3rdInternational Conference on Emerging Technologies in Engineering, Biomedical, Management and Science

[3rdETEBMS-2017], 09July, 2017

SYMPATHETIC INRUSH PHENOMENA IN PARALLEL AND SERIES

CONNECTED TRANSFORMERS USING PSCAD
Tejpal P. Purohit1, Prashant K. Bhavsar2
Department of Electrical Engineering, Government Polytechnic Palanpur, Palanpur-385001
current in a transformer decays, usually, within a few cycles,
Abstract: This paper discussed sympathetic inrush and but the sympathetic inrush current persists in the network for
inrush phenomenon on parallel, series and parallel-series a relatively longer duration. This poses an additional threat to
connected transformers. Sympathetic inrush current is the the reliability and security of the power system. Finally, it
transient current which is drawn by already energized may lead to an increase in the noise level of other
transformer while another transformer is energized and transformers connected in the network [12].
connected in series/parallel combination with the existing
one. These currents have many adverse effects, like mal II. SYMPATHETIC INRUSH CURRENT ANALYSIS
operation of transformer differential protection, insulation A transformer already connected to supply system can
failures, degradation of mechanical support structure of experience unexpected saturation during the inrush transient
windings and disturbed the power quality of the system[1- of an incoming transformer. This saturation, which is
2]. In short circuit laboratory, magnitude of these currents established by an asymmetrical voltage drop across the
can be reduced using control switching circuitry. If Short system resistance caused by the inrush current in the
circuit and energization of transformers occurs at same incoming transformer, demands offset magnetizing currents
moment, that moment magnitude of these currents are less of high magnitude in the already connected transformers. As
compared to normal no load energization. All those results shown in Fig. 1, when transformer 2 is switched on to the
obtained from 50 MVA, 220/33 kV, three-phase network where transformer 1 is already feeding loads, the
transformer. Magnitude and duration of these currents transient inrush currents not only flow through transformer 2,
depend upon many factors, like air core reactance, system but also through transformers 1. This sharing of the transient
fault level, point on wave switching, residual flux density, inrush current is called as sympathetic inrush phenomenon.
number of banked transformers, transformer design and The normal inrush current in the transformers decay, usually,
load conditions. Simulation results obtained from PSCAD within a few cycles, but the sympathetic inrush current
are also analyzed and discussed. persists in the circuit for a relatively longer duration [9-11].
Keywords: Short circuit, Sympathetic inrush current,
Controlled switching, PSCAD.

I. INTRODUCTION
Short circuit test laboratory realized inrush and sympathetic
inrush problem during energization of test object transformer
which is draw the transient current. The test object
(transformer-2) realized inrush current which is six to eight
times of rated current and short circuit testing transformer
(transformer-1) realized sympathetic inrush current which is
shown in fig.1 (b). To test higher rating of transformer, a
high fault level is required. This is being explored in this (a) Parallel connection
paper by putting another transformer in parallel to the
existing transformer; Due to this short circuit fault level will
be increase but there is sympathetic inrush current issue.
During energization of paralleled transformers, transformer-2
realized the inrush current and transformer-1 realized
sympathetic inrush current which is shown in fig.1 (a). (b)
Fig.1(c) shows the series parallel combination in which Series connection
transformer-3 realized Inrush current and transformer-1 & 2
realized sympathetic inrush current. These currents can
exceed the nominal current and may achieve the rated value
of the short-circuit current of the power transformer. The
amplitude is decaying very slowly and reaches its steady-
state magnetizing current after some seconds. Transient
inrush currents containing high DC-component and rich in
1st and 2nd harmonics [1], Affect the power quality and can (c) Parallel and series connection
trip protective relays. Due to these transients, huge current Fig.1 Sympathetic inrush current interaction
forces arise in the transformer windings [2] that possibly Fig.2 shows the inrush and sympathetic inrush current in the
incoming and the already energized transformer respectively.
reduce the lifecycle of power transformers, The inrush Longer duration of the sympathetic inrush current may mal-
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[3rdETEBMS-2017], 09July, 2017

operate differential relays. It may also prolong harmonic Transformer Parallel Series Series
over-voltages in the system and increase noise level in the ratings transformer transformer-1 transformer-
already connected transformers. We have followed the Without POT 2
convention of representing the inrush current in green and the With POT
sympathetic inrush current in blue in all the figures in this Input fault 5056 MVA 610 MVA 1089 MVA
paper. level
Rated MVA 50 MVA 5 MVA 9 MVA
Voltage 220/33 kV 33/0.433 kV 33/0.433 kV
Level
Rated current 131.21 A 87.47 A 157.45 A
in HV
Rated current 874.77 A 6666.86 A 12000 A
in LV
Vector group DD0 DD0 DD0
% Impedance 7.20 % 7.15 % 7.29 %
Max. S.C. 13.26 kA 10.67 kA 19.06 kA
Fig.2 Sympathetic inrush and inrush current waveform current in HV
Max. S.C. 10.67 kA 83.67 kA 87.62 kA
III. MATHEMATICAL CALCULATION current in LV
The simplified equation often used to calculate the peak All these data required for simulation. Fig. 3 shows the
value of the first cycle of inrush current in Amps is as circuit connection diagram used in the simulation. It consists
follows of two identical transformers, which are connected in parallel

