“MODELING ON THE BREAKDOWN VOLTAGE OF SOLID

INSULATING MATERIALS BY ANN”

Major project submitted to

Dr. C.V. Raman Institute of Science and Technology

Kota, Bilaspur (C.G.)

For the award of the degree

Of

MASTER OF TECHNOLOGY
In

POWER SYSTEM ENGINEERING

By

LAV SINGH MATHUR

Roll no. 123140070
Enroll no. CV/12014/0536

Under the Guidance of

Mr. Amit Agrawal

&

Dr. Dharmendra Kumar Singh

<June> <2016>

© <2016><Lav singh mathur>.All rights reserved.

Session 2014-2016
“MODELING ON THE BREAKDOWN VOLTAGE OF SOLID
INSULATING MATERIALS BY ANN”

Major project report submitted to

Dr. C.V. Raman Institute of Science and Technology

Kota, Bilaspur (C.G.)

For the award of the degree

Of

MASTER OF TECHNOLOGY
In

POWER SYSTEM ENGINEERING

By

LAV SINGH MATHUR

Under the Guidance of

Mr. Amit Agrawal

&

Dr. Dharmendra Kumar Singh

JUNE 2016

© <2016><Lav Singh Mathur>.All rights reserved.

Session 2014-2016

ii
 DECLARATION BY THE CANDIDATE

I the undersigned solemnly declare that the report of the thesis work entitled
“MODELING ON THE BREAKDOWN VOLTAGE OF SOLID INSULATING
MATERIALS BY ANN ” is based on my own work carried out during the course of my
study under the supervision of Mr Amit Agrawal & Dr. Dharmendra Kumar Singh.
I assert that the statements made and conclusions drawn are an outcome of the project
work. I further declare that to the best of my knowledge and belief that the report does not
contain any part of any work which has been submitted for the award of any Degree /
Diploma/ Certificate in this University / Deemed University of India or any other country.

Lav Singh Mathur

Roll no. 123140070
Enroll no. CV/12014/0536

iii
 DECLARATION BY THE SUPERVISOR

This is to certify that the report of the thesis entitled MODELING OF THE
BREAKDOWM VOLTAGE OF SOLID INSULATING MATERIALS BY ANN is a
record of research work carried out by Lav Singh Mathur bearing Roll no. 123140070
Enroll no. CV/12014/0536 under our guidance and supervision for the award of Degree
of Master of Technology in the faculty of Electrical and Electronics Engineering
Department with specialization in Power System Engineering of Dr. C.V. Raman
Institute of Science and technology, Kargi Road Kota, Bilaspur (C.G.).

SUPERVISOR-2 SUPERVISOR-1
Dr Dharmendra Kumar Singh Mr Amit Agrawal
(Assistant Professor)
(Head of The Department)
Department of is Electrical Engineering
Department of Electrical and Electrical Engineering
Dr C.V. Raman Institute of Science &Technology
Dr C.V. Raman Institute of Science& Technology,
,Kargi road, Kota Bilaspur (C.G.)
Kargi road, Kota, Bilaspur (C.G)

Forwarded to Dr C.V. Raman Institute of Science & Technology, Kota, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh,

-------------------------
(Principal)
(Seal and Signature)

iv
 CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the work incorporated in this thesis entitled “MODELING OF THE
BREAKDOWN VOLTAGE OF SOLID INSULATING MATERIALS BY ANN” is a
record of major project work carried out by LAV SINGH MATHUR Roll no: - 123140070
1under my supervision for the award of degree of Master of Technology in the Faculty of
Electrical & Electronics Engineering of Dr. C.V. Raman University, Bilaspur (C.G.)-India.
To the best of my knowledge and belief the report:
i. Embodies the work of the candidate herself.
ii. Has duly been completed.
iii. Fulfill the requirements of the Ordinance relating to the M-Tech Degree of the University.
iv. Is up to the desired standard both in respect of contents and language for being referred to
the examiners.

HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT

Dr. Dharmendra Kumar Singh
Department of Electrical & Electronics Engineering
Dr. C.V. Raman Institute Of Science & Technology,
Kargi road, kota, Bilaspur (C.G)

C E RT I F I C AT E B Y T H E E X A M I N E R S

v
The minor project entitled “MODELING ON THE BREAKDOWN VOLTAGE OF
SOLID INSULATING MATERIALS BY ANN” submitted by LAV SINGH
MATHUR Roll no. 123140070 Enroll no. CV/12014/0536 has been examined by the
undersigned as a part of the examination and is here by recommended for the award of the
degree of Master of Technology in the faculty of Electrical and Electronics Engineering
Department with specialization in Power System Engineering of Dr C.V. Raman Institute
of Science and Technology, Kota, Bilaspur (C. G.).

