Applied Acoustics 101 (2016) 104–114

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Applied Acoustics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apacoust

Vibration characteristics of a disk-type winding simulated by coupled

concentric rings q
Ming Jin, Jie Pan ⇑
School of Mechanical and Chemical Engineering, The University of Western Australia, WA 6009, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Mechanical faults in the winding are often related to the changes in the vibro-acoustical response of the
Received 4 October 2014 transformers with respect to the electromagnetic force in winding. Understanding of the effects of the
Received in revised form 13 August 2015 faults on the vibration characteristics of transformer windings is useful when diagnosing winding faults
Accepted 19 August 2015
using transformer’s vibration signature, and when predicting the environmental noise emission from
Available online 31 August 2015
transformers. In this paper, mechanical faults, such as failure of interlayer insulation pressboards and
local winding deformations, of the disk-type windings in a 110-kV power transformer, and their effects
Keywords:
on the vibration responses of the windings are presented. The disk-type windings are also experimentally
Transformer condition monitoring
Winding vibration
modeled by a stack of coupled concentric rings with well-defined faults. A good qualitative agreement is
Winding failures found between measured responses of the power transformer and of the stack of coupled concentric
Vibration of coupled rings rings. The dependence of the response of the stack on increasing degree of faults provides useful details
for understanding the cumulative effect of the faults on the winding’s vibration characteristics. Methods
for identifying the location and severity of the faults based on the measured vibration responses are also
outlined.
Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction pressboards, aging of winding insulation paper, local deformations.

Power transformers are some of the most important compo-
nents in the power industry. Failure of an in-service power trans-
former may cause a huge economic loss, and environmental
impact including increased transformer hum noise during the
development of the faults that cause the failure. Although the
primary cause of power transformer failures is a problem in the
load tap-changer (40%), and faults in the winding are secondary
(15–20%), the latter can be much more lethal [1,2]. A serious wind-
ing fault is often impossible to repair, and the only solution is to
replace the failed transformer, which may cost millions of dollars.
Therefore, monitoring and early detection of the causes of winding
failures are of practical importance.
Vibration-based method have been used for the condition mon-
itoring and noise analysis of power transformers for a few decades
[3–5]. Many faults (causes of winding failure) are associated with
changes in the winding’s mechanical conditions, such as a
reduction in clamping pressure, the shifting or loss of insulation
q
Part of this paper was presented at the 21st International Congress of Sound and
Vibration 2014, as a conference paper entitled as ‘‘Effect of deformation on the
vibration characteristics of circular rings”.
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 08 6488 3600; fax: +61 08 6488 1024.
E-mail address: jie.pan@uwa.edu.au (J. Pan).
These changes are often accompanied by changes in the winding’s
vibration characteristics, in terms of resonance frequencies and
mode shapes.
Most of the previous research on the winding vibration is based
on the empirical analysis of the vibration measured from in-service
transformers. The work by García et al. [6,7] has verified that the
winding vibration excited by electromagnetic force at a fundamen-
tal frequency, 100 Hz, is approximately proportional to the square
of the loading current at 50 Hz:
V 100Hz ¼ aI250Hz ; ð1Þ
where the model coefficient a is an indicator for diagnosing the
condition of the windings. In practice, rather than using one coeffi-
cient a of the vibration at the fundamental frequency, a set of coef-
ficients of the fundamental and harmonic vibration components
with several correction parameters is utilized. For example, Berler
et al. [4] found that when the winding clamping force reduces, both
the high-order harmonics of the vibration and noise of the trans-
former increase. Based on this finding, they used 30 system coeffi-
cients and correction parameters to detect the looseness of
winding clamping force. However, without the understanding of
physical relationship between the vibration characteristics of the
windings and the faults, the diagnosis of the details of the faults

