fault
current and its STCT result, (b) change of restraint percentage.
562 H. Zhang et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 24 (2002) 557±562
the primary is shown in Fig. 15. In this case, the fault current
is affected by the energization and hence the harmonic
cannot be quickly attenuated. The operation time of the
proposed scheme is about 35 ms and that of the second
harmonic restraint scheme is about 80 ms. The superiority
of the new scheme is obvious.
The current in Fig. 7 is phase A differential inrush
current with no fault and no line is connected to the
transformer, but the model in Fig. 8 has a long line
connected on the primary side. Although they are
symmetrical inrush and their dead angles have disappeared
due to CT saturation, the STCT can block the relay by
extracting the dead angles.
5. Conclusions
One part of an on-going research and development
work on integrated digital differential power transformer
protection with emphasis on possible improvements in
operation speed and reliability is proposed in this paper.
Improvement has been achieved by using the short-time
correlation transform to discriminate between internal
fault and magnetizing inrush current. The proposed
method is aimed at magnifying the asymmetry of inrush
currents by extracting dead angles. Main advantages of
this method are:
² Reliable identi®cation even when the internal currents
are seriously distorted by harmonics.
² Small computation requirements that make it appropriate
for industrial application.
² Insensitivity to CT saturation.
A dynamic model was constructed to verify the effective-
ness of the proposed scheme. Simulation results show that
this algorithm is effective in distinguishing inrushes from
different kinds of transformer internal faults with or without
transmission lines.
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