FAILURE ANALYSIS OF GRIDCo

SUBSTATION TRANSFORMER TO
ENHANCE MAINTENANCE PERFORMANCE

Joseph Benjamin Taylor, MSc. MSc. MGhIE, Area

Manager, NNS, Ghana Grid Company Limited
(GRIDCo); e-mail:
joseph.taylor@gridcogh.com; joseph.taylor2601@g
mail.com
,
Jyoti K. Sinha Lecturer, Course Director, MEAM
MSc. School of MACE, University of Manchester,
M13 9PL, UK e-mail: Jyoti.Sinha@manchester.ac.uk

Abstract
This article uses such conventional reliability analysis
as Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA), Fault Tree
Analysis (FTA) and interconnection with Reliability
Block Diagram (RBD)/ and or Logic Diagram (LD) to
analyze the failure of an oil-filled step-down power
transformer
FTA, RBD and/or LD and the more detailed FMECA,
Failure Mode Effect and Criticality Analysis inter-relate
with FMEA as maintenance as well as design tools to
facilitate decision on maintenance requirements, and
thereby addressing maintainability
Analysis technique is typically demonstrated in the
application to transformer failure analysis in this paper

USES OF FMEA, FTA, RBD and/or LD

As maintenance and design tools to address
maintainability, to analyze, review and explain system
failure for instance
Recommend actions to reduce the likelihood of the
failure occurring and identify improvement
opportunities.
Definition: Maintainability the ability of an item,
under stated conditions of use, to be retained in, or
restored to, a state in which it can perform its required
functions, when maintenance is performed under
stated conditions and using prescribed procedures and
resources [BS 4778]
- Probability that required maintenance action will be
successfully completed in a given time period [Dhillon
1999]

PROFILE OF GHANA GRID COMPANY

LIMITED (GRIDCo) & VOLTA RIVER
AUTHORITY (VRA)
Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCO) is a wholly Government-owned
company established in the year 2008 [4] to operate and manage the
transmission assets of the Volta River Authority (VRA) including the 69kV,
161kV, & 225kV substations.
GRIDCo has transmission assets, comprising over 43 transformer and
switching substations, and covering approximately over 4,000 circuit
kilometres of transmission lines spread throughout the country
Operates a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition, SCADA and an
interconnected grid [4-5].
The VRA operates hydro and thermal power stations and is currently a
generator of electricity following power sector restructuring.
Prior to restructuring, VRAs power transmission assets were maintained
and operated by a separate department in VRA- the Transmission
Systems which constituted the core of GRIDCo

THE FAILURE - PREAMBLE

On the evening of Sunday, September 16, 2007 at about 16:20
hours, a 3-Phase, 3-winding, Westinghouse-make power
transformer manufactured in 1973 with rated capacity
25/33MVA, and voltage 161/34.5/11.5kV was engulfed in fire, and
ultimately got burnt [6] at a substation in Tarkwa about 300
kilometres west of the capital, Accra
The transformer is Oil-filled, ONAN/ONAF cooling, fitted with
radiators, bushings and conservator tank with Buchholz relay
The fire outbreak was traced to insulation deterioration of 125
volts direct current (125VDC) control cable inside the chamber of
Buchholz relay housing.
Prior to the fire outbreak maintenance work had been done on
the Buchholz relay to replace a section of 125VDC control cable
accessed by maintenance personnel to have been deteriorated.

Figure 1:
Cut view of Buchholz
Relay [14]

Figure 2: General arrangement of

Buchholz relay with cover removed
showing front & rear views [15]

OBSERVED LIMITATION IN
ENGINEERING ANALYTICAL
TOOLS
Perceived absence of appropriate reliability
engineering tool in GRIDCo to aid in analysing
equipment failure [12]. If there were such a tool it is
not known to the author.
Quick fixes of problems and solutions are observed to
be the norm.
For a typical system failure current maintenance best
practice uses such conventional reliability analysis as
FMEA [2-3], FTA and interconnection with RBD and/or
Logic Diagram, LG to analyse equipment failure [2-3].
Definition: Reliability is the probability that a failure
will not occur in a particular time [Dhillon, 1999]

Brief introduction, origin, strengths

& limitations of FMEA, FTA & RBD
FMEA was developed in the 1950s, as a systematic method that appeared
under different names, to analyse technical systems failure.
FMEA is an engineering technique used to define, identify, and eliminate
known and/or potential failures, problems, errors, and so on from the system,
design, process, and/or service before they reach the customer [8]
FMEA is a simple analysis method to reveal possible failures and to predict the
failure effects on the system as a whole [9].
FMEA is a valuable starter in the preparation of RBD on the basis that each
failure mode is related to its effect on the systems output
Strengths include prevention planning, identifying change requirements and
reducing cost [2]
Limitations of traditional FMEA :
Not suitable for applications where critical combinations of component failures
need to be revealed, because it considers one component at a time and
assumes all other components to be functioning perfectly [2].
Directed more towards analysis of existing systems [2, 8] and does not
concentrate on proposing designing out excellent systems. However [9-11]
address these limitations.