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apacoust.2015.08.009
0003-682X/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 M. Jin, J. Pan / Applied Acoustics 101 (2016) 104–114
becomes difficult because the looseness of winding clamping force
is one the several faults that can cause the changes in the vibration
and noise of the transformer [7,8]. On the other hand, leading man-
ufacturers of power transformers [9] already demonstrated poten-
tial in reducing the transformer noise emission at design,
manufacturing and installation phases of the transformers.
Therefore, an examination of the vibration features of windings
with different faults is necessary not only for the development of a
vibration-based condition monitoring method for detecting the
faults, but also for the development of models for predicting and
controlling transformer noise by optimal adjustment of trans-
former’s internal structure and material properties.
This paper presents an experimental study on the effects of two
common faults on the vibration behaviors of disk-type windings of
a transformer. This study was first conducted on the windings of a
110-kV power transformer, and then extended to a stack of cou-
pled concentric rings. The focuses of this study are to demonstrate
the changes in the winding’s vibration features (their vibration fre-
quency response and mode shapes) with respect to different
degrees of the winding faults.
2. Experiment on a 110-kV power transformer
The tested transformer is a three-phase 110-kV power trans-
former manufactured by JSHP Transformers Ltd. (see Fig. 1). All
the experiments were conducted on a testing platform in the factory
so that the ambient noise was very small. During the experiment, all
Fig. 1. (A) The photo of the tested 110-kV power transformer and (B) its sketch.
105
the accessory structures were removed. The dimensions of the
transformer are listed in Table 1.
To measure the vibration frequency response of the transformer
windings, a large impact hammer is used to apply force on the top
clamping plate of each winding in the axial direction, and the axial
and radial vibrations of the winding were measured by twenty-
four accelerometers at twelve locations on the external surface of
the primary winding (see Fig. 2). The primary winding is the
high-voltage (HV) winding. It has 86 turns, and the accelerometers
were evenly distributed on the winding. For example, accelerome-
ters S1–S5 were located at the 13th, 28th, 43rd, 58th, and 73rd
turns of the winding, respectively.
The vibration frequency responses of the windings without
faults were measured first. Then, two faults, namely failure of
winding interlayer insulation pressboards and local arc-sharped
winding deformations, were introduced into the windings. The first
fault was introduced into the phase B winding (the center winding
in Fig. 1), while the second fault was simulated on the windings of
Phase C winding (the right winding in Fig. 1). As these faults are
usually produced by the excessive loading currents, they were arti-
ficially built in the secondary (low-voltage) parts of Phase B and C.
Because the low-voltage (LV) parts are located inside of the wind-
ings, the faults were invisible from the outside of the windings.
Failure of interlayer insulation pressboards is a common fault in
disk-type windings. Transformer windings are composed of copper
conductors and winding insulation materials. Because the copper
is much stiffer than the winding insulation materials consisting
106 M. Jin, J. Pan / Applied Acoustics 101 (2016) 104–114

Table 1
Dimensions of the 110-kV transformer.

Tank length Lt Tank height ht Tank width Wt Tank thickness Tt

4990 mm 2880 mm 1670 mm 8 mm
Core length Lc Core height hc Core diameter dc Core window Cw
3270 mm 2730 mm 620 mm 1530 mm
Primary winding Primary Secondary Secondary
diameter dp winding height winding diameter winding height
hp ds hs
1119 mm 1330 mm 822 mm 1340 mm

of cellulose fibers, the overall mechanical strength of the windings

is mainly determined by the mechanical properties of the winding
insulation materials, especially the interlayer insulation press-
boards [10,11]. As a result, any fault which may causes the changes
in the mechanical properties of the pressboard must affect the
vibration characteristics of the windings.
In the experiment, the thicknesses of the interlayer insulation
pressboards on the top 30% of the LV winding were reduced by
50% to simulate the failure of interlayer insulation pressboards.
Fig. 3 shows the vibration frequency responses of the winding with
and without this fault. The results were measured at location S1.
The mode densities in the frequency range of interest are almost
the same for the two cases. By comparing the resonance frequen-
cies of the corresponding peaks, it is found that the resonance fre-
quencies of the winding with the fault are higher than that of
normal winding. For example, the resonance frequency of the 1st
peak is 69 Hz in the faulted winding, while it is 65 Hz in the normal
winding. Data measured at other locations on the windings show
the same features.
The local winding deformation is typically caused by the huge
electromagnetic force generated by the large short-circuit current
in the windings. The deformation is often observed to take the
form of a local arc-shaped surface and occurs at around half the
height of the windings, where the maximum radial electromag-
netic force is located. A large deformation is a threat to the electri-
cal stability and mechanical strength of the windings and may
Fig. 3. Comparison of the vibration frequency responses between normal windings
and windings missing interlayer insulation pressboards (for clarity, the bottom
curve is offset from the one above it by 40 dB).
cause serious problems, such as increased electrical loss, loss of
winding stability, and damage to insulation materials. Most previ-
ous research on this fault was based on the electrical methods [13–
15] for detecting the winding deformation. There was very little
work on the vibration characteristics of deformed windings. Shao
et al. presented a vibration frequency response of a deformed
disk-type winding, [8] but the indented deformation (into the
winding surface) used in their experiment was produced artifi-
cially by a mallet impact, which is quite different from a real arc-
shaped deformation (out of the winding surface).
An arc-shaped deformation is introduced on the top 30% part of
the LV winding (Phase C) in this 110-kV power transformer (see
Fig. 4). The frequency responses of the axial vibration measured
at location S7 are shown in Fig. 5. A clear difference between the
normal winding and the faulted winding is that the mode density

