IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 65, NO.
4, APRIL 2018
Online Condition Monitoring of Onboard Traction
Transformer Core Based on Core-Loss
Calculation Model
Qiang Fu , Jiaojiao Zhu , Zhi-Hong Mao
Abstract—According to the special working condition
in the commutation region of the traction grid, a novel
technique of online core-loss measurement for the electric
locomotive onboard traction transformer is proposed to
noninvasively monitor the status of the magnetic core in real
time. Meanwhile, a new modeling approach is also put for-
ward for the equivalent nonlinear magnetizing inductance
LM of the magnetic core. First, a no-load test under 31 kV
is implemented on a healthy traction transformer, and the
measured transient terminal voltages and currents are then
filtered and downsampled by the comprehensive test and
fault diagnosis system of electric locomotive traction trans-
former. Next, the magnetizing inductance LM is modeled
as the ratio of “the derivative of main flux linkage λp with
respect to time” over “the derivative of magnetizing current
im with respect to time.” After that the proposed LM model
is verified by comparing with the experimental results and
two other models. Finally, the proposed technique for on-
line estimation of core loss is applied on a normal onboard
traction transformer and a downscaled testing transformer
with different severity of interlaminar fault. The experimen-
tal results approximately match the theoretical calculation,
and the online estimated values of core loss show sharply
rising trend under incipient fault.
Index Terms—Condition monitoring, loss measurement,
magnetic cores, onboard traction transformers.
I. INTRODUCTION
OMPARED to fault diagnosis, appropriate condition mon-
C itoring methods can timely issue warnings by observing
Manuscript received December 26, 2016; revised May 26, 2017, July
22, 2017, and August 23, 2017; accepted September 14, 2017. Date of
publication October 2, 2017; date of current version January 5, 2018.
This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foun-
dation of China under Grant 61603062 and in part by the Hunan Province
2011 Collaborative Innovation Center of Clean Energy and Smart Grid.
(Corresponding author: Jiaojiao Zhu.)
Q. Fu is with the School of Energy and Power Engineering, Changsha
University of Science and Technology, Changsha 410076, China (e-mail:
fuqiang-0812@163.com).
J. Zhu is with the School of Basic Medical Science, Central South
University, Changsha 410083, China (e-mail: jiaoer868@163.com).
Z.-H. Mao is with the Department of Electrical and Computer En-
gineering and Department of Bioengineering, University of Pittsburgh,
Pittsburgh, PA 15261 USA (e-mail: zhm4@pitt.edu).
G. Zhang and T. Chen are with the School of Information Science and
Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China (e-mail:
zhanggx@csu.edu.cn; ctfcyt@163.com).
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/TIE.2017.2758721
0278-0046 © 2017 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
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3499
, Senior Member, IEEE, Guixin Zhang, and Tefang Chen
in real time the deviation of related transformer parameters be-
tween measured values and nominal values. Therefore, in terms
of optimization of maintenance, avoidance of unplanned fail-
ures, and extension of service lives of transformers, advanced
condition monitoring techniques are highly desirable in practice.
The electric locomotive onboard traction transformer is a
single-phase transformer with multiple split windings. As one of
the foremost electrical devices, its operation state directly affects
the safety and stability of trains. However, related condition
monitoring technologies are still under developed.
According to CIGRÉ WG A2.37 [1] and surveys from some
locomotive maintenance departments in China, the incipient
faults of transformer cores, which include multipoint ground
faults and interlaminar faults, are one of the main causes of
transformer failures and, respectively, ranked the fourth and the
third for power transformers and traction transformers among all
internal faults. The deteriorated and damaged insulation coat-
ings of lamination layers (often caused by winding interturn
arcing faults, manufacturing defects, and mechanical damages
due to assemblage, regular maintaining, and abnormal vibration,
etc.), as well as edge burrs (always produced in the processes
of slitting, punching, and cutting) are the main origins of multi-
point ground faults and interlaminar faults.
These faults often start as potential local overheating faults,
which if left undetected at the incipient stage, may deteriorate
rapidly under terrible working conditions such as higher order
harmonics from loads, vibrations from locomotive bogies, and
unstable supply voltages from the traction power system (nor-
mally fluctuates between 19 and 31 kV). Therefore, it is urgent
to develop an effective online method for condition monitoring
of magnetic cores of onboard traction transformers.
There have been various conventional methods employed for
detection of magnetic core faults during manufacturing and
scheduled maintenance of onboard traction transformers, e.g.,
the conventional and most commonly used noninvasive methods
[2]: the dissolved-gas-analysis (DGA)-based method, the clamp
ammeter method, and the recently proposed flux-injection probe
(FIP) method [3]. However, major limitations still exist in the
above methods. For example, the clamp ammeter method is sus-
ceptible to interference and its measurement accuracy is often
not satisfactory. Also, it is difficult to achieve continuous moni-
toring. Moreover, it can only be applied to the transformer with
earthing bushing (there is no earthing bushing on the onboard
traction transformer). For the DGA-based method, the offline
 3500 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 65, NO. 4, APRIL 2018

