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Abstract—From failure experience on power transformers, it heavy bolts. The dimensioning criteria for these support struc-
was very often suspected that inrush currents, occurring when en- tures are usually the forces caused by the highest possible cur-
ergizing unloaded transformers, were reason for damage. In this rent peak which normally occurs under short circuit (SC) con-
paper, it was investigated how mechanical forces within the trans-
former coils build up under inrush compared to those occurring ditions. Therefore, type testing of transformers ask for SC tests
at short circuit. Two-dimensional and three-dimensional computer only, as it is assumed that this is the worst case with regard to
modeling for a real 268 MVA, 525/17.75 kV three-legged step up the maximum forces.
transformer was employed. The results show that inrush current In the past, it was discussed very often in several panels to
peaks of 70% of the rated short circuit current cause local forces
in the same order of magnitude as those at short circuit. The re-
what extend IR currents are a jeopardy for the transformer wind-
sulting force summed up over the high voltage coil is even three ings. As it is well known, the value of these IR currents occur-
times higher. Although inrush currents normally are smaller, the ring when energizing unloaded transformers can be in the same
forces can have similar amplitudes as those at short circuit how- order of magnitude as a fault current [1], thus producing signif-
ever with longer exposure time. Therefore, care has to be taken to icant electromagnetic forces. The difference to SC is that the IR
avoid such high inrush currents. Today controlled switching offers
an elegant and practical solution.
may last for several tens of seconds, whereas a fault normally is
cleared within tens of milliseconds. In addition, an IR situation
Index Terms—Controlled switching, electromagnetic forces, fi- is much more frequently as this can be considered as normal
nite element method, inrush currents, power transformer, short
circuit currents.
service operation.
Recent cases of insulation failures in power transformers
which were frequently energized under no load condition
NOMENCLATURE support the suspicion of many people that IR currents have
SC Short circuit. a jeopardous effect. It is assumed that due to the unbalanced
IR Inrush. MMF and high saturation of the transformer core local (axial)
LV Low voltage (winding or coil). forces under severe IR conditions, especially on the TC coils,
HV High voltage (winding or coil). could exceed the values taken as dimensioning basis. So, it
TC1, TC2 Tap changer (winding or coil). seems likely possible that conductor and winding insulation is
FEM Finite-element method. damaged due to mechanical overstress at IR.
TOI Theory of images (method). Although it is requested by many utilities that high IR cur-
MMF, Magnetomotive force (in ampere turns). rents shall indeed be avoided from a systems operation point of
view, possible damaging effects to the transformer itself have
I. INTRODUCTION rarely been investigated. To the author’s knowledge, only one
paper deals with forces on transformer windings at IR condi-
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156 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 17, NO. 1, JANUARY 2002
coil. Although in reality, the coils are rather complex in their me-
chanical structure, they are treated as solid cylindrical conduc-
tors here, so pressure and tensile stress are both possible inside
the coils. This is to be independent of any particular winding
support structure when calculating the forces for the purpose of
comparison.
Following these approximations the specific field calculation
method employed shall be explained along with the comparison
of 2-D and 3-D calculations. In addition, details of the method
used for calculating the axial and radial forces will be discussed
in the following sections.
