INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONTROL, AUTOMATION AND SYSTEMS
2 APRIL 2015
ISSN 2165-8277 (Print) ISSN 2165-8285 (Online) http://www.researchpub.org/journal/jac/jac.html
Artificial Neural Networks for Power Transformers Fault Diagnosis Based on
IEC Code Using Dissolved Gas Analysis
Sherif S. M. Ghoneim1, 2 and Ibrahim B. Taha1, 3
Abstract—Transformer is the main important equipment in
electrical power system. Early stage detection of the
transformer faults has great economic significance because
it considered expensive equipment and it helps to maintain
the continuous operation of the electrical power system.
Transformer oil is used for two main purposes, one for
insulating liquid and the other for cooling. Some physical-
chemical tests are carried out to determine the physical and
chemical properties of the oil. Dissolved Gas Analysis (DGA)
is now considered a common practice method for detection
of the transformer incipient fault. This paper focuses on the
employment of the Artificial Neural Network techniques
(ANN) to diagnose dissolved gas in transformers, in order to
determine the fault causes based on the IEC standard
method. The ANN on IEC Code results meets the similar
results of the other techniques that use to diagnose the
transformer fault. Therefore, this method is very reliable to
use as a diagnostic tool for transformer fault detection.
Keywords—Transformer faults, Dissolved gas analysis,
Neural Networks.
I. INTRODUCTION
Power transformer is considered as one of the most vital,
important and expensive components in electric power
systems. Any fault in power transformer may result in
power outages and black-outs of the electrical power
system. Therefore, the early detection of the power
transformer incipient faults lead to an improvement in
power system reliability and operation. Moreover, the
replacement of a power transformer is very costly and
time consuming; hence it is very important to diagnose
incipient faults as soon as possible to prevent an increase
of the transformer faults
Dissolved Gas Analysis (DGA) in the transformer oil is a
wide spread method that is used to identify the incipient
faults in oil-filled power transformers. There are different
stresses affect on the insulating transformer oil, which are
electrical and thermal stresses due to arcing, corona
discharges, sparking, or overheating fault. As a result of
these stresses, insulating materials may be damaged and
several gases are released. The main dissolved gases in
the transformer oil are: hydrogen (H2), methane (CH4),
ethane (C2H6), ethylene (C2H4), acetylene (C2H2),
carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2). The
detection methods based on dissolved gas analysis are
used to diagnose the incipient fault in power transformer
before deteriorating to a severe state [1-2].
1
College of Engineering Taif University, Saudi Arabia Kingdom
2
Faculty of Industrial Education, Suez University, Suez, Egypt,
ghoneim_sherif2003@yahoo.com, 3Faculty of Engineering,
Tanta University, Tanta, Egypt. ibm_taha_2013@yahoo.com
18
VOL.4 NO.
The most five criteria that are commonly used for
dissolved gas analysis are the International Electro-
technical Commission standard (IEC) Code, the Central
Electric Generating Board (CEGB) Code based on Rogers
four ratios, Rogers’ method, Dornenburg method and
Duval triangle according to the Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers standard (IEEE-C57) [3].
The above criteria do not involve any mathematical
formulation and their interpretations are based on
heuristic methods that may vary based on experience of
the analyst, results in unreliable analysis [4]. To
overcome the drawbacks come from these criteria,
various computational models using Artificial
Intelligence (AI) have been used to analysis the incipient
fault in power transformer. Application of AI in
transformer incipient fault diagnosis requires real DGA
data. During the period of 1987-2012, there were over
400 research published on IEEE (26 EPSs, 72 ANNs, 58
FL and ANN-FL, 20 ANN-EPS; 248 DGA and related
ones) [5]. Several AI methods have been developed for
more accurate diagnosis. These methods are mostly
suitable for transformers with a single fault or a dominant
fault. These AI methods are: Artificial Neural Network
(ANN) [6,7], Fuzzy Logic [8, 9], Neuro–Fuzzy [10, 11],
Genetic [12, 13], Hidden Markov Model (HMM) [14],
Support Vector Machine (SVM) [15, 16], and Graphical
Techniques [17, 18]. They were developed as a novel
technique to interpret the faults in power transformers.
In this paper, back propagation ANN model is
constructed based on DGA of the IEC Standard rules
method. A comparison between the results of the ANN
and that obtained from the literatures is presented. The
results refer to the reliability of the proposed ANN model
as a diagnostic tool for incipient power transformer fault.
II. DISSOLVED GAS ANALYSIS (DGA): IEC
STANDARD CODE
The IEC three-ratio method is widely used as a guideline
and a standard in diagnosis stage as it is being one of the
effective and convenient guidelines and available
standards [4]. Table 1 shows the relations between the
three-ratios and the method codes while Table 2 tabulates
the IEC standard fault types in power transformer. It
consists of three key-gas ratios corresponding to the
suggested fault diagnosis.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONTROL, AUTOMATION AND SYSTEMS VOL.4 NO.2 APRIL 2015
ISSN 2165-8277 (Print) ISSN 2165-8285 (Online) http://www.researchpub.org/journal/jac/jac.html

Table 1 IEC Code [1] working with the back-propagation learning algorithm
Gas Ratio Value Code [21, 22].
R1<0.1 0
x1 y1
R1=C2H2/C2H4 0.1≤R1≤3 1 b1
R1>3 2
x2 y2
R2<0.1 1 b2
Inputs Outputs
R2=CH4/H2 0.1≤R2≤1 0
R2>1 2
R3<1 0
xn yn
R3=C2H4/C2H6 1≤R3≤3 1 bn

R3>3 2
Input Layer Hidden Layers Output Layer
Table 2 Fault diagnosis using IEC Code
Fig. 1: MLP neural network training
Code The output from the sigmoid function lies between 0 and
No. Fault Type 1. The mean square error is proposed to a level of 0.0001,
R1 R2 R3
where a satisfactory agreement is found between the
training set results and the network result. In this study 74
samples of DGA were provided by the electrical utility
1 No fault 0 0 0
and 125 samples were taken from DGA results published
in the literatures [23, 30]. All 199 samples are used for
Partial discharge with low energy
3
density
0 1 0 validating the neural network model.