DGA is time consuming, while the recently developed online

DGA, such as photoacoustic spectroscopy [4], is sensitive to the
outside circumstance and cannot effectively diagnose faults. In
addition, the main drawback of FIP is that the invasive detection
method can only be implemented offline at present.
Core loss, as one of the key factors of transformer condition
assessment, is becoming a new research hotspot. Lin and Fuchs
[5] proposed a real-time method for monitoring iron core and
copper losses in a three-phase transformer, and concluded that
online measurement of transformer loss is a powerful monitor- Fig. 1. Electrical connection of a four-split traction transformer.
ing method in the application of prefault recognition, predictive
maintenance, and transformer aging and life qualification, etc.
transient waveforms of exciting current and corresponding mag-
Moreover, some studies have reported on the relation between
netic flux in no-load test, while it does not coincide with the def-
the core loss and core fault. For example, Hamzehbahmani et al.
inition of anhysteretic curve in ferromagnetic materials. Neves
[6] and [7] proposed a method to analyze the distribution and loss
and Dommel [24] separately modeled the equivalent nonlinear
calculation of eddy current among the laminations of electrical
resistance (v−ic ) and inductance (λp −im ) of the transformer
steels when the interlaminar fault happens in the transformer.
core based on no-load test data, but the adopted piecewise fit-
Lotfi et al. [8] and [9] studied the distribution and loss calcula-
ting method needs to be improved. Thus, the hyperbolic function
tion of eddy current in the tank steel of power transformer and
was used in [25] to represent the separated magnetizing curve
onboard traction transformer, respectively, and the results can be
λp −im . Khalkhali and Sadeh [26] used the empirical formulas
applied to detect multipoint grounded faults of magnetic cores.
of inrush current and corresponding magnetic flux to formulate
Based on these, we propose here a novel idea, i.e., monitoring
a general model for the equivalent anhysteretic curve λp −im ,
the condition of the onboard traction transformer core through
but the calculation of coefficients of the orthogonal polynomi-
online estimation of core loss.
als was complicated and time-consuming. Besides, some studies
Affected by the converter, which is the direct load of the trac-
acquired the equivalent nonlinear magnetizing inductance LM
tion transformer, online measurement of core loss should con-
directly based on terminal measurements [27], [28]. It is a sim-
sider the effect of harmonics [10]. At present, the measurement
ple and direct modeling approach. Nevertheless, the accuracy
approaches for the transformer with nonsinusoidal excitation
of the model highly depended on the sampling location and
are mainly classified into three categories: improved Steinmetz
quantity, consequently affecting the repeatability of the model
equation [11], [12], hysteresis models [13]–[15], and losses sep-
in [28]. Moreover, the model cannot be applied to transform-
aration method [16]. Besides, Lin et al. [5], [17], and [18] also
ers with unstable supply voltages, and, thus, the applicability is
proposed a similar core-loss measurement scheme based on the
limited.
instantaneous input voltage and exciting current. Although the
Compared with the aforementioned modeling methods, the
aforementioned measurement methods for core loss are usually
LM modeling method proposed in this paper is simpler in cal-
applied to three-phase transformers and medium-/high-power
culation and has better applicability. The magnetizing current
electronic transformers, this paper is inspired by these studies
calculated based on the model shows higher accuracy during
and proposes a noninvasive online method for estimation of core
the whole fluctuation interval of the supply voltage. Finally,
loss of the onboard traction transformer.
the proposed online method of core-loss estimation based on
In addition, a novel method for modeling the separated equiv-
the equivalent nonlinear magnetizing inductance LM is applied
alent nonlinear magnetizing inductance LM is proposed in this
on field tests to estimate the core loss of a normal onboard
paper to calculate the magnetizing current. Generally, LM is ac-
traction transformer under different load levels as well as the
quired from the equivalent anhysteretic curve λp −im as it can
core loss of a downscaled testing transformer under differ-
be recognized as the slope of λp −im curve, or derived from
ent fault severities. Our method is proved to be feasible and
the real anhysteretic curve Man (H) that can be converted to the
effective.
equivalent λp −im curve according to Ampere’s circuital law
and Faraday’s law of induction in Maxwell’s equations. The real
anhysteretic curve Man (H) can be measured by slowly demag- II. PRINCIPLE OF ONLINE ESTIMATION
netizing the material from saturation using an ac field with dif- In order to monitor the working status of the magnetic core
ferent superimposed dc fields [19]. Then, the mathematical func- through the change trend of core loss in real time, an online tech-
tions, such as tanh(), arctan(), Langevin [20], Sigmoid [21], and nique is proposed here to estimate the core loss of the onboard
the improved functions based on them [22], can be used to ap- traction transformer.
proximate the real anhysteretic curve Man (H). However, these The electric locomotive onboard traction transformer is a
methods are relatively complicated and time consuming. There- single-phase transformer with multiple-split windings. Fig. 1
fore, some researchers proposed to acquire the equivalent an- shows the electrical connection of a four-split traction trans-
hysteretic curve λp −im directly through electrical tests. For ex- former: four parallel high-voltage windings are led to one ter-
ample, Swift [23] obtained the true saturation curve as the aver- minal bushing and four nearly uncoupled low-voltage windings
age of the hysteresis loop boundaries generated by the measured are electrically separate. Therefore, each pair of tightly coupled