___________________ ____________________

Internal Examiner External Examiner

Date: Date

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
vi
On the submission of my thesis on “Modeling of the Breakdown Voltage of Solid
Insulating Materials by ANN” I would like to articulate my deep gratitude and sincere
thanks to my supervisor Assistant Prof. Mr. Amit Agrawal for his most valuable guidance
and thoughtful suggestions during the course of my work throughout the year. His help and
advice has been a constant source of inspiration.
I am sincerely thankful to Associate Prof. Dr. Dharmendra Kumar Singh, Head
of the Department, Electrical and Electronics Engineering and all the faculty members for
providing a solid background for my studies and research thereafter. I am thankful to the
laboratory staff of the department for their timely help.
An assemblage of this nature could never have been attempted without reference to
and inspiration from the works of others whose details are mentioned in reference section. I
acknowledge my indebtedness to all of them.
I am thankful to all my classmates and the department research scholars for their
cooperation and unfailing help during the project work.
I am grateful to all my friends who made my stay in CVRU, an unforgettable and
rewarding experience.
Finally, I feel great reverence for all my family members and the Almighty, for
their blessings and for being a constant source of encouragement.

LAV SINGH MATHUR

Roll no. 123140070
Enroll no. CV/12014/0536

ABSTRACT

vii
Electrical power systems are experiencing significant changes at the worldwide scale both in
size and in complexities. The generating capacities of power plants and application of high
voltage has intensively increased due to their inherent advantages, such as, greater efficiency
and cost effectiveness. It is, thus essential to know the property of the insulating materials for
optimum solution in terms of cost and insulating capability. Out of so many properties of
insulation materials, determination of the breakdown voltage continues to evoke a lot of
interest to the Electrical Engineers in general and High Voltage Engineers in particular.
Hence, it is possible to develop solid insulating materials with excellent breakdown strength
And any attempt at modeling the phenomenon with the presence of void would go a long way
in assessing the insulation quality. This project presents a model to find out the breakdown
voltage of solid insulating materials under AC excitation condition by employing the artificial
neural network method. The project gives a brief introduction to multilayer perceptrons and
resilient back-propagation. A relation between input variables and output variables i. e.
breakdown voltage is demonstrated. The inputs to the neural networks are the thickness of
material, diameter of void, depth of void and permittivity of materials. Neural network
methodology is the one of the most popular and widely used method for the analysis of voids.
ANN is built to train the multilayer perceptrons in the context of regression analysis. Back-
propagation algorithm is used for learning and to train the ANN and it is provides a custom
choice of activation and error function. MATLAB software is used for designed, trained and
tested in the ANN.

Keywords- Permittivity, Breakdown Voltage, ANN, Insulation Sample, Multilayer Feed-

forward Neural Network, Voids, Thickness.

viii
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT........................................................................................................................Viii
LIST OF FIGURES............................................................................................................ Xi
LIST OF TABLES.............................................................................................................. Xii
LIST OF ABBREVIATION...............................................................................................Xiii

CHAPTER-1 INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................1-3
1.1 Motivation...........................................................................................................................2
1.2 Objective.............................................................................................................................3
1.3 Outline of thesis..................................................................................................................3
CHAPTER-2 LITERATURE REVIEW..........................................................................4-10
CHAPTER-3 PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION.................................................................11
CHAPTER-4 METHODOLOGY....................................................................................12-42
4.1 Introduction.......................................................................................................................12
4.2 Properties of Insulating Materials…………......................................................................12
4.3 Factor Affecting Insulation and Clearances.......................................................................12
4.3.1 Nature of Waveform…………………………………………………………………...13
4.3.2 Frequency………………………………………………………………………………13
4.3.3 Ageing………………………………………………………………………………….13
4.3.4 Thickness of the Dielectric Material…………………………………….……………..14
4.3.5 Electrode Gap Spacing…………………………………………………………………14
4.3.6 Partial Discharge in Cavities…………………………………………………………...14
4.3.7 Influence of Humidity………………………………………………………………….14
4.3.8 Influence of Corrosive Atmospheres…………………………………………………...15
4.3.9 Influence of Temperature………………………………………………………………15
4.3.10 Operating Condition…………………………………………………………………..15
4.3.11 Thickness and Relative Permittivity of the Insulating Materials……………….…….15
4.4 Breakdown of Solid Insulating Materials..........................................................................16
4.4.1 Intrinsic Breakdown.......................................................................................................18
4.4.2 Electromechanical Breakdown......................................................................................20
4.4.3 Breakdown Due To Treeing and Tracking.....................................................................20
4.4.4 Thermal Breakdown.......................................................................................................21
4.4.5 Electrochemical Breakdown...........................................................................................21