Brief introduction, origin, strengths &

limitations of FMEA, FTA & RBD- Continued

Origin of Fault tree Analysis, FTA - is traced to Bell telephone laboratories

in 1962 and to Boeing in the 1970s [2].
FTA is a reliability/safety design analysis technique, which graphically
describes the combinations of events leading to a defined system failure
mode called the top event
Shows the logical relation between system failure, i.e. a specific
undesirable event within a system [which constitutes the top event of
the tree], and failures of different components of the system [which
constitute the basic fault event of the tree].
The basic (input) fault events could either be independent (roundshaped) [of other events ]- event requiring no further development or
dependent (kite shaped)-event that depends on lower events, but not
developed further downwards.
Conventional reliability analysis using FTA involves a number of logical
possibilities, two main logical symbols and two gates-the OR and an
AND gates [2-3 and 7], and are also based on details of plant structure
in a static condition
Limitations: They are proven expensive in designing solutions because
of the sheer quantum and volume of data involved in analysis.
Strengths of FTA and also RBD [2-3 and 7] lie in their uses in variety

Brief introduction, origin, strengths &

limitations of FMEA, FTA & RBD- Continued
RBD is a process used to break down high level reliability requirements for the
whole plant to those needed for individual systems or items
All systems can be broken down into a combination of series and parallel
reliabilities, and RBD combines both [2-3]
RBD describes the effect of a failure of a component on the system as a whole, or
vice versa
RBD also describes a system as a number of functional blocks interconnected in
accordance with the failure effect of each block on the system reliability as a
whole,( and contrast with a block schematic diagram of the systems functional
layout )
RBD recognizes series and parallel failure behaviours as two principal failure
behaviours [2-3]
Other Strength of RBD : - Simple to construct
Models simulations at any level of component details as might be necessitated
by the particular model, and like FTA facilitates decision on maintenance
requirements.
Limitation is that it considers only one component failure [2-3] even though
there could be many-component failures like the Concorde failure [13].

Application of FMEA, RBD & FTA Tools

for failure analysis of transformer
Application of FMEA, RBD & FTA is demonstrated in
Figures 3-5 to analyse and review failure of a 3-Phase, 3winding, oil-filled, ONAN/ONAF, transformer at GRIDCo
substation in Tarkwa in Ghana.
Transformer is fitted with radiators, bushings,
conservator with Buchholz relay
A typical RBD is used to model, and analyse the failure,
beginning with the consideration of the plant hierarchy
since FMEA analyses the hardware, functions of the
system or a combination
Application of the analysis technique begins by
considering three levels of plant hierarchy consisting of
system, subsystem and component levels through FMEA
of the single component failure and completing the
analysis with the interconnection of RBD and FTA

Figure 3: Typical simple Plant

Hierarchy of Tarkwa
substation [12]

A typical simple plant

hierarchy of Tarkwa
substation- Discussion of Fig.
3
Figure 3 is a typical simple plant hierarchy of the Tarkwa substation
The failure analysis using RBD begins by considering the hierarchy of
the plant structure
Considers the equipment class- the transformers through the
equipment subclass or unit - the power transformer and continues
down to the maintainable item- the Buchholz relay
Maintainable item is either repaired or replaced during the life of the
transformer
The replaceable item- the Buchholz relay is viewed as a structural or
functional unit of a system or equipment, the transformer
The Buchholz relay is considered as an entity for investigation
A diagrammatic representation of a Buchholz relay is shown in
Figures 1-2
The equipment class or unit, the power transformer performs a sub
function of production transforming alternating voltage for power
transmission

Application of FMEA tool to

analyze the transformer
failure- Discussion of Figure 4
Figure 4 reflects a typical FMEA
FMEA examines all of the possible failures of the
transformer and design taking into account (1)plant
structure, (2) the hierarchy of the equipment class i.e.
transformer
Considers function of transformer, assesses potential
functional failure, failure mode- the station ground,
cause- the Buchholz relay and effect of failure- the fact
that power can not be supplied to customers, as well as
the system of current controls and action
FMEA as discussed here and shown in Figure 4 considers
one component failure at a time
Considers the station DC ground fault as a failure caused
by the one component - buchholz relay
Assumes all other components to be functioning perfectly