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 FU et al.: ONLINE CONDITION MONITORING OF ONBOARD TRACTION TRANSFORMER CORE BASED ON CORE-LOSS CALCULATION MODEL 3501

where u1 is the supply voltage, iE is the exciting current, and

Uk and Ik are the RMS of the kth harmonic component of the
supply voltage and exciting current, respectively

1 T u1 (t)2
PTe−online = dt. (2)
T 0 Rc
Here, the voltage drop on the equivalent impedance of the pri-
Fig. 2. Equivalent circuit of one pair of high and traction windings of mary winding can be neglected because of the relatively minor
the traction transformer. current and equivalent impedance of the primary winding.
However, affected by the harmonics and occurrence of incip-
ient core faults, the equivalent nonlinear core-loss resistance Rc
high and traction winding can be equivalent to a single-phase is too complicated to model. While the magnetizing inductance
two-winding transformer. Fig. 2 shows the equivalent circuit of Lm is merely affected as it is only related to the type of core
a single-phase two windings transformer with separated satura- material.
tion and hysteresis characteristic [29]. In Fig. 1, u1 is the voltage According to the MMF conservation law, the exciting cur-
of power supply, i1 is the input current of high-voltage terminal rent iE of the onboard traction transformer can be defined
bushing, i11 , i12 , i13 , and i14 are the currents of high-voltage by (3) as the sum of magnetizing current im and core-loss
windings (cannot be measured directly), i2 , i3 , i4 , and i5 are the component current ic [21], [22] and can also be calculated
output currents of traction terminal bushings, and N is the turns by (4):
of each winding. The converter is the direct load of the traction
transformer. In Fig. 2, the equivalent electrical parameters of iE = im + ic (3)
HV1 and TR1 are represented by L11 , R11 and R2 , L2 , respec-        
N2 N3 N4 N5
tively, and the branch of core equivalent circuit consists of the iE = i1 − i2 − i3 − i4 − i5 .
N1 N1 N1 N1
separated nonlinear magnetizing inductance Lm and nonlinear
(4)
core-loss resistance Rc .
When the electric locomotive goes through the commutation Thus, whether normal or abnormal, the online core loss of the
region of the traction grid, the traction transformer needs to traction transformer can be estimated by
be switched under no-load condition. The switching frequency 
is about 5–10 times per hour for the electric locomotive at 1 T
PTe−online = u1 (t) · ic (t)dt
200 km/h. During the switching process, the current of the pri- T 0
mary winding is as low as the no-load current but with harmon- 
1 T
ics, while the traction windings are not open circuit. Therefore, = u1 (t) · [iE (t) − im (t)]dt
T 0
the frequently appeared special operation mode can be used to
     
calculate the core-loss online. 1 T N2 N3
Usually, in an offline no-load test, the copper loss caused = u1 (t) · i1 (t)− i2 (t)− i3 (t)
T 0 N1 N1
by windings is neglected as the no-load current is significantly     
small when compared to the rated current and the equivalent N4 N5
− i4 (t) − i5 (t) − im (t) dt.
impedance of the primary winding is far less than the equivalent N1 N1
impedance of the transformer core, and, consequently, the core (5)
loss equals the no-load loss approximately.
It can be seen that im is the only parameter in (5) that cannot
However, as the switch-mode converter may cause distortion
be measured online, but it can be calculated by (6), where the
of the supply-voltage waveform, the online no-load loss should
equivalent nonlinear magnetizing inductance of the magnetic
be calculated as the average power in (1). From (1), it can be
core LM is defined as the slope of λp −im curve
seen that the no-load loss measured online includes not only the
base-frequency loss on the core and primary windings, but also dλp
the harmonic loss. It is difficult to estimate the proportion of LM = = (λp (im )) . (6)
dim
the harmonic loss on the primary winding as the unstable online
operation condition. Therefore, (2) is introduced to calculate the Here, the λp −im curve is the equivalent anhysteretic curve
core loss of the traction transformer when the electric locomotive of the transformer core. It is different from the equivalent hys-
goes though the commutation region of the traction grid teretic curve λp −iE as the λp −im curve is not affected by
the change of hysteresis. Meanwhile, as the λp −im curve is
 T only related to the type of ferromagnetic material, LM will be
1
PTe−of f line ≈ Pno−load = u1 (t) · iE (t) dt barely affected by the incipient short-circuit fault of the mag-
T 0 netic core and the change of outside load. Thus, in the follow-
= U0 I0 + U1 I1 cosϕ1 + U2 I2 cosϕ2 · · · ing section, a model of the equivalent nonlinear magnetizing
inductance LM will be described to acquire the magnetizing
+ Uk Ik cosϕk + · · · (1) current im .

