Comparative Study and Analysis of DGA Methods for Transformer Mineral Oil

Dissolved gas-in-oil analysis (DGA) is a sensitive and reliable technique for the detection of incipient fault condition within oil-immersed transformers. The presence of certain key gases is monitored and quantified. There are a number of methods developed for analyzing these gases and interpreting their significance: Key Gas, Rogers Ratio, Doernenburg, Logarithmic Nomograph, IEC Ratio and Duval Triangle. This paper investigates the accuracy and consistency of these methods in interpreting the transformer condition. The evaluation is carried out on DGA data obtained from the local power utilities and from published papers. The data consists of 92 different cases. The key gases considered are hydrogen, methane, ethane, ethylene and acetylene. A MATLAB program was developed to automate the evaluation of the methods.