Transformer protection

Transformer protection Philosophy

Transformer Faults:
Some discussion on the types of faults and their
characteristic is useful in appreciating the protection
principle and its limitations / capabilities.

Following types of faults may occur in the transformer:

• Ground faults
• Phase to phase faults
• Inter turn faults
• Core faults
 Transformer protection Philosophy
• Externally applied faults
• Overload
• External short circuit
• Over-voltages
• Magnetizing inrush
• Ferro-resonance

Three characteristic generally provide means for detecting

transformer internal faults:
An increase in phase currents
An increase in differential current
Gas formation caused by fault arc.
 Transformer protection Philosophy

All type of liquid insulated transformers are more or less

amenable to same or similar type of protection scheme. The
choice of protection scheme is based on factors like
capacity, voltage class, criticality of application etc.
The transformer protection logic fall into the following two
major categories, based on fault sensing method
Mechanical protections.
Electrical protection
 Transformer protection: Mechanical
•Liquid insulation transformers offer many option of
gas/pressure operated mechanical protections against
electrical faults.
•The insulating oil when subjected to high temperatures,
associated with arcing , decomposes to generate a number of
organic gases and hydrogen.
•The cellulose material if involved, results in production of
oxides of carbon.
•Depending upon the type, rating and volume of liquid
insulation of the transformer , this basic fact can be utilized in
different devices to achieve very fast and useful protection.
•Protection against excessive temperature of the transformer
winding also need to be incorporated as a protection against
overloads and hot spots inside the transformer.
 Transformer protection: Mechanical
1. Buchholz protection:
• This is essentially a gas operated protection with
capability of detecting and warning early about an
incipient fault. The relay has two elements 1st stage and
2nd stage. The 1st stage for alarm and the 2nd stage for
trip.
• The 1st stage work on the accumulation of sufficient gas in
the relay chamber and the 2nd stage work on the high
velocity of oil caused due to evolution of gases as a result
of high energy faults.
• The setting of 1st stage is done at collected gas volume of
300 to 500ml.
• The setting of 2nd stage is done at oil flow velocity of
100cm/s .
Buchholz relay mounting
BUCHHOLZ

Alarm
Trip

Baffle plate

Adjustment
 Transformer protection: Mechanical
• The velocity setting can be varied either by variation in
slot opening in oil flow path or by variation of flap size.
This is needed in view of requirement of lower velocity
setting for transformers with higher rating and oil volume
for the protection to be more sensitive. The approximate
time taken for operation of 2nd stage is 0.6 sec.
• The protection is most useful for winding inter-turn faults.
2. Sudden pressure (Rapid pressure rise) protection:
• This protection performs better and faster than buchholz
2nd stage protection. This protection also replaces
Buchholz protection in the transformer without oil
conservator. The relay detects a sudden rise in pressure
and has inverse time characteristics. The alarm is set at
0.32kg/sqcm and trip at 0.6kg/sqcm per second.
SPR
 Transformer protection: Mechanical
3. Pressure relief protection:
• This is used to evacuate any over pressure inside the
transformer to avoid explosion of the transformer tank. It
operates instantaneously and trip the transformer if the
pressure inside the tank reaches the set value ( 0.5-0.8
kg/ sqcm ). The no of devices and the diameter depends
on the size of the transformer.
4. Temperature protection:
• The thermal inertia of transformer results in slow reflection
of thermal over loadings in oil temperature (OTI). Hence
the temperature protection is normally provided on
winding temperature (WTI). The winding hot spot
temperature is measured indirectly using replica
resistance and the CT secondary currents.
PRV
 Transformer protection: Mechanical
• The temperature switch , employing mercury contacts, are
susceptible to un-wanted operation during jerks on
transformer like earthquakes or vibration due to severe
faults. Therefore, a time delay of 5 sec is introduced in the
trip.
• The temperature protection is adequate against over
loading. However electrical protection matching thermal
characteristics of transformer can be introduced through
numerical relay.
WTI
 Transformer protection: Electrical

The Electrical protections is further classified as:

• Unit protection

Which are operated only for , fault in the protected

transformer.