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 3502
Fig. 3. Structure of the comprehensive test and fault diagnosis system.
III. MODELING TECHNIQUE FOR THE MAGNETIZING
INDUCTANCE LM
Regardless of no-load condition, load condition or with in-
cipient faults, the anhysteretic magnetization characteristic of
magnetic core remains unchanged. For simplicity, the λp −im
curve is acquired through the no-load test. However, the trans-
former core just works within the linear range when supplied
with the rated voltage. In order to obtain the integrated magne-
tization curve that covers both the linear and nonlinear areas,
the no-load test is carried out under the supply voltage of 31 kV,
which is nearly the upper limit of the traction power system.
A. System of Data Acquisition and Processing
Our research team has developed a comprehensive test and
fault diagnosis system, which is a hierarchical control system,
for the electric locomotive onboard traction transformer. It can
implement various types of tests for the traction transformer
and can also acquire and process data such as dissolved gases,
vibration signals, and terminal voltages and currents to analyze
transformer faults (see Fig. 3).
The hierarchical control system is comprised of four sub-
systems: the power system, intelligent acquisition system, cen-
tral control system, and special function instrument group. The
power system consists of the power distribution cabinets, in-
duction voltage regulator, testing transformer, triple frequency
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 65, NO. 4, APRIL 2018
Fig. 4. Wiring principle of a no-load/load tests.
Fig. 5. Circuit schematic of the no-load and load tests.
generator, 10-kV transformer, 100-kV transformer, and other
electrical equipments, and can provide appropriate power sup-
ply for test items. The intelligent acquisition system is made up
of the sensors, smart meters, high-speed data acquisition cards,
and other components.
The central control system includes the console, pro-
grammable logic controller (PLC) system, inverter, etc., and
is designed to monitor and manage the entire test process. Here,
the console consists of the industrial computer, manual operation
buttons, etc., and mainly functions as human–machine interface
and data preservation and processing. The PLC system incorpo-
rates SIEMENS S7-200 PLC system, MM440 inverter, etc., and
is used to control and monitor the power system, consequently
providing a secure and reliable environment for testing.
Special function instrument group, which is used to accom-
plish some specific tests, mainly comprises the digital megohm
meter, dc resistance tester, insulation oil tester, gases analyzer,
etc. Additionally, data transmission between subsystems is ac-
complished based on the RS485, RS232, PCI, and other field
buses.
In this paper, the transient terminal voltage and current infor-
mation is needed, so the sensors in Fig. 4 have been selected.
For example, CV 3-500/1000 together with HOP 2000-SB/SP1
is a closed-loop voltage/current Hall sensor that can acquire
high harmonic components of up to 200 kHz. Meanwhile, the
wavelet packet transform is adopted to filter and downsample
these transient signals. Fig. 5 shows the circuit schematic of the
no-load/load test. When the no-load test is carried out, through
the 380-/600-V step-up transformer, 600/0–2000-V induction
 FU et al.: ONLINE CONDITION MONITORING OF ONBOARD TRACTION TRANSFORMER CORE BASED ON CORE-LOSS CALCULATION MODEL 3503

Fig. 6. Magnetizing current of the traction transformer at 31 kV.