Fig. 2. Experimental setting for measuring the vibration response of the windings.
 M. Jin, J. Pan / Applied Acoustics 101 (2016) 104–114
Fig. 4. The local deformation introduced into the 110-kV power transformer.
of the faulted winding is obviously higher than that of the normal
winding. In other words, more resonance peaks can be observed
from the response curve of the faulted winding. This phenomenon
can be found at all measurement points. Furthermore, the vibra-
tion response of the faulted winding is 11 dB higher at 100 Hz than
that of the normal winding (see Fig. 5). This result also indicates
that the radiated sound of the faulted winding will also increase
at this frequency component.
In summary, the effects of these two faults on the vibration fre-
quency response of the windings are: (1) for failure of interlayer
pressboards, the resonance frequencies of the winding shift to
the high frequency end when the thickness of pressboards
decreases; and (2) for local winding deformation, the mode density
of the winding vibration increases.
To explain the observed change in winding vibration response
due to these faults, a further investigation was undertaken to sim-
ulate these faults of winding on a more controllable experimental
rig. In this experimental simulation, different degrees of faults is
introduced into the model so that sufficient data can be obtained
for analyzing the cumulative effect of the causes of failure and
explaining mechanisms of their effects on the winding vibration
characteristics.
Fig. 5. Comparison of the vibration frequency responses between normal windings
and deformed windings (for clarity, the bottom curve is offset from the one above it
by 40 dB).
107
3. Disk-type winding vs coupled-ring stack
The disk-type windings are widely used in high-power-rating
transformers. They are constructed as a stack consisting of a series
of continuous wound disks (see Fig. 6). The winding conductor is
wrapped by insulation paper and its cross-section is a rectangular
shape. Interlayer insulation pressboards are inserted into the
spaces between the disks. This design enhances the insulation abil-
ity and allows the cooling oil to flow through the entire winding for
better cooling efficiency. However, the complex structure of disk-
type windings makes the understanding of their vibration charac-
teristics difficult. It is desirable to use the coupled concentric rings
to simulate the disk-type winding, as the vibration features of the
rings are well known and their analytical model can be readily
established [17,18]. Using coupled rings also provides convenience
in the experiment. The geometrical properties of the coupled rings
can be easily modified for different experimental requirements. For
those simulations of winding faults such as local winding deforma-
tion, rings with defined local deformation can be manufactured by
laser cutting.
However before the coupled rings can be used to represent the
disk-type winding, the similarities and differences of the vibration
behaviors between these two structures need to be examined first.
Fig. 7 shows a disk-type winding and a stack of coupled-rings. Both
of them are made of the same material (aluminum alloy 5052) and
have five layers of disks. There are five turns in each disk. The radii
of the rings range from 60 mm to 100 mm in 10-mm increments.
The rings are defined as Ring 1 to Ring 5 from the outer ring to
the inner ring. The cross-sectional area of the rings is
10 mm  5 mm. The winding disk also has five turns and the same
cross-sectional area. The mass of the disk-type winding equals the
total mass of the coupled-ring stack (both are 1610 g). Sixteen
insulation blocks are evenly inserted into the spaces between each
two turns/rings from locations L1 to L16. These coupling elements
are used to represent the overall effect of insulation paper wrapped
around the winding conductor on the winding vibration. Sixteen
insulation sticks were inserted between adjacent layers of disks
and between the clamping plates and the stacks to simulate the
interlayer insulation pressboards in a transformer winding. The
parameters of the insulation materials are listed in Table 2. The
tested objectives were stacked between two steel clamping plates
in the experiment. The weight of each clamping plate is 7.2 kg. The
vibration tests of the winding and coupled-ring stack were con-
ducted in a well-controlled laboratory, and the external noise
was neglectable. The winding and the coupled-ring stack were
both excited by an impact hammer at Turn 1 and Ring 1 at location
L1 of the top layer in the transverse (radial) direction and the axial
direction. Their vibrations in the two directions were measured on
the external and internal surfaces of the two stacks.
Fig. 8 compares the vibration frequency responses of the two
structures. Their vibration responses have similar trends. The main
difference is that the resonance frequencies of the disk-type wind-
ing are lower than those of the coupled-ring stack. For example, the
frequency difference of the 2nd mode of the stacks in the trans-
verse direction is 6.85% (winding disk stack: 1373 Hz, coupled-
ring stack: 1467 Hz). This suggests that the stiffness of the overall
structure of the winding is lower than that of the coupled-ring
stack. The components in the coupled rings have no disconnected
ends, while the winding has two loosing ends, which are the causes
of the reduced stiffness. An analogy of this explanation comes from
the fact that the resonance frequencies of a free beam are lower
than those of the same beam clamped at both ends.
Fig. 9 gives the mode shapes of the first two resonance frequen-
cies of axial vibration measured at the top layer of the winding and
the coupled-ring stack. It is clear that the mode shapes of the two
108 M. Jin, J. Pan / Applied Acoustics 101 (2016) 104–114