•Non-Unit protection
Which are operated for a fault outside the
transformer also and are known as back up protection
 Transformer protection : Electrical
• Protection system applied has a very onerous duty of being
inactive for the entire life of the protected equipment while
being in readiness for operation, when demanded, in a time
span of a few milli-seconds.
• The application of the protection scheme, power supply,
protection logics and the associated isolating devices are all
required to play a vital role in the successful performance of
this duty.
• This aspect is vital in deciding the choice and application of
the protection scheme in the first place since it is also vital
to ensure that the system does not cause any unwanted
interruptions either.
Typical Generator protection SLD

Typical Generator
protection scheme
 Transformer protection : Electrical
1. Biased ( percentage) differential protection:
• A normal circulating current differential protection can not
be applied to a transformer due to the factors like ratio,
tap position and magnetizing inrush etc.
• Hence, it is necessary to incorporate the percentage bias
in the differential circuit.
• The protection becomes sensitive to the most commonly
expected , inter turn fault but to a limited extent.
Sufficiently , a large no of turns have to be shorted for the
protection to actuate.
Transformer protection : Electrical
BASIC SCHEME
 Transformer protection : Electrical
• There are two additional necessary feature for this
protection applied to the transformer.
• Stability during switching in (magnetic inrush)
• Stability during abnormal voltage/frequency conditions
( over fluxing)
• A biased differential relay operates for a differential current
more than preset bias percentage of average through
current. This value is considerably small in comparison to
the through fault current and the relay become quite
sensitive.
• Two versions of biased differential relays are normally
employed.
 Transformer protection : Electrical
1. The relay has minimum operating current setting fixed at
15% of rated current and bias setting in variable steps
from 10% to 60%.
2. The relay has a fixed non linear bias , which itself changes
upward with the through current magnitude. Such relay
offers a variable minimum operating current setting.
• Both alternatives are generally considered equivalent from
application point of view.
• The magnetizing in rush current contains a large no of 2nd
harmonics which is filtered out and used as a restraint to
prevent the relay from operating during energization.
BIAS CHARACTERISTICS
 Transformer protection : Electrical
• Under conditions of transformer saturation a high 5th
harmonic content is present which can be used as restraint
to prevent mal-operation.
• Some relays simply filtered out 5th harmonic from operating
current, therefore, tend to operate for heavy saturation
conditions.
• However, the harmonic restraint feature can delay the
tripping considerably for high current internal faults, due to
possible CT saturation and consequent harmonics.
• Hence, it is necessary to incorporate a high set tripping
feature ; set at over 10 times of rated current.
MAGNETIC INRUSH PHONOMENA
 Transformer protection : Electrical
2. Restricted Earth fault protection:
• This protection is applied to single winding of the
transformer and quite sensitive and straight forward. The
relay is high impedance differential relay and remains
stable for all out of zone faults. The protection is
insensitive to the inter-turn faults.
• The gain in protection performance is obtained by:
1.Low instantaneous setting
2.The whole fault current is measured
• Therefore, although the prospective current level
decreases as the fault position progress nearer to the
neutral end of the winding, the square law which controls
the primary current is not applicable.
 WHY REF?
• Simple Over current and Differential
Protection for a star connected HV
winding, as the transformed current and
not the actual current is measured on the
LV side.
• Because of the square law faults in the
lower third of the winding produce very
little current.
 Transformer protection : Electrical

• The protection is applied often to transformers with

neutral solidly earthed. The fault current remains at high
value even to the last turn of the winding and complete
cover of winding is achieved.
• Earth fault protection applied to a delta connected or
unearthed star winding is inherently restricted. A high
impedance relay can be used giving fast operation and
phase-fault stability.
 Transformer protection : Electrical
3. Over-fluxing protection:
• Over-fluxing withstand characteristic of the transformer is
invariably inverse time. The protection should match this
characteristic. The protection against over-fluxing is
provided either by definite time or by IDMT characteristic
relay which senses V/f threshold . Separate alarm and trip
elements are provided. The alarm function is a definite
time delayed and the trip function is an IDMT
characteristic.
Transformer voltage equation is given by V/f = køT
• Application of the protection from HV side voltage signal
results in over/under protection as the factor of no of turns
is ignored in the protection.
 Limits….
VT Ratio: 765kV/110 volt
Relay type: System A - P632
Relay Designation - 99
Over Fluxing protection:
Continuous over flux withstand capability : 110%
Withstand capability at 120% : 1 minute
Withstand capability at 130% : 30 secs
Withstand capability at 140% : 5 secs
Recommended settings are as below:
Alarms:
Alarms will be generated if V/f value is 1.12 the nominal value
after a time delay of 10 secs.
Tripping characteristic:
Over-fluxing tripping IDMT characteristics has to be made as
per the transformer withstand specifications .
 Transformer protection : Electrical
4. Back up Earth fault protection:
• The back up earth fault protection (51N) take current
signal from the neutral CT of the Transformer. This is the
last back up protection for un-cleared ground faults.

5. Over current protection:

• The most common form of back up protection is the
inverse time over current protections. This protection is a
back up protection against short circuits un-cleared by the
primary protection and is nothing to do with protecting
transformer against overloads as misunderstood
sometimes. The setting is done at 300% of the rated
current and no case shall be less than 175%.