Fig. 8. Magnetizing curve λp −im of the traction transformer.

modeled as
im = −0.6065 cos(ωt) − 0.4636 cos(3ωt) − 0.3547 cos(5ωt)
− 0.2334 cos(7ωt) − 0.135 cos(9ωt) − 0.0667 cos(11ωt)
− 0.028 cos(13ωt) − 0.0094 cos(15ωt). (7)
In addition, the equivalent impedances of the supply power
and transformer winding are far less than that of the transformer
core. Moreover, in the no-load test, the no-load current is so low
that it will cause very small voltage harmonics on the equivalent
Fig. 7. Two cycles of the steady-state magnetizing current in Fig. 6 impedances of the supply power and transformer winding. For
(2.6–3.0 s).
that reason, the supply power voltage waveform can be approxi-
mated by the fundamental frequency of the voltage, and the volt-
age drop on the equivalent impedance of the supply power and
voltage regulator, and 2000-V/35-kV step-up transformer, the transformer winding can be neglected. The relationship among
power supply voltage is transformed to 0–35 kV. Similarly, when the main flux linkage λp , main flux φ0 , induced electromotive
the load test is carried out, through the 380-/600-V step-up force e1 , supply voltage u1 , magnetizing current im , and equiv-
transformer and 600/0–2000-V induction voltage regulator, the alent nonlinear magnetizing inductance LM is summarized in
power supply voltage is transformed to 0–2000 V. (8). It can be found that λp changes with im at the same phase
and frequency, but lags behind the supply voltage u1 by nearly
90°. If the supply voltage u1 is described as (9), the main flux
B. Acquisition of the Magnetization Curve λp −im linkage λp can be derived as (10), where Vm is the peak value
The magnetizing current is acquired by applying the exciting of the supply voltage
current measured from the comprehensive test and fault diag- dφ0 dλp dim
nosis system to (3) and shown in Figs. 6 and 7. u1 ≈ −e1 = N1 = = LM = λp (8)
dt dt dt
From Fig. 6, we can see high transient inrush current peaks √
before the magnetizing current reaches its steady state. We can u1 = Vm sin(ωt) = 31000 × 2 sin(ωt) (9)
derive a more accurate anhysteretic curve λp −im especially Vm
for the deep saturation region by considering the initial inrush λp = − cos(ωt) = −140 cos(ωt). (10)
ω
current peaks, although the modeling complexity would greatly
increase [30], [31]. However, the peak value of the supply volt- Then, the magnetization characteristic curve λp − im of the
age often does not drive the transformer into deep saturation. magnetic core is obtained by (7) and (10) and presented in Fig. 8.
Moreover, it makes sense to use the change of core loss esti-
mated under the steady state to monitor the transformer core’s C. Model of Magnetizing Inductance LM
condition. Therefore, to compromise between complexity and According to (6), the magnetizing inductance LM can be
accuracy, this paper models Lm by just considering the steady- defined as the quotient of “the derivative of λp with respect to
state magnetizing current im . time” over “the derivative of im with respect to time” in
Here, 20 cycles of the steady magnetizing current shown
dλp dt λ p
in Fig. 6 in red (2.6–3.0 s) are analyzed by FFT, and the LM = (λp (im )) = =  . (11)
magnetizing current under a supply voltage of 31 kV is dt dim im

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 3504 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 65, NO. 4, APRIL 2018

Fig. 9. Reciprocal of the nonlinear magnetizing inductor.

Fig. 10. No-load test field on an electric locomotive onboard traction

Hence, the derivatives of (7) and (10) with respect to time are transformer.
calculated, respectively, as

i m (t) = 150.9376 sin(ωt) + 436.9327 sin(3ωt)

+ 557.1615 sin(5ωt) + 513.2734 sin(7ωt)
+ 381.7035 sin(9ωt) + 230.4987 sin(11ωt)
+ 114.3540 sin(13ωt) + 44.2965 sin(15ωt) (12)
λp (t) = Vm sin(ωt). (13)

Meanwhile, the integral multiple angle formula of trigono-

metric function is defined in (14) [32]. When n is an odd in-
teger, the formula cos2 (ωt) = −1 − sin2 (ωt) can be used to
eliminate all the terms of cos

sin(nωt) = C(1, n)cos(n −1) (ωt) sin(ωt) − C(3, n)cos(n −3)