Fig. 6. Disk-type windings (the schematic on the right is taken from Ref. [16]).

Fig. 7. (A) Five layers of the disk-type winding and (B) five layers of the coupled-ring stack.

Table 2 clamped on the base of the transformer tank by some clamping

Parameters of the insulation elements. accessories. For long-service transformers, looseness of the wind-
Parameter Insulation block Insulation stick ing clamping caused by the cumulative effect of the vibration of
Mass 0.8 g 1.6 g
winding and core is a very common failure mode. The vibration
Dimension 12 mm  10mm  5 mm 50 mm  5 mm  4:5 mm characteristics of a transformer winding with this fault has been
Stiffness 2.75  105 N/m 5.20  105 N/m reported [19–21]. When the winding clamping force reduces, the
Damping 1.00 Ns/m 1.80 Ns/m resonance frequencies of the winding shift to the low frequency
end since the overall mechanical strength (stiffness) of the winding
decreases. It is proposed that the same vibration features should be
structures are almost the same. This same agreement is observed observed when this fault is simulated on the coupled-ring stack.
on each turn/ring and in both transverse and axial vibrations, The experimental rig is shown in Fig. 10. Four bolts were
which indicates that the vibration distributions of these two struc- mounted between the clamping plates to apply a clamping force
tures are also very close.
In order to provide some further evidence that the coupled-ring
stack is competent to demonstrate the characteristics of the disk-
type transformer winding, particularly the vibration features of a
failed winding, a common transformer winding problem is simu-
lated on the coupled-ring stack. Transformer windings are typically

