2009 IEEE Electrical Insulation Conference, Montreal, QC, Canada, 31 May - 3 June 2009
Partial Discharge Location in
High Voltage Transformers
R. Mohamed and P. L. Lewin
The Tony Davies High Voltage Laboratory
Electronics and Computer Science
University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ
United Kingdom
Abstract- Partial discharge (PD) location is a common problem
within Power Transformers diagnostics and is important for
assessing the severity of any detected fault. The technique
presented in this paper is suitable for any type of discharge signal
through determination of the predominantly capacitive operating
region in the frequency domain of the transformer.
Theoretically, any components signal in this frequency region
will retain their waveshape and phase without significant
attenuation. To obtain the predominantly capacitive region of a
transformer winding, the relationship between the bushing
terminal and neutral terminal has to be determined. In the
predominantly capacitive region the two terminals will have a
linear relationship in dB. To obtain the model of the transformer
winding under test, it is injected at one end with a low voltage
calibrated impulse to determine its initial parameters. Based on
the measurement at the bushing and neutral terminals, the linear
relationship of the two terminals is found by a fixed distribution
equation derived from a lumped circuit parameter model. For
verification, experiments within the laboratory have used various
artificial PD signals injected at different points along a model
winding to represent different PD sources. By considering the
relative magnitude of a discharge signal at predominantly
capacitive frequencies of the winding it is possible to evaluate the
position of the discharge source.
I. INTRODUCTION
The identification of PD in high voltage transformers is an
important tool for transformer diagnostics. The estimation of
PD and its location is essential in predicting the health of
transformers and assists in selection of suitable maintenance
or replacement strategies. However, the techniques of
estimating PD location can result in error because of the
complexity of the transformer and the routes by which signals
propagate from the source to the measurement point.
The modelling propagation of high frequency signals within a
transformer winding may demonstrate attenuation or be loss
free depending on the model adopted [1]. The capacitive
ladder network of a transformer winding which can be
determined by the initial distribution equation has a property
of constant output to input gain. This can be easily
determined in the frequency domain.
Previous studies have shown that the predominantly capacitive
region in the frequency domain of a transformer frequency
response is approximately constant in magnitude and phase.
This can be realized by extracting the frequency of interest
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using a digital filtering technique [2]. However there may be
some dispute with respect to the choice of model technique
used, as it is not suitable for certain types of signal that have
steep rise times, possibly 10/20 ns wavefronts and 20/30 ns
width. It is to be established whether such an approach is
suitable for various types of transformer which may have
different properties and parameters [2-3].
Considerable experimental work has been undertaken by the
authors using an interleaved transformer winding model [2-5].
Analysis has been performed using impulse-like signals
having a range of rise times and pulse widths. Since for this
experiment the only available terminals for measurement are
at the bushing and neutral lines (grounded or ungrounded), the
linear relationship of the two terminals has to be established
before attempting to locate a discharge source. This is
achieved by injecting an impulse signal at the bushing
terminal and detecting the response at the neutral point. This
experiment is repeated by injecting at the neutral with
measurement at the bushing terminal. The time-based
response is measured and transformed into the frequency
domain. The capacitive operating frequency region is
extracted based on identifying ranges of constant magnitude
and phase. This is verified through the use of network
analyser to obtain a frequency response of the whole winding.
II. THE TRANSFORMER EXPERIMENTAL MODEL
A. The Lumped Circuit Parameter Model
Consider the lumped circuit parameter model as shown in
Figure 1. The transformer model is a disc-type interleaved
winding with 7 discs. The end connections of the winding are
connected to end plates which are noted as EP in Figure 1. At
high frequency, the lumped circuit model becomes a series
connection of capacitances K/dx and inductances Ldx arranged
in parallel and series respectively. Losses are included in the
model (winding resistance and core losses) by the addition of
rdx and Rdx. Cdx and Gdx are the series capacitance and shunt
conductance that represent the damping behaviour from
winding to the ground. The relationship between each
winding is modelled by its mutual inductance denoted as a
matrix of inductance [L].
The fundamental relationships of the parameters at high
frequency can be represented by the partial differential
equation [1,6] shown in Equation 1.
 Bushing tap point is also modelled using an equivalent
capacitor CB, and the Neutral line is always referred as a
ground connection. Therefore, a linear relationship can be
found between the two terminals [2], as follows:

VL KC cosh( αx) + C N sinh( αx)

= (5)
VN KC cosh[α (l - x)] + C L sinh[α (l - x)]

IL KC C N cosh( αx) + sinh( αx)

= (6)
Fig. 1. Lumped circuit parameter model at high frequency. IN KC C L cosh[α (l - x)] + sinh[α (l - x)]

∂ 5e r ∂ 4e ∂ 4e where IL and VL are current and voltages at the bushing, IN and

rK 4
+ ( 1+ ) 4 − LK 2 2
∂x ∂t R ∂x ∂x ∂t VN are current and voltages at the neutral, CN and CL are
capacitance of the neutral and bushing respectively. Thus in
L ∂ 3e ∂ 2e ∂e (1) the case of ungrounded transformers, Ap will be large or if the
− (rC + ) 2 + LC 2 + LG = 0
R ∂x ∂t ∂t ∂t transformer is grounded AP will be very small.