Fig. 11. Acquired magnetizing current under 31 kV.
×(ωt) sin3 (ωt)+C(5, n)cos(n−5) (ωt) sin5 (ωt)+· · ·
(14) IV. VALIDATION FOR THE MODEL OF LM
Finally, the reciprocal of the magnetizing inductance LM is 1) Perform the no-load test on an electric locomotive on-
derived in (15) and shown in Fig. 9. It can be used to calculate the board traction transformer under the supply voltages of
magnetizing current im timely with fluctuations of the supply 31, 25 (the rated voltage), and 19 kV, respectively, to
voltage from the traction grid as (16): acquire the magnetizing currents. Fig. 10 shows the test
field.
i m (t) 1
i m (λp ) = = = 16.501cos14 (ωt) − 42.9787 cos12 2) Apply our proposed model of LM as well as the models
λ p (t) LM in [26] and [28] to calculate the magnetizing currents im
× (ωt) + 44.1468 cos10 (ωt) − 22.4426cos8 (ωt) based on the collected data from the above no-load test.
Multiple sets of validation experiments show similar results.
+ 5.8086 cos6 (ωt) − 0.7013cos4 (ωt) Figs. 11–13 and Table I present the results from one set of the
validation tests. Table I calculates the root-mean-square devia-
+ 0.0295 cos2 (ωt) + 0.0004
tion (RMSD) between the acquired magnetizing current under
16.501 14 42.9787 12 44.1468 10 the no-load test and the estimated magnetizing current based on
= λ − λ + λ
14014 p 14014 p 14010 p the LM model proposed in this paper and the models in [26] and
22.4426 8 5.8086 6 0.7013 4 [28], respectively. It can be seen that the calculated magnetizing
− λ + λ − λ currents based on our proposed model and the model in [26]
1408 p 1406 p 1404 p
0.0295 2 both almost coincided with the experimental results under 31,
+ λ + 0.0004 (15) 25, and 19 kV, respectively. Therefore, the LM model proposed
1402 p
  in this paper is as good as the model proposed in [26]. However,
1 u1 in terms of computation, especially calculation of the orthogonal
im = dλp = dt. (16)
LM LM polynomial’s coefficients, the modeling method in this paper is

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 FU et al.: ONLINE CONDITION MONITORING OF ONBOARD TRACTION TRANSFORMER CORE BASED ON CORE-LOSS CALCULATION MODEL
Fig. 12. Acquired magnetizing current under 25 kV.
Fig. 13. Acquired magnetizing current under 19 kV.
TABLE I
RMSD BETWEEN THE MEASURED VALUE AND CALCULATED VALUE
Model The RMSD compared to no-load test (%)
31 kV 25 kV
Proposed model 1.3 0.2
Model in [26] 1.59 0.31
Model in [28] 11.12 7.72
much simpler and less demanding in calculation (a heavy com-
putational burden was mentioned in [26], where the coefficient
calculation was the most time-consuming procedure).
The model proposed in [28] also offers a simple and direct
modeling approach, but the results in Figs. 12 and 13 show large
deviations especially in the middle part of each cycle of the mag-
netizing current waves. Moreover, from Table II, it can be found
that the ratio of RMSD between the models proposed in [28] and
in this paper under 25 or 19 kV is more than four times of the ra-
tio obtained under 31 kV. The results are unsatisfactory mainly
because the accuracy of the modeling method in [28] heavily
depended on the sampling location and quantity, and, thus, the
model lacked repeatability. Therefore, compared to [28], the
modeling method proposed in this paper performs better when
applied to transformers with unstable supply voltages.
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3505
TABLE II
RATIO OF RMSD BETWEEN THE MODELS IN [28] AND THIS PAPER
The ratio of RMSD compared to the proposed model
31 kV 25 kV 19 kV
Model in [28]/ 8.55 38.6 37.35
proposed model
Fig. 14. Structure of magnetic core before installation of windings.
In addition, although the proposed model in this paper has
acceptable accuracy, the RMSD between the measured value
19 kV and calculated value is larger under 31 kV than under 25 or
19 kV. It could be because the deep saturation characteristic of
0.17 the transformer core was not considered sufficiently.
0.19
6.35
V. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE ONLINE CONDITION
MONITORING METHOD
A. Normal Condition
The magnetic core of the onboard traction transformer under
testing adopts GO cold-rolled silicon steel 30P105 with thick-
ness of 0.3 mm and conductance of 2 × 106 s/m. The cross
section of the core column approximates a circular with diam-
eter of 285 mm, and the no-load core loss is 2.6 kW ± 15%.
Fig. 14 presents the structure of the magnetic core before instal-
lation of windings.
The core loss was measured on a running test electrical lo-
comotive under nine types of working conditions, while it went
through the commutation region of the traction grid. It was
measured ten times with random time intervals under every
condition, and each time the average of 100 sets of data was
taken.
 3506 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 65, NO. 4, APRIL 2018

TABLE VI
RATED PARAMETERS OF THE DOWNSCALED TEST TRANSFORMER

Rated Parameters Value

Capacity 2 kVA
Voltage of primary winding/traction winding 380/15 V
Current of primary winding/traction winding 5.4/21.7 A
Number of traction winding 6
Silicon steel 30P105

TABLE VII
INCREMENT OF THE CORE EDDY-CURRENT LOSS UNDER
DIFFERENT DEGREES OF INTERLAMINAR FAULT

Increment Degree of the interlaminar fault (%)

Fig. 15. Online measurements of core loss under different load levels.
2 3 5 10 15 20