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STEURER AND FRÖHLICH: THE IMPACT OF INRUSH CURRENTS ON THE MECHANICAL STRESS OF HIGH VOLTAGE POWER TRANSFORMER COILS 157
(6)
Fig. 2. HV coil with the lines 1, 2, 3 along which the B field was calculated
and cross section dA for force calculation. where
MMF in coil;
“perpendicular to the yoke” values of differ not more than coil’s height
20% to those in the plane at IR conditions. axial distance between points, corre-
From this, it was concluded that a model that considers only sponds to in Fig. 2
the coils on the middle leg is adequate for the purpose of qualita- radial component of on line
tive comparison of forces at IR and SC for a three-legged trans- Note that although the employed software only allows equidis-
former. This aspect and the high conformity between 2-D and tant points, this is not necessary for numerical integration. Fi-
3-D results were taken as legitimization, to use the 2-D model nally, the sum of all three will give the total force distribu-
for the force and stress calculations presented here. tion in axial direction to
In the following, the strategy used for analyzing the field
to calculate the axial and radial mechanical stress is introduced. (7)
C. Field Density and Force Distribution in Coils The external axial force on the coil, which is the resulting value
at the coil’s end (integration over the coil’s height), must be
It is plausible that the magnetic field can not be assumed to be absorbed by axial suspensions. The maximum of in the
constant over a coil’s radial thickness. Therefore, the field was coil itself is usually much higher than the latter and gives the
calculated along three lines in discrete distance across the coil’s dimensioning basis for the local stress, especially in regard to
width (see lines , 2, 3 in Fig. 2). buckling of windings.
However, the program MAXWELL does not provide plotting 2) Radial Pressure: In contradiction to the axial forces the
of the local (axial) pressure and tensile stress distribution along ones in radial direction shall not be summed up along the coil’s
a coil’s height. Therefore, the local force has been calculated as height. In fact, they are better described by radial pressure stress
follows. which must be supported either by the suspension or by the con-
It is assumed that ductors themself in azimutal direction (tensile stress).
With the knowledge of the distribution along one of the
(2)
lines ( , 2, 3 in Fig. 2) the local pressure on an cylindrical
and, therefore stripe (with the radius and the height ) can be derived from
(5) to
(3)
(8)
That means the current density is azimutal only and constant
over the coil’s cross section (due to it’s subdivision into single The three radial pressures can be summed up as
turns all carrying the same current). According to (1), that means
there are only axial and radial components of the forces. (9)
Equations (4) and (5) show the axial and radial component of
the force along each of the three lines on an infinitesimal thick with good accuracy because of the axial compo-
winding ( ) of one third of the coil’s thickness ( ) building nent of is nearly linear dependent of . This allows the need
the cross section in Fig. 2. for integration in radial direction to be reduced to summing up
the three values. Finally, represents the radial mechanical
stress distribution along a coil’s height.
(4)
III. RESULTS
(5)
As the highest possible IR current peak is usually smaller,
where but in the same order of magnitude as the highest possible SC
radial position of the line ( , 2, 3) current peak , calculations varying the ratio from
current density (constant) in the coil 0.25 to 1 have been carried out. The following calculations pre-
coil’s thickness sented in Figs. 3–7 show that equivalence in force occurs at a
radial and axial field component. ratio of about 0.7. For the individual excitations of the
From (4) and (5) the axial and radial mechanical stress, local coils see the Appendix.
and on the entire coil can be derived as it is explained in the Fig. 3 shows the distribution of the radial component of the
following two chapters. magnetic stray field along the transformer’s upper TC2 coil.
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158 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 17, NO. 1, JANUARY 2002
Fig. 7. Ratio of axial forces and radial pressure at IR over SC against the ratio
Fig. 4. Resulting axial force distribution along upper TC2 coil. IR current over SC current.
agreement between the 2-D (solid and broken lines) and 3-D
model (dotted lines; the discontinuities are due to a rather coarse
FEM mesh in 3-D). Fig. 4 shows the axial force distribution
along the TC2 coil, with the resulting force at the coil’s end
to be approximately 20% higher at IR than at SC, although the
corresponding values (Fig. 3) are locally more than twice as
high. This is due to the assumption . As the value
at the coil’s lower end has a positive value the coil is subject to
an upward force.
In the same manner, Fig. 5 shows the axial force distribution
along the HV coil. In contrary to the TC coils, the force mainly
is compensated within the coil with an inner peak of axial pres-
sure stress approximately 30% more at IR. However, the re-
sulting force summed up over the coil is three times higher
at IR than at SC and even in the opposite direction.