By solving equation (1) and also considering the half range III. DETERMINATION OF A WINDING
sine series the complete solution for a grounded transformer TRANSFER FUNCTION
becomes:
A. The Frequency Response
Measurement of the frequency response of the interleaved
cosh( βx) − γ st πx disc windings was carried out using a network analyzer,
e= E
cosh( βl )
+E ∑A e s cosωs tcos( 2s − 1 )
2l
(2)
Agilent 4395A (Figure 2). With reference to Figure 2, ZP is
infinite for an ungrounded transformer winding and zero for
and for an ungrounded transformer: the grounded case. During the test, the measurement
frequency range was set from 100Hz to 500MHz, with a
sample bandwidth of 30Hz. It is necessary to measure the
sinh( αx) − γst sππ
e= E
sinh(αl )
+E ∑A e s cos(ω s t )sin
l
(3) frequency response at the highest frequency possible, in which
it is implicitly represents the system in order to accurately
simulate an impulse response. Therefore, due to the limitation
Where, As is an amplification factor, γs the damping factor, ωs of the network analyser, the data was taken many times and
the harmonic frequency, s the harmonic order, x the distance resampled to further refine the complete frequency response
from the neutral line, l the total length of the transformer which contains 1400 sample points.
winding, and β and α are fixed distribution factors for
grounded and ungrounded connections respectively. E is the B. The Impulse Response
input voltage, e a voltage level at distance x, and t the time The impulse response can give direct clues about multipath
vector. The equation contains two functions, the fixed propagation, of a high frequency signal or echoes and
distribution equation and the damped harmonic equation. reverberations within a transformer. From a theoretical point
Overall the solutions portray the high frequency oscillation at of view an impulse response experiment can also be used to
different points along the winding, where at any instant the determine the frequency response and transfer function of a
signal transient oscillation can be determined from the system.
harmonic damping equation.

Equations 2 and 3 have been simplified from Equation (1). By

considering the fixed distribution equation only, the full fixed
distribution equation can be written as follows:
AP cosh( αx) + sinh( αx) (4)
e= E
AP cosh( αl ) + sinh( αl) ZP

where AP is the corresponding equivalent impedance

coefficient at the end windings. However in the case of real
transformers, the only available terminals for measurement are Fig. 2. Measurement Setup for Interleaved Windings
at the Bushing tap point and Neutral lines, for which the

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 Fig. 3. Ideal Impulse Response and Black Box Model

Consider an impulse function δ(t), injected at terminal 1 on

one side of a transformer. By taking the fourier transform, it
is equivalent to a constant magnitude response in the
frequency domain for which it will excite all the system
frequencies. Figure 3, shows an illustration of an impulse
injected into a transformer model which also can be Fig. 4. Linear Relationship of Terminal Response from Frequency Response
considered as a 'Black Box' model and the related response. Measurements, averaged over 300kHz - 1MHz
The response represents the frequency response of the
transformer. Therefore the impulse response and measured
frequency response can be compared any difference being due
to the inability to experimentally generate a perfect dirac
impulse wave shape.

IV. TERMINAL LINEAR RELATIONSHIP

A. Frequency Response - Terminal Relationship

The frequency response measurement of the experimental
model (Figure 2), consists of two sets of measurements. The
first set is eight measurements from terminal 1 to 8, and the
second set measurements from terminal 8 to 1. From
theoretical point of view, if the system is linear, and the discs
are identical, comparison of the measurement data should
indicate the same magnitude and phase for sections of the
winding irregardless of direction of measurement.
Fig. 5. Fourier Transform of Impulse Response with 0.5µs pulsewidth and
The linear relationship of the bushing terminal to neutral 50ns transition
terminal (from equation 5) can be extracted by considering a
range of frequency of interest, and taking the mean of it. Figure 5 indicates that the critical frequency of this winding is
Figure 4 shows the linear combination of terminal response about 1MHz at which point the magnitude of the gain, |H(ω)|
over frequency range from 300kHz to 1MHz. The obtained (with impulse injected at bushing), increase by 15dB. At the
results clearly indicate that for the model winding used in the same frequency, the impulse response transfer function for
experiment that there is a very linear response in terms of gain impulse injected at Neutral line has a reduction of
as a function of distance along the winding. approximately -10dB.

