An innovative harmonic‐based approach for inrush current detection in low‐loss transformers

Abstract

Abstract Transformer inrush current occurs due to the saturation of magnetic core. The magnetic characteristic of the core directly affects the inrush current waveform. Second harmonic and higher‐order harmonics are present in the inrush harmonic spectrum. A harmonic‐based method analysing the amplitude and phase of different harmonics is presented here. Based on the proposed method, the differences between the harmonic spectrum of new low‐loss and previous‐generation materials are investigated. Then, using the patterns of 1st to 10th harmonic phases, a novel method for inrush current detection is proposed. In the proposed method, possible patterns for the harmonic phases related to the inrush current are specified. The harmonic phases are compared with those specified patterns. In the case of matching, the inrush current condition is detected. To evaluate the theoretical principles, simulations are performed, also, the proposed method is applied to the field data to assess the practical performance, and results are presented.

Keywords

• Fourier analysis
• magnetic cores
• power system protection