IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 17, NO.

1, JANUARY 2002

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Instability of the Continuously Transposed Cable Under Axial Short-Circuit Forces in Transformers
Mukund R. Patel, Senior Member, IEEE
AbstractThe axial instability of the winding conductor is one of the principal modes of mechanical failure in large power transformers. It is caused by axial compressive forces generated by the electromagnetic interaction of the short-circuit current and the radial leakage flux. It is a buckling type of mechanical instability that occurs under compression. Two possible modes of failure in the layer type coil wound with the continuously transposed cable are identified and analyzed in this paper. The critical design loads leading to instability of the individual strands as well as of the whole cable are separately derived. The actual instability threshold of the coil would be the lesser of the two critical loads. For the through-fault integrity of the transformer design, this threshold must be greater than the peak compressive force on the cable under the worst case short-circuit current. Index TermsAxial compression, coil, instability, mechanical strength, short-circuit force, tilting, transformer.
Fig. 1. Tilting of the conductor in disk type coils.

I. INTRODUCTION HE CURRENT carrying conductors of the transformer coils are situated in the leakage magnetic flux. Therefore, radial and axial mechanical forces are generated within the conrule. When axial compression on ductors according to the the coil exceeds a certain limit, failure occurs by a mechanism characterized by tilting of the conductors in a zigzag pattern as shown in Fig. 1. Such a failure mode is sometimes observed in large coils coming back for repairs after major short-circuits in the field. However, the analytical work reported to date [1][3] has been limited to tilting of the helical and disk coils. The layer type coil also can fail in such mode as seen in Fig. 2. In large layer type coils, the winding conductor is usually the continuously transposed cable (CTC) consisting of several strands in an overall jacket of insulating paper. Within the cable, the strand positions are transposed with each other at a regular interval in order to minimize the eddy current loss. The transposition of strands along the coil periphery makes the stability analysis difficult. No analytical or experimental work on the tilting of layer coils has been reported earlier. The instability threshold of such a failure mode is derived in this paper. II. AXIAL ELECTROMAGNETIC FORCE The ampere-turns of concentric coils produce the magnetic leakage flux as shown in Fig. 3. The cross product of the current and the radial component of the leakage flux result in the axial mechanical force as shown by the arrows. In coils having
Manuscript received November 2, 1999. The author is with U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point, NY 11024 USA. Publisher Item Identifier S 0885-8977(02)00577-0.

no tapings of the turns, the maximum compression is small in magnitude and is at the axial midpoint of the coils. If one coil has taps in the middle, the radial flux is greater, and the compressive force pattern is as shown in Fig. 4. The tapping at one end of one coil as shown in Fig. 5 results in even greater radial flux and the correspondingly high axial compressive force. Since the current itself produces the leakage flux, the mechanical force generated in the conductor is proportional to the current squared. Under the worst case short circuit, the first peak of the force can be several hundred times greater than that under the rated operation, and can permanently damage the coil. During a fault starting at a zero-crossing of the applied voltage, the instantaneous asymmetrical current and the mechanical force is given by the following expressions

where time in seconds; angular frequency; and total resistance and leakage reactance of the transformer, respectively; and steady-state symmetrical peak values of the current and the force, respectively. Fig. 6 shows the short circuit current and the force normalized to their corresponding steady-state peak values for the first two ratio of cycles in a 60-Hz system. The curves are with 0.07, for which the first peak of the current is 1.8 and the force 3.24 times their steady-state peaks.

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Fig. 4. Radial flux density and compressive forces in two coils with taps in the middle of the outer coil.

(a)

Fig. 5. Radial flux density and compressive forces in two coils with taps at one end of the outer coil.

(b) Fig. 2. (a) Tilting of the conductor in layer coil that has failed under axial short-circuit compression. (b) Enlarged view of the failure showing cablewise tilting.

Fig. 6. Short-circuit current and force magnitudes under fully asymmetrical short circuit (normalized to their respective symmetrical values).

where first peak of the fully offset short circuit current in amperes; rated output of the transformer in megavoltampere; rated line-to-line voltage; per unit impedance of the transformer. Under the above fault current, the mechanical force generated in the coil is calculated by the electromagnetic analysis of various types described by Waters [2]. Advanced finite-element electromagnetic computer programs have also become available for this purpose. The distributed forces thus calculated are then added to determine the maximum compression in the coil.

Fig. 3. Magnetic leakage flux and axial forces in two coils of equal height. The force directions are indicated by arrows.