B. Impulse Response - Terminal Relationship Between 300kHz to 1MHz, both derived frequency response
Similarly, the terminal response linear relationship can be have almost the same absolute constant value of gain |H(ω)|
found from impulse response in the frequency domain. To do equivalent to 0.8 and a constant phase angle. This shows that
this experimentally, a low voltage high transition pulse is the impulse signal has almost the same propagation path in
injected at the bushing terminal and measurement taken at the both directions from bushing to neutral terminals and from
neutral point, the same impulse signal is then injected at the neutral to bushing terminals. Therefore the capacitive
neutral terminal and the response is measured at the bushing distribution coefficient α can be determined from equation 4,
terminal. Using the FFT, the time based measurements can be for ungrounded winding as follows:
converted into the frequency domain. Figure 5 shows the ⎧ 1 ⎫
obtained frequency responses derived from the impulse α = cosh −1 ⎨ ⎬ = 0.68 (7)
response measurements. ⎩ (ω ) | ⎭
| H

202

(a)
(b)
(c)
Fig. 6. Linear Terminal Relationship with different ZP. The Bushing
capacitance, CB, used is 1000pF. (a) ZP ≅ ∞, (b)ZP ≅ 0Ω, (c)ZP ≅ 50Ω.
From Figure 4 and Figure 5, the capacitive network of the
tranformer winding can be extracted over a frequency range
from 300kHz to 1MHz. Meanwhile Figure 6 shows the
theoretical straight line bushing to neutral linear relationship,
for different possible values of ZP (0, 50Ω, ∞), calculated
using the value of α obtained in Equation 7. In the grounded
case (ZP = 0), the range of attenuation is largest over the
winding length, inferring that this condition is preferable for
PD location experiments.
V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A. Partial Discharge Location.
To visualize the PD location process, several experiments
were carried out to inject an artificial pulse that closely
matches PD pulses at various points along the experimental
winding. Figure 7 shows the measurement arrangement for
this experiment.
Pulses were injected using a pulse generator and measured
using a digital storage oscilloscope, with sampling interval of
5 × 10−7 to 5 × 10−9 seconds and 1000 sample points per
measurement. Data were both recorded at Terminal 1 (T1 or
bushing) and Terminal 8 (T8 or neutral). Two Radio
Frequency Current Transformers (CTs) were used in the
experiment for current measurement.
Several steep pulses with different transitions and pulsewidths
were used in the experiment to mimic PD signals with initial
positive peaks. Figure 8 to Figure 10 show the graphical
results of partial discharge location for different line end
terminations of ZP. In all cases the gain represents the ratio of
the average magnitude of the measured current pulses over the
frequency range 300kHz – 1MHz.
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For ZP = 0Ω, simulated PD pulses were injected with very low
voltage with different variation of pulsewidth and transition.
From Figure 8, the transformer was fully grounded, therefore
the factor AP is approximately equivalent to zero which leads
to a very low value of relative gain (-28dB to -6dB) as can be
seen from figure 6. Hence the evaluation of voltage
measurements may lead to error because the voltage values are
relatively small. Current measurements were used as an
alternative for the grounded winding measurement, which
have larger values and are more representative of discharge
magnitude.
The ground connection was now connected via a 50Ω
resistance, and current measurements taken for different types
of PD signals. There is a change in the capacitive straight line
distribution as shown in Figure 6(b), except that at bushing
terminal the gain is the same as it is still connected via the tap
point to ground. The 50Ω resistor in this experiment provides
a potential offset to the overall gain increasing towards the
neutral terminal, which significantly changes the terminal
(Bushing to Neutral) response relationship as also shown in
Figure 9.
Finally, the winding was tested with the same range of
simulated PDs for ungrounded connection. Both ends are
open circuited, hence the only suitable measurement is of
voltages. Obviously, for an ungrounded winding the voltage
measurement is easier, and the ratio of linear relationship still
holds within the range of 300kHz to 1MHz, as illustrated in
Figure 10.
It also can be seen that, the linear relationship closely matched
the theoretical line with the PD measurement (injected at
different terminals) indicating that there is a direct path of
signal propagation in this frequency region. Since the ratio of
its VL/VN is linear, the signal travels to the line end terminals
experiencing a constant gain.
CB
CT
Pulse Generator
T1
T8
CT
Fig. 7. Measurement Setup for partial discharge location using Pulse
Generator,
 VI. CONCLUSION

There are several conclusions that can be made from this

study:
1. There exists a capacitive operating region under over
frequency ranges for a transformer winding. In
which in this experiment the gain is almost constant,
and the phase is constant for ωL ≤ ωC ≤. ωU. Where
ωL is the lower frequency limit, ωU is the upper limit
and ωC is the capacitive operating frequency.
2. The PD signal propagation behaves the same under
PulseWidth=0.5µ Transition=0.5µ
different winding connections, i.e, when the winding
PulseWidth=0.5µ Transition=50n
PulseWidth=5µ Transition=5µ
is ungrounded, grounded or grounded via a 50Ω
Theoretical Line resistor.
3. The level of gain changes with choice of termination
impedance, which consequently changes the
windings capacitive distribution level.
Fig. 8. PD Location from Current Measurement for ZP ≅ 0Ω

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The first author wishes to express his gratitude to Universiti

PulseWidth=0.5µ Transition=0.5µ Kebangsaan Malaysia for giving him the opportunity to pursue
PulseWidth=0.5µ Transition=50n his Phd study and for financial support.
PulseWidth=5µ Transition=5µ
Theoretical Line
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