Discussion of Typical representation

of FTA as shown in Fig. 5
A typical application of FTA to the transformer failure at Tarkwa substation is
demonstrated in Figure 5
It shows the logical relations between failure events of the different
components- the Buchholz relay, bushing, and defined top event- the
transformer failure
Four different lower level failures (lower level events) are examined Buchholz relay, bushing, mal operation & design deficiency
These are in turn logically related to different lower level failures - cable
insulation breakdown, non functioning of relay, bushing vibration
The fault tree construction then proceeds level by level till all fault events
have been developed to the prescribed resolution further down to reach the
basic fault events thermal effect, bare cable contact, maintenance action,
125VDC battery, no transformer oil in relay to actuate relay sensor, design
deficiency, internal source or external means that could cause bushing
vibration, bushing crack, overloading or voltage regulation which could result
from mal operation of the transformer
Basic fault events are analysed and recommendations made as to
actions necessary to reduce the likelihood of the failure occurring, as
well as identifying improvement opportunities

Figure 6: Typical
Reliability Block Diagram
for Tarkwa transformer
failure

Discussion of Typical representation of RBD as shown in

Fig 6

A typical simple reliability block diagram (RBD) of

the failure of a transformer at Tarkwa substation as
shown in Figure 6 and discussed in this Section
interconnects the FTA represented in Figure 5
RBD as shown in fig. 6 describes the transformer
failure as consisting of a number of functional
blocks - the Buchholz relay fault, design deficiency,
bushing failure and mal operation.
In a logical sense Figure 6 is a simple modelling of
the system failure logic showing the logical
connection between components of the system.

RECOMMENDED ACTION TO
REDUCE LIKELIHOOD OF FAILURE
OCCURING & FOR IMPROVEMENT
OPORTUNITIES
Continuous improvement, Review and update of maintenance strategy,

policy and inputs to maintenance function

Develop proactive maintenance techniques as Condition-based
Maintenance etc.
Develop maintenance techniques that take advantage of available tools
and techniques as FMEA, FMECA, FTA, RBD, criticality approaches etc.
Review and update Technical procedure for replacement/modification of
125VDC cable if such a procedure exists. Otherwise consider developing
one.
Approval to undertake replacement/repairs and/or modification require
streamline and centralisation, if such a policy exists. Otherwise consider
developing one
Provide Parallel/redundant protections for 125VDC control cable for
Buchholz relay
Install a back-up 125VDC battery bank to increase reliability of
protection system
Provide appropriate and specific training, workshops and seminars
tailored to suit the requirement of maintenance and operating staff

CONCLUSIONS
Using conventional reliability analysis such as FMEA, FTA and interconnection with
RBD the transformer failure has been analysed
The cause of a combination of two events - insulation deterioration of 125VDC
control cable and maintenance action i.e. design, as well as maintenance
perspective has been observed as the mode of the failure
Failure resulted in inconvenience to customers, was a catastrophe to the plant and
environment, led to high cost to the utility
Failure could have been possibly prevented if re-cabling of the Buchholz relay
control cable had been completed or if redundancy had been built into the system
through an alternative parallel path using a combination of back-up 125VDC supply
and protective relay
Parallel components are inherently more reliable since system failure occurs when
all components have failed, however capital costs are required.
Quick fixes, generally reactive in nature and underlines fire fighting only solve
symptoms rather than root causes of problems as was the case with the
maintenance action that contributed to the transformer failure
By designing systems that incorporate FMEA, RBD, and FTA tools and techniques
the maintenance function could be improved to become more proactive

CONCLUSIONSCONTINUE
Present work has been limited to using tools of FMEA that

considered only one component failure to model FTA & RBD.

FTA has been used only to analyse the failure and not to
evaluate it.
For future work based on different techniques and tools, there
are techniques available to calculate for simple trees once the
failure logic has been modelled using FTA, as well as for complex
trees especially for multiple component failures of basic events,
which need to be looked at and applied to the analysis of the
transformer failure.
There is also Failure Mode Effect and Criticality Analysis, FMECA,
which is the more detailed form of FMEA that combines FMEA
and CA, Criticality Analysis
There are other tools such as Root Cause Analysis, (quality)
Cause Analysis Tools as Fishbone (Ishikawa) diagram, Pareto
Chart and Scatter diagram that have not been considered in the
present work, but which can be applied to analyse the
transformer failure

END OF PRESENTATION

THANK YOU

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