The magnitude of the first peak of the short-circuit current is therefore given by (1)

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Fig. 7. Cablewise tilting of the layer coil in which all strands in the cable tilt in the same direction.

Fig. 8.

Strandwise tilting of the layer coil in which adjacent strands in the cable tilt in the opposite direction.

III. CTC COIL FAILURE MODES The CTC layer coil has two possible modes of failure under the axial compression. One is the cablewise tilting, in which two adjacent cables would tilt against each other as shown in Fig. 7. The other is the strandwise tilting, in which two adjacent individual strands would tilt against each other as shown in Fig. 8. In either case, the deformation pattern is the same in all strands of the cable, except for the staggering in accordance with the transposition pitch. In the analysis that follows, we therefore consider only one strand and follow it through the full transposition distance . IV. CABLEWISE TILTING The parameters in the analysis are defined below with reference to Fig. 7. height of one strand; radial thickness of one strand; mean radius of the coil; strand transposition pitch; distance over which one strand is transposed from one position to another;

transposition distance in which one full transposition of all strands is completed; small virtual tilt angle under axial load; axial compressive load under short circuit. We observe that in the cablewise tilting the strand has to tilt on one edge and by the same angle throughout the length . The strand would be in tension over a part of this length where it is occupying the top half of the cable. It would be in compression in other parts where the strand is occupying the bottom half of the cable. The transition from tension to compression can take place only if there is sufficient interstrand friction such that a strand can gradually go from full tension to full compression. Since the strands are in axial compression, there exists sufficiently large interstrand friction to make this possible. The failure observed in Fig. 2 shows the cablewise tilting, validating the existence of such friction. The condition of the strand in the top and bottom halves of the cable is therefore exactly like a beam of depth under bending with the radius of curvature , which is given by for small (2)

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The restoring moment produced on the conductor is therefore (3) where Youngs modulus of elasticity; area moment of inertia of the conductor section about the tilt. The potential energy stored per unit length of one strand is (4a) The potential energy stored in one full length of the transposition distance is (4b) The forcing moment tending to increase the tilt angle strand is of the (5) For stability, the required condition is (6) The critical load that must not exceed in order to maintain the coil stability is therefore given by

coil to tilt in pairs of strands in the cable, which is a higher order failure mode having the correspondingly higher critical load. However, there is another failure mode, which could have a lower critical load, as analyzed below. V. STRANDWISE TILTING The strandwise tilting is defined as the one in which two strands, one on the top of another, tilt in the opposite direction as shown in Fig. 8. For determining the critical design limit in this mode, we again follow the strand number 1 over one full transposition dishas tance . We observe that the left end of the crossover tilt, while the right end in the same crossover has tilt. Therefore, there is a total twist angle of in distance . In this part of the conductor, the twist produces the shear stress, in adexperiences dition to the bending stress. The crossover an identical pattern of the combined stress. The remaining part of the strand is under pure bending as in the cablewise tilting. We use the energy method of analysis, and take account of the total energy stored in one strand involved in this mode of tilting. A. Energy Stored in Crossover The change in twist angle per unit length is . The shear strain in the fiber at distance from the center of the strand is therefore

And the shear stress is

which leads to (7) The load bearing area of the strand

where is the shear modulus of elasticity of the conductor material. The shear energy stored per unit volume is 1/2 stress strain , that is . , where The shear energy per unit length is is the polar moment of inertia. is then The shear energy in crossover (9)

Since all strands tilt on their edge in this mode of failure

to , the tilt For gradual transition of the tilt angle from angle at any distance measured from the beginning of the crossover is

Substituting the above two expressions in (7), we obtain the critical axial stress Using (4a), the bending energy in length (8) Comparing (8) with the disc coil analysis reported by Patel [1], it is noteworthy that the CTC layer coil having identical strand dimensions has four times greater critical tilting load. Thus, the continuously transposed cable has an inherently higher stability limit. This is attributed to the interstrand friction, forcing the The bending energy in crossover is therefore (10) The bending energy of equal amount is stored in crossover . is

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B. Energy Stored in the Remainder of the Strand The remaining part of the strand is in pure bending as we discussed in the cablewise tilting mode in Section IV, except that in this case the strand tilts about its center instead of on edges. For this reason, the area moment of inertia in this mode . is in bending is Using (4a), the energy stored in length (11)

C. Total Energy Stored Adding (11) and two times (10) and (9) gives the total energy stored in the strand over one transposition distance
Fig. 9. Critical tilting strength versus number of strands in the CTC coil. The cablewise and strandwise tilting strengths have a changeover point.