Fig. 8. Vibration frequency responses of the winding disk stack and coupled-ring
stack (A) in transverse direction and (B) in axial direction. Fig. 9. The first two mode shapes of the coupled-ring stack and disk-type winding.
 M. Jin, J. Pan / Applied Acoustics 101 (2016) 104–114
Fig. 10. The experimental rig of the coupled-ring stack with different clamping
force.
on the coupled-ring stack. To measure the clamping force, full-
bridge strain gauges were attached to each bolt to pick up its axial
strain. In the experiment, the vibration response of the stack was
tested under three different clamping conditions (Test 1 to Test 3)
corresponding to the clamping force at approximately 2400 N,
1600 N, and 800 N, respectively. Fig. 11 shows the transverse and
axial vibration frequency responses of the stack with respect to a
point force excitation again at L1. It is obvious that the resonance
peaks of both responses shift to the low-frequency end when the
clamping force is reduced. For example, the frequency shifts of
the 2nd peak from Test 1 to Test 3 are 22.2% in the axial direction
and 4.5% in the transverse direction. This experimental observation
agrees with the previous research on the real transformer windings.
The above comparisons show the similar vibration features of
the disk-type winding and the coupled-ring stack, and indicate
the relevance of studying the coupled rings to the vibration prop-
erties of the winding. In the remaining parts of this paper, the
coupled-ring stack is used to examine the effects of another two
winding failure modes on the vibration characteristics of the stack.
Fig. 11. Vibration frequency responses of the coupled-ring stack with different
clamping force (A) in transverse direction and (B) in axial direction (for clarity, each
curve is offset from the one beneath it by 5 dB).
109
In order to confirm the experimental results, each simulation is
repeated several times to ensure that the experimental observa-
tions are truly caused by the faults, rather than due to the mea-
surement errors.
4. Failure of interlayer insulation pressboards
In the simulation on the 110-kV power transformer, the failure
of interlayer insulation pressboards was introduced into the wind-
ing by decreasing the thickness of the pressboards. To repeat the
simulation on the coupled-ring stack, three groups of insulation
sticks with different thickness were inserted into the gaps of the
first three layers of ring disks (see Fig. 12). The thickness of the
three groups of insulation sticks are 6 mm, 4.5 mm and 3 mm
respectively, and the rest of insulation sticks in the coupled-ring
stack are 4.5 mm. The material of all the insulation sticks is the
same. For clarity, these three tests are named as Test 1, Test 2
and Test 3. The stack was excited by the impact hammer at Ring
1 at location L1 of the top layer in two directions. Compared with
the former experiment on the transformer, which only provided
one result for a faulted winding in the axial direction, this simula-
tion on the coupled-ring stack is able to demonstrate the effect of
different degrees of failure on the vibration responses in both
transverse and axial directions.
Fig. 13 displays the measured vibration responses of the
coupled-ring stack in the three tests, which show the different fea-
tures in the two directions. In the transverse, no obvious difference
is found. But a clear frequency increase of the resonance peaks can
be observed in the axial direction. For instance, the highest order
peak in Test 1 is at 3086 Hz. It is 3221 Hz in Test 2, and increases
to 3395 Hz in Test 3. This frequency shift in the axial direction
agrees with the observation obtained from the simulation on the
110-kV power transformer.
The interlayer insulation sticks play a vital role in mechanically
supporting the axial integrity of the coupled-ring stack. The
decrease of the thickness of these insulation sticks leads to an
increase of their stiffness, which enhances the overall mechanical
strength of the stack in the axial direction. As a result, the reso-
nance frequencies of the stack move to high frequency end. How-
ever, in the transverse direction, the effect of the insulation sticks
on the stack vibration is mainly presented as the friction between
the ring disk and the insulation sticks, which is not affected by the
thickness of the insulation sticks. Thus the vibration response of
the stack in the transverse direction is hardly changed in the three
tests.
Fig. 12. Locations of the gaps between the first three layers of ring disks on the
coupled-ring stack.
110 M. Jin, J. Pan / Applied Acoustics 101 (2016) 104–114
Fig. 13. Vibration frequency responses of the coupled-ring stack with different
thickness of interlayer sticks (A) in transverse direction and (B) in axial direction
(for clarity, each curve is offset from the one beneath it by 10 dB).
The change of the mechanical properties of the winding inter-
layer insulation pressboards may be caused by different failures,
such as the abrasion, aging or missing of the pressboards. The
coupled-ring stack provide an experimental rig to simulation some
other failure modes related to the pressboards. In practical, the
change of the thickness of the pressboards due to transformer fail-
ures is rare, and a much more common failure mode is missing of
