A generalized leakage inductance-based method for discrimination of internal faults from inrush currents

A novel scheme based on generalized leakage inductance (GLI) to distinguish the inrush current from the internal fault current in the power transformer is proposed. By eliminating the mutual flux linkage in the transformer loop equation and adopting the trapezoid principle, the GLI is calculated in the real time. According to the difference between the GLI and the leakage inductance obtained from transformer manufacturer, the criterion to identify the internal fault is developed. A total of 162 experimental cases have been tested and the proposed method is able to reliably and accurately discriminate internal faults from inrush currents with easy implementation. Also, the method is suitable if it is not possible to measure the currents in the delta winding. Furthermore, the method is independent of the B-H curve and iron losses.