Ipk  2U (2.BN BR BS ) Amps

using PSCAD. The system resistances depend upon input
fault level which is inversely proportional to each other. In
. )2 R2
(wL BN this simulation first breaker closes after 0.100 s and second
breaker close after 3.110 s. So at 0.100 s first transformer
Where:
realize inrush current and at 3.110 s second transformer
U = Applied voltage, Volts
realize inrush current and first transformer realize
L = Air core inductance of the transformer, Henry
sympathetic inrush current. Breaker 3 and 4 closed at 10.110
R = Total DC resistance of the transformer windings, Ohms
s but simulation run only for 8 s, so circuit behaves as open
BR = Remnant flux density of the transformer core, Tesla
circuit.
BS = Saturation flux density of the core material, Tesla
BN = Normal rated flux density of the transformer core, Tesla

In reality, the above equation does not give sufficient

accuracy since a number of transformer connected in parallel
and system parameters, which affect the magnitude of inrush
current significantly, are not included in the calculation. As
well, this equation does not provide information on the
subsequent oscillations throughout the duration of the inrush
current transient.
The calculation also incorporates the following important
transformer and system parameters which can have as much
as 60% impact on the magnitudes of inrush current [3-5]. Fig.3 Connection diagram of parallel transformer in PSCAD
The inductance of the air-core circuit adjusted for the
transient nature of the inrush current phenomenon. V. SIMULATION RESULT AND DISCUSSION
Impedance and short circuit capacity of the system. A. Parallel Connected Transformers
Core geometry and winding configurations & connections, Parallel configuration of two transformers is shown in Fig. 3.
e.g., 1- vs. 3-phase, Y- vs. Delta windings connections, The circuit breaker (BRK1) is closed after 3.110 second to
Grounded vs. non grounded Y connections, etc. allow initial circuit transient currents to reach their respective
steady state values. For the configuration of the parallel-
IV. COMPUTATIONAL METHODOLOGY connected transformers, the influence of the factors such as
A 50 MVA, 220/33 kV, delta/delta, three-phase transformer such as air core reactance, system fault level, point on wave
is analyzed to investigate the sympathetic inrush switching, residual flux density, number of banked
phenomenon. The design details and name-plate data of the transformers, transformer design and rating and load
transformer under consideration are given in Table I. The conditions, is investigated. We have followed the convention
transformer is analyzed on a per-phase basis with excitation of representing X-axis represent time in second and Y-axis
of HV winding. Three-phase analysis is also done represent inrush and sympathetic inrush current in kA for all
subsequently to compare the waveform.
inrush currents in all the three phases. Effect of input fault leval: Input fault level is inversely
Table I Three phase parallel and series transformer data proportional to system resistance. Inrush current in

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[3rdETEBMS-2017], 09July, 2017

transformer2 and sympathetic inrush current in transformer 1

are shown in Fig. 4(a), Fig. 4(b) and Fig. 4(c) for system
resistances of 20 Ω, 10 Ω and 0.763 Ω respectively. Rsys
reduces the magnitudes of the initial peaks of the inrush
current in T2 considerably. The sympathetic inrush current
experienced by the already energized transformer 1 is due to
the coupling between the two transformers on account of the
asymmetrical voltage drop in the system resistance Rsys of (b)
the transmission line feeding them. Hence, the higher the
Rsys, the higher is the sympathetic inrush [11] as evident
from the figure. However, the magnitude of Rsys has very
little effect on the duration of the sympathetic inrush current
in transformer 1. From Fig. 4

(c)
Fig. 5. Effect of point on wave switching on sympathetic
inrush current phenomena

Effect of air core reactance: Similar to the single transformer

case, air core reactance of the both transformer plays a key
role in the sympathetic inrush and inrush phenomenon. Fig. 6
(a) shows the inrush current in transformer 2 and sympathetic
inrush current in transformer 1 at same air core reactance. It
can be seen that the magnitudes of these currents largely
depend on the P.U. value of air core reactance. Figs. 6(a),
6(b) and 6(c) show the sympathetic inrush current patterns
for air core reactance of 0.8 P.U., 0.2 P.U. and -0.8 P.U.
respectively.