winding interlayer insulation pressboards. When a transformer
experiences the shock due to a huge current, the transient vibra-
tion of the winding structure increases enormously, and the insu-
lation components may fall out of the interlayer spacing of the
windings. This problem is common in long-serving power trans-
formers and traction transformers that frequently experience the
impacts of huge currents [12]. The vibration features of winding
with this cause in practical transformer windings have been inves-
tigated by some researchers [7,8]. The previous work demon-
strated that this fault indeed affects the vibration response of
windings, but, because of the structural variation of the tested
windings and different experimental settings, it is difficult to
extract the common features of this fault.
To simulate missing interlayer pressboards on the coupled-ring
stack, some insulation sticks were removed from the stack (see
Fig. 14(B)). Three tests were conducted to examine the effects of
increasing numbers of missing sticks on the vibration response of
the stack. In the first test, a whole column of sticks (from the top
disk to the bottom disk) between L1 and L16 were removed. Then
two extra adjacent columns (between L2 and L1, and between L16
and L15) were removed. In the last test, another two adjacent col-
umns (L3 and L2, and L15 and L14) were removed. For clarity, these
three tests are called Test 1 to Test 3. The excitation force applied
on the stack was the same with the previous tests.
Fig. 15 shows the vibration frequency responses of the stack
under the three different test conditions. When the number of
missing sticks increases, the peak frequencies in the vibration
responses shift to the low frequency end. Such a frequency shift
in axial vibration is more obvious than that in transverse vibration.
Decreased axial stiffness in the stack due to the missing interlayer
sticks is the main cause of the shift of the peak frequencies toward
the lower frequency range. On the other hand, the mechanical
strength in the transverse direction is mainly determined by the
insulation blocks between rings, and the effect of insulation sticks
on the transverse vibration of the stack is secondary (or at most
comparable with that by the inter-ring blocks). As a result, the shift
in peak frequencies in the transverse vibration is not as significant
as that in the axial vibration. For example, the frequency of the
highest order peak of the axial vibration shifts from 3237 Hz in
Test 1 to 3011 Hz in Test 3 (6.95%), while it moves from 3362 Hz
to 3231 Hz (3.89%) for the transverse vibration.
Locating the faults on the winding will enhance the understand-
ing of the vibration distribution of the transformer winding. To
identify the locations of the missing insulation sticks, the trans-
verse mode shapes of the stack at the resonance frequencies were
measured. As the normal coupled-ring stack is axially symmetric,
the orientation of its mode shapes is only determined by the exci-
tation condition, which is the only directive factor in the system,
and the location of the excitation force coincides with the anti-
nodes of each mode shape. However, when some interlayer sticks
are removed, the stack becomes asymmetrical and the angular ori-
entation of the modes may shift from the original direction to the
location of the missed insulation sticks.
Surprisingly, the experimental results do not support the above
hypothesis. For example, Fig. 16 gives the 1st mode shape of the
rings in Test 2 measured at the top layer of the stack. The excitation
force was applied at two different locations, and it is obvious that
this mode shape always points to the excitation location, and is not
affected by the missing sticks. The same phenomenon can be
observed in all modes of the rings in both transverse and axial
directions. The absence of insulation sticks introduces an asymme-
try to the support conditions of the coupled-ring stack, but does
not change the geometrical symmetry of the rings. The experimen-
tal results demonstrate that the slight asymmetrical effect due to
the absence of insulation sticks is not strong enough to change
the orientation of the mode shapes of the rings.
However, the absence of a local stiffness component (such as
the insulation sticks) can be most effectively detected by measur-
ing the relative axial displacement at the same angular position
and between the adjacent layers. The axial displacement response
at location ðzi ; rj ; hk Þ of the stack is given by Hi;j;k ðxÞ (for instance,
H2;1;3 ðxÞ is the axial displacement of Ring 1 on the 2nd layer of
the stack and measured at angular location L3). Then the elastic
force (per unit excitation force) owing to the stiffness coefficient
K i;iþ1 of the interlayer insulation element between the rings ði; jÞ
and ði þ 1; jÞ at this angular location hk can be measured as:
r^ ði;jÞ;ðiþ1;jÞ ðhk ; xÞ ¼ K i;iþ1 ½Hi;j;k ðxÞ  Hiþ1;j;k ðxÞ: ð2Þ
This elastic force provides a bounding constraint to the relative
motion between the rings ði; jÞ and ði þ 1; jÞ at hk . A significant
increase in j½Hi;j;k ðxÞ  Hiþ1;j;k ðxÞj may be observed if K i;iþ1 and thus
the bounding force drop to zero when the insulation element is
removed. Therefore, a frequency-averaged difference in the axial
response may be used to measure the spatial variation due to the
