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The appealing advantages of high-temperature superconducting (HTS) power transformers over conventional ones have attracted transformer manufacturing companies, power companies, research institutes, and universities worldwide to conduct research and development in this field. Unfortunately, HTS transformers are more vulnerable to mechanical stresses than conventional transformers. The results of the interaction between current carrying windings and leakage magnetic fluxes are the electromagnetic forces, which act on transformer windings. Under short circuit events, these forces are remarkable, and, therefore, catastrophic failure of transformer may arise. Flux-diverter applications have been reported in earlier literatures for increasing critical current or decreasing ac losses in HTS transformers. In this paper, a genetic algorithm based method is employed for the optimal design of flux diverter to minimize the axial short circuit force, in design stage of a sample 132/13.8 kV, 50 MVA three-phase core type HTS transformer. In this paper, the optimal dimensions, placement, and permeability of a flux diverter have been determined. It has been shown that utilizing this optimized flux diverter, the axial short circuit forces have been reduced significantly. Electromagnetic modeling and simulations, by the application of finite element method, have been employed for the verification of the analytical method results. A high degree of consistency has been observed between the analytical results and the simulation results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-temperature superconducting (HTS) transformers have remarkable appealing advantages over conventional ones. But higher brittleness of HTS windings with respect to copper windings makes HTS transformers more vulnerable in short circuit and inrush current situations. During tap changer operation, appreciable asymmetry and non-uniform distribution of ampere-turn along the windings causes high axial component of short circuit forces and makes the situation more severe. In this paper, multi-segment winding method is employed for reduction of axial short circuit forces. An analytical method is presented for calculation of axial component of short circuit forces under tap changer operation. Analytical method shows that with utilizing HLHLHLH asymmetrical multi-segment windings, during tap changer operation, the axial component of short circuit forces reduces significantly. The results of the analytical method are compared with the results of finite element method (FEM) model simulations, and the consistency is demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-temperature superconducting (HTS) transformers have a promising feature in reduction of total weight, total size, and the losses of large-scale distribution transformers. However, the lower leakage reactance of HTS transformers results in a higher short-circuit fault currents and electromagnetic forces. Therefore, optimization of short-circuit electromagnetic forces is one of the crucial aspects in the design of HTS transformers. In this paper, a novel analytical method is proposed for determination of optimum distributive ratios resulting in minimization of these forces for asymmetrical multi-segment windings of an HTS transformer. Employing these distributive ratios, radial and axial components of short-circuit electromagnetic forces in an HTS transformer are significantly reduced. Two- and three-dimensional (2D and 3D) finite element method (FEM) simulations are employed to verify the analytical method results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY Current and force calculations in different short-circuit conditions are required for short-circuit performance analysis of a multi-winding traction transformer which is one of the most important requirements in its design process. This paper extends the available low-frequency three-winding star equivalent circuits to develop a novel equivalent circuit for the four-winding traction transformers. The leakage inductances of the traction transformer are determined and employed to calculate the parameters of this developed star model. It is shown that the star equivalent circuit is a valid and appropriate model to simulate the steady-state and dynamic performance of the traction transformer under different short-circuit conditions. To analyze the short-circuit performance of the transformer, the short-circuit currents (simulated by the introduced model) are employed to compute the electromagnetic forces for a typical dry-type traction transformer. The analytical and numerical methods are used for short-circuit force calculations, and those results are compared against each other. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The online condition assessment of circuit breakers (CBs) has been increasingly requested by power utilities in recent years. Trip and close coil current (CC) signature is an effective and noninvasive parameter in CB online condition monitoring. This paper gives an insight into the impacts of the various failures on the coil current waveform, as well as on the CB operation time. The failures and their causes are categorized based on the outcome of these investigations. Finally, a new algorithm using trip/close CC is proposed to detect the mode and cause of CB incipient failures. In this study, the CC patterns are acquired by measurements carried out on (healthy and faulty) CBs of 72.5-kV and 24-kV rating voltages, having SF6 insulation medium, and are equipped with a spring-drive mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Time-variant axial and radial electromagnetic for ces under inrush current and short-circuit current are calculated (by finite element method; FEM) and compared. A simplified analytic method is presented for computation of inrush current in transformer. The simulation results obtained by this method are compared with the measured values. A compact three-phase, core-type 132/20 KV, 30 MVA, power transformer is modeled, employing two-dimensional (2D) FEM, the different forces under short-circuit and inrush current conditions are evaluated as a function of time. The simulation results for this sample transformer show that the inrush current axial force is larger than clamping force (which is equal to the net downward axial force that is exerted on the windings during the steady state short-circuit condition) even 2.4 s after energizing the transformer. Since the inrush current lasts longer and normally occurs more frequently than a short-circuit current in a power transformer (while, at present, it is not covered by the standard tests or transformer design procedures), it can be a serious threat to damage of transformer windings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Optimal design of auxiliary windings has been performed for an HTS transformer. • Leakage fluxes and short circuit forces have been reduced significantly. • Finite element method modeling has verified the theoretical formulations. Mitigation and control of leakage fluxes and short circuit forces needs much more attention, for a high-temperature superconducting (HTS) transformer, than for a conventional one. Different methods such as the application of auxiliary windings, multi-segment winding, and flux diverter have been presented in the literatures for leakage magnetic field reduction in HTS transformers. In this paper, for the first time, optimal design of auxiliary windings has been performed for a 132/13.8 kV, 50 MVA three phase core type HTS transformer. Genetic algorithm (GA) has been used for the optimization process. Induced current in auxiliary windings which is inversely proportional to the leakage fluxes and short circuit forces has been considered as the objective function. An analytical method has been proposed in this paper which formulates the objective function in terms of the self and mutual inductances of the main and auxiliary windings. Consequently, the optimal parameters of the auxiliary windings have been determined. It is shown that utilizing the optimized auxiliary windings design, the leakage fluxes, the radial and the axial components of the short circuit forces are reduced significantly. Two-dimensional electromagnetic field simulations using finite element method (FEM) by application of COMSOL multiphysics software have verified the theoretical formulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]