TABLE III A1 0.46 1.1 3 11 28 50

ONLINE MEASURED CORE LOSS UNDER OVERLOAD CONDITION A2 0.1 0.24 0.68 2.49 6 11

The online measured core loss under overload condition (kW)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 the allowed deviation range and obtain the most accurate results
under 25 kV.
31 kV 4.2 4.32 4 4.4 4.31 4.22 4.08 3.87 3.66 3.96
25 kV 2.54 2.59 2.62 2.65 2.69 2.6 2.62 2.58 2.54 2.62
19 kV 1.48 1.63 1.57 1.7 1.62 1.35 1.48 1.57 1.5 1.62 B. Interlaminar Fault
In Section V-A, it has been verified that the online method
TABLE IV
for core-loss measurement is effective and unaffected by the
ONLINE MEASURED CORE LOSS UNDER RATED CONDITION frequently fluctuating supply voltage and loads. In this section,
taking interlaminar fault as example, we verify whether the on-
The online measured core loss under rated condition (kW) line core-loss measurement technique can monitor the statue of
the transformer core. The theoretical calculation and fault exper-
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 iments are implemented on a downscaled testing transformer,
31 kV 4.33 4.45 4 4.39 4.28 4.12 3.94 3.86 3.93 4 and Table VI presents the related parameters.
25 kV 2.6 2.54 2.45 2.65 2.69 2.6 2.62 2.59 2.6 2.63 1) Theoretical Analysis: When different severities of an
19 kV 1.67 1.66 1.54 1.5 1.29 1.38 1.46 1.5 1.59 1.63
interlaminar fault (represented by the proportion of laminations
that is short circuited in one core limb) occurred, according to
TABLE V
the commonly used engineering calculation formula in [6] and
ONLINE MEASURED CORE LOSS UNDER UNDERLOAD CONDITION [7] as shown in (17), A1 (the increment of core eddy-current loss
compared to the total eddy-current loss) and A2 (the increment
The online measured core loss under underload condition (kW) of core eddy-current loss compared to the total core loss) are
calculated, and the results are showed in Table VII
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10   
π 2 f 2 Bs 2 whδ 3 4na 2na 2na
31 kV 4.12 4.38 4.24 4.08 3.88 4.2 4.15 4.09 3.99 4.23 pef =   cos − cosh
25 kV 2.63 2.58 2.49 2.69 2.71 2.64 2.62 2.55 2.6 2.65 2ρ cosh 2nδ a + cos 2nδ a δ δ δ
19 kV 1.55 1.63 1.7 1.64 1.53 1.49 1.42 1.34 1.5 1.57  2

2na 2na
+ sinh +2
δ δ
1) The overload core loss was measured when the locomotive  2

was climbing with full loads. 2na 2na
+sin −2 (17)
2) The rated core loss was measured when the locomotive was δ δ
running on a relatively flat road with full loads.
3) The underload core loss was measured when the train was where Bs is the saturate magnetic flux density, δ is the skin
nearly empty. depth, n is the number of short-circuited silicon steel sheet, w,
h, and a are the width, height, and thickness of silicon steel
Fig. 15 shows the online measurements of core loss of the sheet, respectively, and pef is the eddy-current loss caused by
testing transformer under different supply voltages and differ- the interlaminar fault.
ent load levels in Tables III–V. Note that the online measure- 2) Experimental Validation: Starting from the central lo-
ments of core loss under different load levels fluctuate within cation of one limb of the downscaled testing transformer, the