absence of insulation sticks:
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Z x2
1XN1
1
dðhk Þ ¼ jHi;j¼1;k ðxÞ  Hiþ1;j¼1;k ðxÞj2 dx; ð3Þ
N i¼1 x2  x1 x1
where j ¼ 1 corresponds to the external rings (Ring 1) and N is the
total number of disks in the coupled-ring stack. Fig. 17 shows dðhk Þ
at the sixteen angular locations of the external rings of the stack,
and the frequency range is from 10 Hz to 4000 Hz. It clearly indi-
cates the locations of the missing interlayer sticks.
In summary, the observed vibration features of the coupled-ring
stack in relation to the failures of interlayer insulation components
are: (1) the peak frequencies of the vibration response shift to the
higher-frequency end if the thickness of the interlayer insulation
components reduces, (2) the peak frequencies of the vibration
response shift to the low-frequency end if some of the interlayer
insulation components are removed, and (3) the locations of the
partial missing insulation components are sensitive to the
frequency-averaged difference between the axial vibration
responses of the coupled-ring stack.
 M. Jin, J. Pan / Applied Acoustics 101 (2016) 104–114
Fig. 14. (A) Missing interlayer insulation components in the winding and (B) a coupled-ring stack with insulation sticks between L1 and L16 removed.
Fig. 15. Vibration frequency responses of the coupled-ring stack with missing of
interlayer sticks (A) in transverse direction and (B) in axial direction (for clarity,
each curve is offset from the one beneath it by 10 dB).
5. Local winding deformation
The local winding deformation was simulated on the coupled-
ring stack. Fig. 18(B) shows the experimental rig and a sketch of a
deformed ring. R is the external radius of the original ring. A circular
arc is added to the ring to simulate the arc-shaped local deforma-
tion. The external radius of the local deformation is r, and d is the
distance between the centers of the two circles. Therefore, the max-
imum deformation from the original ring is D ¼ r þ d  R. Three
coupled-ring stacks with increased deformations D were tested
for examining the accumulated effects of the deformation on the
vibration characteristics of the stacks. For clarity, these tests are
Fig. 16. The 1st mode shapes of the coupled-ring stack.
111
called Test 1 to Test 3. The geometric dimensions of the deformed
rings used in the stacks are listed in Table 3.
Because the deformed rings used in this experiment were made
by laser cutting, this simulation only represents the effect of defor-
mation due to a change in geometry. Some other effects on the
vibration response, such as stress concentration and the fatigue
of materials, resulting from the deformation are outside the scope
of this experiment.
The frequency responses of the transverse and axial vibrations
of the stacks are given in Fig. 19. With increased deformation,
the peak frequencies of the responses shift to the low frequency
end. The frequency shift can be observed over the whole frequency
range, which is similar to the phenomenon observed when the
coupled-ring stack had an increased number of missing interlayer
sticks. A detailed explanation of the changes in the vibration char-
acteristics with increased deformation requires a clear understand-
ing of the coupling of the transverse waves as they are scattered by
the local inhomogeneities caused by the deformation in the circu-
lar rings. However, only a qualitative interpretation will be pro-
vided here. The inclusion of deformation effectively increased the
overall length and average radius of the rings in the stack. Further-
more, the geometrical deformation also slightly increased the over-
all mass of the rings (1.2% heavier). All these effects inevitably
contribute to the decrease in resonance frequencies of the stacks.
Other observations are the split resonance peaks and increased
bandwidth in the frequency responses as the deformation
increases. This phenomenon can be clearly observed at the first
and second resonance frequencies in the axial vibration. However,
the peak-splitting phenomenon was not found in the response of
the transverse vibration. The splitting of the resonance peaks
increases the mode density of the structure, which agrees with
the observation of the experiment on the 110-kV power
transformer.
The split peaks suggest that the deformation breaks the symme-
try of the circular rings and causes the original degenerate modes
to have different resonance frequencies. As a result, mode shapes
corresponding to the resonance frequencies can be identified, as
the orientation of mode shapes is affected by the asymmetry of
the rings. Compared to the case of rings with missing interlayer
sticks, the deformation of rings directly adds significant asymme-
try to the structure. Therefore, it may change the orientation of
the mode shapes. Fig. 20 shows the measured 1st and 2nd mode
shapes of the split peaks in the axial direction. They were mea-
sured at the top layer of the coupled-ring stack. An interesting
observation is that the mode shapes at the lower peak-
frequencies always have one of their antinodes toward the location
of deformation, while those at the upper peak-frequencies have
one of their anti-nodes toward the location of the impact force, just
112 M. Jin, J. Pan / Applied Acoustics 101 (2016) 104–114