(12)

D. Stability Criteria The moment acting on the strand tending to increase is again (13) The criterion that must be satisfied is that With the following relations .

where is the Poisson ratio of the conductor material, the critical stress for the strandwise tilting simplifies to

(14)

and a greater interstrand friction working as a stabilizing force. For a large number of strands in the cable, however, the critical load limit in the strandwise tilting is lower than that in the cablewise tilting, which is independent of the number of strands. The coil will fail in the mode that has the lower of the two critical load limits. Therefore, as the number of strands in the CTC cable increases, the actual tilting mode of failure changes from cablewise to strandwise as shown by the heavy solid line in Fig. 9. Most practical transformers fall on the right hand side of generally lower than the changeover point, making . This means that practical CTC coils would generally tilt strandwise. However, while designing large transformers, both strengths should be greater than the actual axial compression on the cable. Radial and axial tightness in the coil, amount of rounding and friction at the strand ends would make some difference in the actual strength. Manufacturers, therefore, need to calibrate the analytical results by tests to account for their manufacturing process. Dynamic axial response of the coil also need to be accounted for, a sit could further increase the maximum compression stress beyond the generated force [5], [6]. VII. CONCLUSION

VI. THE DESIGN LIMIT The actual critical design limit for a transformer coil wound with the continuously transposed cable is lesser of the two values given by (8) and (14). In the CTC manufacturing process, the and are fixed by the cable making machine , where is number of strands in the cable. and is inversely proportional to , while Therefore, is independent of . The two critical load values are plotted in Fig. 9, where we observe the following: For a small number of strands in the cable, the critical load limit in the strandwise tilting is higher than that in the cablewise tilting. This is due to a higher order twisting mode

1) Two different modes of the axial instability of CTC layer coils are identified, namely the cablewise tilting and the strandwise tilting. 2) The critical stress limits under the two possible failure modes are derived. The actual critical stress of the coil would be lesser of the two values. 3) In practical transformers with CTC layer coils, the strandwise tilting mode having a lower critical stress limit is the more likely mode of failure compared with the cablewise tilting. 4) The lower of the two limits must be greater than the actual compressive load on the coil under the worst case short circuit in order to assure the through-fault design integrity of the transformer.

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REFERENCES
[1] M. R. Patel, Dynamic stability of helical and barrel coils in transformers against axial short-circuit forces, in Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng., vol. 127, pt. C, London, U.K., 1980, pp. 281284. [2] M. Waters, The Short-Circuit Strength of Power Transformers. London: Mac Donald, 1996, pp. 103108. [3] E. Stenkvist and L. Torseke, Short-circuit problems in large transformers,, CIGRE Report no. 142, Appendix II, 1962. [4] S. P. Timoshenko, Strength of Materials, Volumes I and II. New York: Van Nostrand. [5] M. R. Patel, Dynamic response of power transformers under axial shortcircuit forcesPart I, IEEE Trans. Power App. Syst., vol. PAS-92, pp. 15581567, 1973. , Dynamic response of power transformers under axial short-cir[6] cuit forcesPart II, IEEE Trans. Power App. Syst., vol. PAS-92, pp. 15591576, 1973.

Mukund R. Patel (SM81) received the M.S. degree in engineering management from the University of Pittsburgh, PA, the M.E. degree in electrical machine design from Gujarat University, India, and the Ph.D. degree in electric power engineering from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY. He is a research and development engineer with 35 years of experience in the electrical power industry. He has served as Senior Development Engineer with GE Power Transformer Division, Pittsfield, MA, as a Principal Engineer with GE Space Division, Valley Forge, PA; a Fellow Engineer with the Westinghouse R&D Center, Pittsburgh, PA; a Senior Staff Engineer with Lockheed Martin Corporation, Princeton, NJ; a Development Manager with Bharat Bijlee Limited, Bombay, India; and the 3M Distinguished Visiting Professor with the University of Minnesota, Duluth. Presently, he is a Professor of engineering at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point, NY. He has presented and published more than 40 research papers at national and international conferences, and holds several patents. Dr. Patel is a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (U.K.), Registered Professional Engineer in Pennsylvania, Chartered Mechanical Engineer in the United Kingdom, and a member of Eta Kappa Nu, Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Xi, and Omega Rho.