A Vector-based Approach to Discriminate Radial Deformation and Axial Displacement of Transformer Winding and Determine Defect Extent

The transfer function is a well-known method to detect mechanical defects of transformer windings. After measurement of transfer functions, they must be evaluated to detect any anomaly in transformer windings. One of the main problems in this stage is lack of transparency. This article tries to solve this problem through a vector space-based perspective to diagnose radial deformation and axial displacement of transformer windings. To determine the severity of the winding deformation or displacement, the angular proximity index is used. The measurement results show the effectiveness of this index. Based on the verified model of the transformer, a dimensionality reduction technique is applied to transformer's transfer function to map it from its original high-dimensional vector space to a lower-dimensional one. It is shown that transfer functions of radially deformed and axially displaced windings are well separated visually in the reduced space.