(b)

(a)

(c)
Fig.4. Effect of input fault level on sympathetic inrush
current
Phenomena (b)
Effect of point on wave switching: Fig. 5 shows the effect of
point on wave switching on the magnitude of the sympathetic
inrush current. Similar to the single transformer case, the
magnitude of the sympathetic inrush current reduces with an
increase in the switching-on angle up to 90, and then
increases in the negative direction up to 180. The
magnitudes of the inrush currents are minimum when the
(c)
switching-on angle is 90 (because the inductive reactance of
Fig.6. Effect of air core reactance on sympathetic inrush
the transformer is much larger than the resistance). Figs. 5(a),
phenomena
5(b) and 5(c) show the sympathetic inrush current patterns
Effect of load and power factor: When the transformer is
for switching angles of 0, 90 and 180 respectively.
switched on to a heavy load with power factor close to unity,
the peak values of both inrush and sympathetic inrush
currents are slightly smaller as compared to the no load case
(see Fig. 7). The peak of inrush current in transformer 2 as
well as the sympathetic inrush current in transformer 1
slightly increase with reduction in power factor as evident
from Fig. 8, which shows these currents for different power
(a) factors of the load. Thus, the load current of the switched
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[3rdETEBMS-2017], 09July, 2017

(a)

Fig.10. Sympathetic inrush phenomenon in series connected

transformer
Parallel Series Connected Transformers
In the case of transformers connected in parallel series, the
primary HV winding of the first transformer (220/33 kV, 50
MVA) is connected to supply through circuit breaker (BRK)
and second transformer also connected to supply system
(b) through circuit breaker (BRK1),its connected in parallel with
first transformer using BRK2 and BRK3. Both transformer
secondary winding feeds the HV winding of the third
transformer (33/0.433 kV, 9 MVA) being energized through
circuit breaker (BRK4). The nameplate details of all the
transformers are shown in Table I. Fig. 11 shows T1, the
already connected transformer which is energized through
BRK at 0.100 second and T2, the parallel transformer that is
being energized by closing the circuit breaker (BRK1) at
(c) 3.110 second and T3, the series connected transformer that is
being energized by closing the circuit breaker (BRK4) at
6.110 second and short circuit occurs at 8.110 second.Fig.12
shows inrush current due to energization of transformer T1
and sympathetic inrush current due to energization of
transformer T2 by closing BRK1 and sympathetic inrush
current due to energization of transformer T3 by closing
BRK4
(d)
Fig.8. Effect of load and power factor on sympathetic inrush
phenomena
Series Connected Transformers
In the case of transformers connected in series, the primary
HV winding of the first transformer (220/33 kV, 50 MVA) is
connected to supply, and its secondary winding feeds the HV
winding of the transformer (33/0.433 kV, 5 MVA) being
energized. The nameplate details of both the transformers are
same as in Table I. Fig. 9 shows T1, the already connected
transformer, and T2, the transformer that is being energized Fig.11. Connection diagram of parallel series connected
by closing the circuit breaker (BRK1).Fig.10 shows inrush transformer in PSCAD
current due to energization of transformer T1 and
sympathetic inrush current due to energization of transformer
T2 by closing BRK1.

Fig.12. Sympathetic inrush phenomenon in parallel series

connected transformer
Reduction of inrush and sympathetic inrush current in short
Fig.9. Connection diagram of series connected transformer in circuit laboratory using control switching circuit
PSCAD Fig 9 shows the short circuit test laboratory there are test

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[3rdETEBMS-2017], 09July, 2017

object, s.c. testing transformer and master circuit breaker

available. If Short circuit and energization of test object
transformer occurs at different moment that moment inrush
current is higher and its behave like a normal no load
energization. Circuit breaker (BRK1) close at 3.110 s and
short circuit occurs at 6.110 s for 0.5 s. In this case two
control switches are required, results are shown in Fig 13(a)
and (b) where inrush and sympathetic inrush current 14.20
kA and 0.191 kA respectively.
(b)
Fig.14. Inrush and sympathetic inrush current when
energization and short circuit occurs at same moment

VI. CONCLUSION
It is observed that the sympathetic inrush current persists in
the network for a much longer duration than the inrush
current for the singly connected transformer. A number of
factors affect the magnitude and duration of the sympathetic
inrush and inrush current, such as air core reactance, system
(a) fault level, point on wave switching, residual flux density,
number of banked transformers, transformer design and
rating and load conditions are discussed in detail. It is
observed that even though an increase in the system
resistance increases the magnitude of the sympathetic inrush
current appreciably, there is little effect on its duration. The
change in switching on angle, and the magnitude and
direction of the air core reactance can cause significant
variations in the phenomenon of sympathetic inrush and
inrush currents. Moreover, the magnitude and power factor
of the load currents have only a very small effect on the
magnitude as well as duration of the sympathetic inrush
(b) currents. To test the higher rating of transformer high inrush
Fig.13. Inrush and sympathetic inrush current when current and sympathetic inrush currents are induced in short
energization and short circuit occurs at different moment circuit laboratory. These currents produced adverse impact
If Short circuit and energization of test object transformer on short circuit lab. To reduce these currents impact using
occurs at same moment that moment inrush current is lower. control switching circuitry. There is only one solution which
Circuit breaker (BRK1) initially opens and close at 3.110 s is energization of transformer and short circuit occurs at
and again open at 3.610 s and short circuit occurs at 3.110 s same moments. It’s required only one master circuit breaker.
for 0.5 s. In this case practically only one control switch is
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