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 FU et al.: ONLINE CONDITION MONITORING OF ONBOARD TRACTION TRANSFORMER CORE BASED ON CORE-LOSS CALCULATION MODEL
TABLE VIII
INCREMENT OF CORE LOSS UNDER DIFFERENT DEGREES OF THE
FAULT CONDITION COMPARED TO THE NORMAL CONDITION
Increment Degree of the interlaminar fault(%)
3 5 10 15
A3 0.29 0.65 2.62 6.18
Fig. 16. Increment of core loss under different degrees of interlaminar
fault.
3%, 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20% laminations (the percentage is
relative to the total number of laminations of the core limb)
are artificially welded together, respectively, to simulate differ-
ent degrees of the interlaminar fault. Then, the proposed online
core-loss estimation method is applied to calculate A3 (the in-
crement of core loss under the fault condition compared to the
normal condition). For enhancing the test effectiveness, the av-
erage of 50 sets of data is taken under each fault condition, and
the results are showed in Table VIII.
From Tables VII and VIII and Fig. 16, it can be seen that:
1) with the increase of fault severity, the core loss increases
sharply; 2) the increment is very obvious even with only
5% short-circuited silicon steel sheets; and 3) the increment
A3 calculated based on the proposed technique for online
estimation of core loss approximately matches the theoretical
calculation A2 . In conclusion, the online core-loss estimation
method is feasible and effective to monitor the status of
magnetic core in the electric locomotive onboard traction
transformer.
VI. CONCLUSION
This paper presented a noninvasive online technique for mea-
surement of core loss of the electric locomotive onboard traction
transformer using the transient terminal voltages and currents
measured from terminations. The magnetizing current, as the
only parameter that cannot be measured directly in the online
measurement technique, is calculated based on the model of
equivalent nonlinear magnetizing inductance LM . First, the in-
tegrated magnetization characteristic curve λp −im that covers
both linear and nonlinear areas is acquired through the no-load
test under the supply voltage of 31 kV and then LM is modeled
as the slope of the λp −im curve. Next, by comparing with the
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3507
no-load experimental results and two other models, it is shown
that our proposed method of modeling LM is simpler in calcu-
lation but easier to implement and obtains better applicability
as well as higher accuracy. Finally, a normal onboard traction
transformer and a downscaled testing transformer with different
20 degrees of interlaminar fault are used to verify that the method
10.76
for status monitoring of magnetic core based on online measured
core loss is feasible and effective even for incipient faults.
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Qiang Fu was born in Hengyang, Hunan, China,
in 1982. He received the B.Eng. degree in au-
tomation, the M.Eng. degree in control science
and engineering, and the Ph.D. degree in trans-
portation equipments and control from the Cen-
tral South University, Changsha, China, in 2005,
2008, and 2013, respectively.
Since 2014, he has been with the School of
Energy and Power Engineering, Changsha Uni-
versity of Science and Technology, Changsha,
Hunan, where he is currently a Lecturer. His re-
search interests include condition monitoring, fault diagnosis, service-life
assessment and management of transformers and converters, electrical
drivers and electric traction control systems, and the application of ma-
chine learning methods.
Authorized licensed use limited to: Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka-UTEM. Downloaded on September 09,2021 at 16:45:52 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
Jiaojiao Zhu was born in Aksu, Xinjiang, China,
in 1986. She received the B.Eng. degree in au-
tomation, the M.Eng. degree in transportation in-
formation engineering and control, and the Ph.D.
degree in transportation equipments and control
from the Central South University, Changsha,
China, in 2008, 2011, and 2017, respectively.
From 2014 to 2015, she was with the Uni-
versity of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, as a
joint-training Ph.D. student. She is currently with
the School of Basic Medical Science, Central
South University, as a Postdoctoral Fellow. Her research interests in-
clude condition monitoring, fault diagnosis, service-life assessment and
management of large-scale electrical equipments, and the application of
machine learning methods.
Zhi-Hong Mao (S’96–M’05–SM’09) received
the dual Bachelor’s degrees in automatic con-
trol and mathematics and the M.Eng. degree in
intelligent control and pattern recognition from
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 1995 and
1998, respectively, the S.M. degree in aeronau-
tics and astronautics from Massachusetts Insti-
tute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA, in
2000, and the Ph.D. degree in medical engi-
neering and medical physics from the Harvard-
MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology,
Cambridge, in 2006.
He joined the University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, as an As-
sistant Professor in 2005 and became an Associate Professor in 2011
and a William Kepler Whiteford Faculty Fellow in 2012.
Dr. Mao received the CAREER Award of the National Science Foun-
dation in 2010, the Andrew P. Sage Best Transactions Paper Award of the
IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society in 2010, the Outstanding
Service Award of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTA-
TION SYSTEMS in 2013, and the Pitt Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching
Award in 2016.
Guixin Zhang was born in Beiliu, Guangxi,
China, in 1965. She received the B.Eng. degree
in automatic control and the M.Eng. degree in
transportation information engineering and con-
trol from the Central South University (the for-
mer Changsha Railway University), Changsha,
Hunan, China, in 1986 and 2000, respectively.
Since 1986, she has been a permanent Re-
searcher with the Institute of Rail Transport and
Electric Traction Technology, and she is currently
an Associate Professor with the School of Infor-
mation Science and Engineering, Central South University. Her research
interests include fault diagnosis and electrical drivers and electric trac-
tion control systems.
Tefang Chen was born in Lianyuan, China, in
1957. He received the B.Eng. degree in au-
tomation from Dalian University of Technology,
Dalian, China, in 1981, and the M.Eng. degree
in electrical engineering and the Ph.D. degree
in electrical engineering from the Central South
University (the former Changsha Railway Uni-
versity), Changsha, China, in 1991 and 2005,
respectively.
Since 1982, he has been a permanent Re-
searcher with the Institute of Rail Transport and
Electric Traction Technology, and he is currently a Professor with the
School of Information Science and Engineering, Central South Univer-
sity. His main research interests include fault diagnosis and fault-tolerant
technology of electrical drivers and electric traction control system.