Fig. 5. Axial force distribution along the HV coil. For the chosen ratio , the radial pressure stress
, which is proportional to , is smaller at IR compared to SC
Since the radial component is nearly constant over the coil’s in the HV coil, but approximately the same in the TC coils as
thickness, only the values along line (see Fig. 2) are shown for TC1 in Fig. 6.
plotted. It can clearly be seen in Fig. 3 that values at IR According to [1] and unpublished information of transformer
conditions are higher than the SC values, especially at the coil’s manufacturer, the ratio may vary from 0.15 to 0.6.
upper end (for ). Furthermore, Fig. 3 shows good Therefore, in Fig. 7, the ratio of peak ( ) and resulting ( )
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STEURER AND FRÖHLICH: THE IMPACT OF INRUSH CURRENTS ON THE MECHANICAL STRESS OF HIGH VOLTAGE POWER TRANSFORMER COILS 159
axial forces as well as the radial pressure peak ( ) at IR over good concordance. The calculated ratio of forces at IR over SC
SC are plotted against . Note that for the HV coil proofs that these forces are higher at IR than at SC for IR current
differ from , whereas for the TC coils (TC2) peaks of more than 60% of the rated SC current. Concluding
(see also Fig. 4). As the ratio for the investigated transformer from the results the following statements are appropriate:
is , the maximum of the axial pressure stress in • IR currents of the maximum possible value cause axial
the HV coil at IR is approximately 40% of that at SC (point A). forces on the (energizing) HV and TC windings of a typ-
Although values of do not apply for this par- ical power transformer that are approximately as high as
ticular transformer, the presented dependencies of under rated SC conditions.
and seem to be realistic estimations for other trans- • To avoid serious risk on damage of insulation within trans-
formers even if values may vary with geometry. Following the formers who are subject to frequent unloaded energiza-
line of the peak force ( ) in the HV coil, the indicated limit tions, countermeasures should be taken, e.g., controlled
, where forces at IR are equal to the ones at SC, switching strategies [5] might be applied in the future.
is reached at (point B). For the axial and radial
stress of the TC coils (TC2), the relations are about the same. APPENDIX
Only the resulting axial force on the HV coil is higher at IR
nearly in the entire range.
A. Transformer Data
Three-phase three-legged step up transformer with
IV. DISCUSSION
MVA
It stands to reason that many energization operations with
even smaller IR currents which produce forces in the order of kV
SC forces might cause damage on the windings because the me- kV
chanical stress appears more frequently and with a much longer
duration (as stated in the Introduction). So windings and coils The HV and LV coils are shifted 0.5% of the coil’s height against
may be damaged seriously, although the results of this work each other (to represent the worst case of mechanical tolerance).
show that forces in the coils of a typical power transformer are Table I shows the partitioning of the magnetic excitations
about the same or a little smaller at the highest possible IR cur- at the coils for the filed calculations at IR and SC. With
rent compared to those at the rated SC current. It seems likely A as the nominal exciting MMF of the HV coil and
possible that these damages are mostly in the form of reduction the SC ratio , the individual MMF’s for SC and
of insulation capability (attrition of winding and conductor in- IR were calculated as follows:
sulation material) and, therefore, may cause insulation failures
a certain time span after the occurrence of high IR currents. (10)
This work also encourages for further research work on cal-
culation of mechanical forces in transformers at excitation con-
(11)
ditions caused by switching transients. Although results will be
similar for the comparison of the overall mechanical stress at IR
and SC conditions, state-of-the-art high sophisticated 3-D mod-
eling and transient analysis should be employed to investigate B. Shape of the Yokes in 2-D Model
on the interaction between the phases and windings on different For mapping the actual 3-D geometry of the yokes to an
legs. equivalent 2-D representation, several approaches are possible
Concerning the method of calculation of electrodynamic and will be discussed now. As shown in Fig. 8(a), which is a
forces in transformer windings under unbalanced excitation sketch of the lower part of core and yoke from Fig. 1(b), the
conditions (such as IR), it seems advisable to pay extra caution first approach could simply be a cap of the initial height of
when using programs based on the “theory of images.” It the 3-D-yoke (A). This would obviously lead to a cross section
is likely possible that these programs lead to wrong results , increasing linear with the radius, which can not
because of certain simplifications and assumptions made there be accepted. The next step would be to decrease the height with
for the field calculation which are not fulfilled at unbalanced , so the cross section stays constant (B). Because the cross
MMF conditions with high saturation of the iron. section at is much to high compared with the real cross
section of the 3-D yoke ( ) one would rather reduce
V. CONCLUSION the initial height of the 2-D representation to
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160 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 17, NO. 1, JANUARY 2002
TABLE I REFERENCES
PARTITIONING OF MMF’S USED FOR FIELD CALCULATIONS
[1] W. Schmidt, “Vergleich der groesstwerte des Kurzschluss-und Ein-
schaltstromes von Einphasentransformatoren,” ETZ-A, vol. 79, no. 21,
pp. 801–806, 1958.