Fig. 17. The frequency averaged difference between the axial vibration responses of the coupled-ring stack, indicating the locations of the missed insulation sticks.

Fig. 18. (A) A deformed winding and (B) the coupled-ring stack for simulating local winding deformation.

Table 3
Geometric dimensions of the deformed rings.

Ring No. R (mm) r (mm) D (mm)

Test 1 Test 2 Test 3
Ring 1 100 55 3 6 9
Ring 2 90 45 3 6 9
Ring 3 80 35 3 6 9
Ring 4 70 25 3 6 9
Ring 5 60 15 3 6 9

Fig. 20. Mode shapes of the axial vibration of the coupled-ring stack with
deformation described by Test 3.

like the perfect circular rings. This phenomenon provides an exper-

Fig. 19. Vibration frequency responses of the coupled-ring stacks (A) in transverse
direction and (B) in axial direction (for clarity, each curve is offset from the one
beneath it by 10 dB).
imental method to detect the location of the deformation on the
stack, and it is suggested that the vibration and the radiated sound
of the deformed winding may have a clear directivity at certain fre-
 M. Jin, J. Pan / Applied Acoustics 101 (2016) 104–114
quency components which can be used for failure detection and
noise control.
In summary, the arc-shaped deformation of the coupled-ring
stacks has several effects on the vibration response: (1) it decreases
the peak frequencies; (2) it causes a splitting of the first couple of
resonance peaks in the axial vibration response; and (3) it results
in the antinode position of the mode shape of the lower frequency
peak in the pair of split peaks always pointing toward the location
of the deformation.
6. Discussions
Figs. 10 and 11 show the effect of the looseness of winding
clamping force on the vibration response of the coupled-ring stack.
The vibration response of a real transformer winding with this
fault has been reported by other researchers, they qualitatively
support the vibration features observed from the coupled-ring
stack. Furthermore, the vibration features observed from the
coupled-ring stack with another two faults (missing of interlayer
insulation pressboards and winding deformation) also agree, in
principle, with the experimental results obtained from the
110-kV power transformer with the same the faults [19–21]. As
demonstrated in this paper, the vibration features with these two
different faults are quite different and thus can be used to
distinguish one of them from the other.
If a local deformation is introduced into one of two identical
stacks, the frequency response of the stack with fault should have
higher mode density than that of the normal one, which could be
used as an indicator of this fault. The same method can be utilized
for the real transformer.
7. Conclusions
Winding faults are the causes of failures of power transformers.
Most of winding problems affect the vibration characteristics of the
winding. Detecting these faults in on-line power transformers
based on their vibration signatures is practically significant for
the safe operation and noise control of power transformers. The
challenge associated with the faults detection comes from the
identification of different winding faults from the measured data,
as this requires a clear understanding of the vibration features of
the faulted windings. The work reported in this paper was a series
of experimental investigations into the vibration features of disk-
type transformer windings with some common faults.
Two faults, namely failure of interlayer insulation pressboards
and local winding deformation, were artificially introduced into
the disk-type windings of a 110-kV power transformer in order
to test their effects on the axial vibration responses of the wind-
ings. Then the same faults were simulated on a simplified winding
model, a coupled-ring stack, to verify the observation from the
transformer test. By controlling the degree of faults on the
coupled-ring stack, the simulation was able to provide a clear trend
of the cumulative effects of these failure modes. Based on the
experimental results obtained from the 110-kV power transformer
and the corresponding simulation on the coupled-ring stack, the
main vibration features of the failure modes are:
1. The overall mechanical strength of the stack is affect by the inter-
layer insulation components. The reduction of the thickness of
the insulation component leads to the increase of the resonance
frequencies of the stack in the axial direction. For missing some
interlayer insulation components, all the resonance frequencies
of the structure are reduced. A greater reduction in resonance
frequencies of the axial vibration is observed.
113
2. The arc-shaped local deformation also leads to a reduction of
the resonance frequencies. Meanwhile, some resonance peaks
of the axial vibration split into pairs of peaks and the gap
between each pair of split peaks increases with the degree of
deformation.
The dissimilarity of the vibration features of these faults shows
that it is possible to detect and identify different faults in trans-
former windings based on the changes in resonance frequencies.
Measurement of the distributed vibration response also allows
for the identification of locations where there are missing insula-
tion components and where local deformation occurs. Meanwhile,
the investigation of the vibration response of faulted windings pro-
vides some physical explanation for the changes of on-line vibra-
tion and noise of power transformer with those winding faults.
In conclusion, this experimental investigation enhanced under-
standing of the vibration behaviors of disk-type windings with
some common winding failure modes, and it provides some useful
information for improving existing vibration-based diagnostic
methods for transformer windings. Considering the close correla-
tion between the vibration and sound radiation, the vibration
investigate of the windings also reveals the acoustic characteristics
of the faulted winding, which will be the contributing factor to the
winding related noise. The good agreement between the experi-
mental results observed from the disk-type winding and
coupled-ring stack indicates that the coupled-ring stack is a satis-
factory model for simulating the vibration behaviors of power
transformer windings.
Acknowledgement
This project was supported in part by the CRC for Infrastructure
Engineering Asset Management (CIEAM). The authors would also
like to thank Professor Hai Huang and his team at the Zhejiang
University for their technical support to the field experiment on
the 110 kV power transformer.
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