Partial discharge with high energy

The input and output patterns are required for Neural
4 1 1 0 network validity. Input patterns are considered the
density
dissolved gas ratios codes according to each fault state.
5 Arcing discharge with low energy 1or 2 0 1 For each input pattern, there exists an output pattern that
describes the fault type. Both input and output patterns
constitute ANN training set.
6 Arcing discharge with high energy 1 0 2
Input and output patterns are defined as follows:
Thermal fault with temperature This diagnosis criterion uses basically Rogers input
7 0 0 1
less than 150 oC
vector as follows:
Thermal fault with temperature [𝐼𝑛𝑝𝑢𝑡] = [𝑅1 , 𝑅2 , 𝑅3 ]𝑇 (1)
8 0 2 0
between 150 to 300 oC
The output vector is build up with ten elements according
Thermal fault with temperature
9
between 300 to 700 oC
0 2 1 to Table 2. Ten neurons are utilized in the output layer.
IV. VALIDATION OF THE PROPOSED SMART
Thermal fault with temperature
10
greater than 700 oC
0 2 2 DIAGNOSTIC DECISION SYSTEM
The validation of the proposed model is achieved by
Undetermined fault (fail to For above codes not
2
determine the fault type) obtained comparing its results with the results in literatures. Some
samples are collected from some researches and
III. APPLICATION OF ARTIFICIAL NEURAL laboratory analysis then compare them with the results in
NETWORK (ANN) FOR TRANSFORMER FAULT literatures. Table 3 illustrates the agreement between the
DETECTION ANN results and the results in literatures. It is agreement
percentage between the results from ANN and that in
ANN model is constructed using MATLAB software for Literatures as shown in Table 3 is more than 90%. It
IEC Standard code interpretation method. Figure 1 shows appears that a conflict among the results comes from the
the multilayer feed forward back-propagation is chosen as No fault identification as well as normal operation state
the network architecture because it considers the most with the thermal state in literatures. The results refer to
popular ANN Architecture [19] and its ability for pattern the reliability of the proposed ANN model as a diagnostic
recognition [20]. The ANN architecture model consists of tool for incipient fault detection.
four layer networks (one input layer, two hidden layer
and one output layer). V. CONCLUSION
An artificial neural network (ANN) model is constructed
A two layer perception has been utilized because of two for IEC Standard code method that based on dissolved
reasons. These are; the highly nonlinearity between the gas analysis. To test the NN model based on IEC rules,
input and due to a good performance of ANN when 102 samples are used. The agreement of NN model with

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONTROL, AUTOMATION AND SYSTEMS VOL.4 NO.2 APRIL 2015
ISSN 2165-8277 (Print) ISSN 2165-8285 (Online) http://www.researchpub.org/journal/jac/jac.html

the literatures is more than 90% of the tested cases. The ACKNOWLEDGMENT
problem is experienced, the difference between the results
The authors thank Prof. Dr. Ayman A. Aly for his
from the proposed model and the results from literatures
valuable Discussion in construction ANN model.
come from No fault and No fault identification states with
the thermal fault for the literatures results.
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VOL.4 NO.2 APRIL 2015
Appendix
ARC: discharge arcing
UD: undetermined fault or no fault identification
TH: thermal fault
PD: partial discharge
NF: no fault (normal operation)
HAD: high discharge energy arcing
LAD: low discharge energy arcing
HTH: high temperature thermal fault
LTH: low temperature thermal fault
MTH: medium temperature
Author' profile:
Sherif S. M. Ghoneim Received B.Sc. and M.Sc.
degrees from the Faculty of Engineering at
Shoubra, Zagazig University, Egypt, in 1994 and
2000, respectively. Starting from 1996 he was a
teaching staff at the Faculty of Industrial
Education, Suez Canal University, Egypt. Since
end of 2005 to end of 2007, he is a guest
researcher at the Institute of Energy Transport and
Storage (ETS) of the University of Duisburg-
Essen-Germany. In 2008, he got Ph.D Degree in Electrical power and
machines, Faculty of Engineering-Cairo University (2008). He joins
now the Taif University as an assistant professor in the Electrical
Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering. His research focuses
in the area of Grounding systems, Dissolved gases analysis,
Breakdown in SF6 gas and artificial intelligent technique applications.
Ibrahim B. Taha Received B.Sc. degree from
the Faculty of Engineering at Tanta, Tanta
University, Egypt, in 1995. He received M.Sc.
degree from the Faculty of Engineering at
Mansoura, Mansoura University, Egypt, in
1999. Starting from 1996 he was a teaching
staff at the Faculty of Engineering, Tanta
University, Egypt. In 2007, he got Ph.D
Degree in Electrical power and machines,
Faculty of Engineering-Tanta University (2007). He joins now the Taif
University as an assistant professor in the Electrical Engineering
Department, Faculty of Engineering. His research focuses in the area
of steady state and transient stability of HVDC systems, FACTS,
Multi Level Inverters, Dissolved gases analysis, and artificial
intelligent technique applications.