[2] A. I. Lur’e and A. B. Vasil’ev, “Calculation of magnetic field and elec-
trodynamic strength of transformers under magnetising current inrush,”
Elec. Technol., pp. 23–35, 1992.
[3] C. M. Arturi, “Force calculation in transformer windings under unbal-
anced mmfs by a nonlinear finite-element code,” IEEE Trans. Magn.,
vol. 28, pp. 1363–1366, Mar. 1992.
[4] J. Brunke and M. Steurer, “Contribution to question 1.4 on report 13.110
cigre 1998,” in Proc. CIGRE Conf., Paris, France, Sept. 1998.
[5] J. Brunke, “Elimination of transient inrush currents when energizing un-
loaded power transformers,” Ph.D. dissertation, ETH, Zurich, 1998.
[6] V. S. Chuprikov, V. A. Ku’zmenko, A. I. Lur’e, and A. N. Panibrates,
“Reducing the switching current of transformers,” Russ. Elec. Eng., vol.
68, no. 2, pp. 33–40, 1997.
[7] MAXWELL Program Documentation, 1997.
[8] R. Kuechler, Die Transformatoren. Berlin, Germany: Springer-Verlag,
1956.
Fig. 8. (a) Four approaches for the 2-D representation of the yokes; (b)
reduction of equivalent height by ratio of arc sections (top view on upper yoke
with middle leg underneath).
Michael Steurer (M’02) received a Master of
electrical engineering from the Vienna University of
stronger with than in (B). The shape (D) finally chosen for Technology, Vienna, Austria, and the Ph.D. degree
2-D representation follows: in technical science from the Swiss Federal Institute
of Technology, Zurich, Switerland, in 1995 and
2001, respectively.
(13) He is currently with the Center of Advanced Power
Systems, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL,
where he is working in the field of power systems for
where the height is proportional to the ratio of the cir- all-electric ships.
cumference ( ) over the corresponding arc of radius
covered by the real yoke ( ) as shown in Fig. 8(b).
This approach seemed the most reasonable because the com-
parison of significant field values showed good concordance
between the 2-D and 3-D models. The outer leg is modeled as a
cylinder with a wall thickness of
Klaus Fröhlich (SM’88) was born in 1945 in
(14) Salzburg, Austria. He received a Master of electrical
engineering and a Ph.D. in technical science from
derived from the demand to have the same cross section for the the Vienna University of Technology, Austria.
After 11 years in Switchgear and High Voltage
magnetic flux as the middle leg. Technology with BBC (later ABB) in Switzerland,
he became a Full Professor at the Vienna University
ACKNOWLEDGMENT of Technology, in 1990. Since 1997, he has been
a Full Professor of high voltage technology at the
The authors wish to express their sincere thanks to SIEMENS Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich,
AG/Nürnberg for providing the data of the transformer, Prof. Switzerland.
Dr. Fröhlich is a member of CIGRE Study
H. Brechna from ETH Zurich, and Dr. E. Schmidt from Committee 13 and the convenor of CIGRE Working Group 13.07 (Controlled
TU-Vienna, for the numerous and stimulating discussions. Switching).
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