ix
4.4.6 Breakdown Due to Internal Discharges..........................................................................22
4.5 Experimental Setup...................................................................................................22
4.5.1 30kv Insulation Testers……..........................................................................................22
4.5.2 Operation of 30 kV Insulation Testers...........................................................................24
4.5.3 Precautions.....................................................................................................................26
4.6 Experimental Data.............................................................................................................26
4.6.1 Sample materials.............................................................................................................26
4.6.2 Creation of Void.............................................................................................................26
4.7 Neural Networks Theory....................................................................................................27
4.7.1 What is artificial Neural Network?.................................................................................27
4.7.2 Why Artificial Neural Networks?...................................................................................31
4.7.3 Multilayer Feed-Forward Neural Network.....................................................................31
4.7.4 Choice of Hidden Neurons.............................................................................................32
4.7.5 Normalization of Input-Output Data..............................................................................32
4.7.6 Choice of ANN parameters.............................................................................................33
4.7.7 Weight Update Equations...............................................................................................33
4.7.8 Mean Square Error..........................................................................................................34
4.7.9 Mean Absolute Error......................................................................................................34
4.8.10 Learning........................................................................................................................34
4.8.11 Activation Function......................................................................................................35
4.9 Design of ANN……………………………………………………………………….....36
CHAPTER-5 RESULT & DISCUSSION.........................................................................43
CHAPTER-6 CONCLUSION AND FUTURE SCOPE..................................................44
6.1 Conclusion.........................................................................................................................44
6.2 Future scope......................................................................................................................44
REFERENCES..................................................................................................................45-51
APPENDIX…………………………………………………………………………………

x
 LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURES DETAILS PAGE NO.

1. Fig.4.1 Variation of Breakdown Strength with time......................................................18
2. Fig.4.2 30 kV Insulation Testers with Experiments...………….......………………..…23
3. Fig.4.3 Operational Diagram of 30kv High Voltage Testers …………………….........25
4. Fig.4.4 Interconnection in Brain ……………………………………………….……...28
5. Fig.4.5 Biological Network.............…………………………………………………...29
6. Fig.4.6 Single Layer Feed-Forward Neural Network ………………....……………....30
7. Fig.4.7 Operation of Neural Net………………………………….……........................30
8. Fig.4.8 Multilayer Feed-forward Neural Network………………..…………..………..31
9. Fig.4.9 Activation Function......…………………………………………….………..…36
10. Fig 4.10 Creation steps of Neural Network...................................................................38
11. Fig 4.11 Neural Network Training…………………………………………………….39
12. Fig.4.11 Performance Plot...............................................................…….......................40
13. Fig.4.12 Training State.........................................................................……..................40
14. Fig.4.13 Regression Analysis.................................................................................…….41

xi
 LIST OF TABLES

TABLE DETAILS PAGE NO.

1. Table 4.1 Effect of change in Thickness in Breakdown Voltage of Polyethylene …...……….. 14

2. Table 4.2 Differences between Degradation and Breakdown for Solid Insulating Materials.......17

3. Table 4.3 Specifications of 30kV Insulation Testers......................................................................24

4. Table 4.4 Experimental Data Table for Breakdown Voltage.........................................................27

5. Table 4.5 Modelled Breakdown Voltage using MFNN..................................................................42

6. Table 5.1 Mean Square Error of ANN Model................................................................................43

xii
 LIST OF ABBREVIATION

ANN Artificial Neural Network

MFNN Multilayer Feed-Forward Neural Network
SC Soft Computing
Vb Breakdown Voltage
α Momentum Constant
η Learning Factor
Ni Number Of Input Layer
Nh Number Of Hidden Layer
L Time To Failure
t Thickness Of Material
Ɛr Permittivity Of Material
E Dielectric Strength
t1 Depth Of Void
d Diameter Of Void
Etr Mean Square Error
Ets Mean Absolute Error

xiii
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