Confidence Level Estimation for Advanced Decision-Making in Transformer Short-circuit Fault Diagnosis

Frequency response analysis (FRA) is almost certainly the most efficient and well-established method for evaluating the mechanical integrity of transformer active part. FRA has a solid background in both industrial practice and academic research. Besides conventional visual analysis, a statistical analysis has been applied to the FRA data interpretation. The existing standards and recent studies have considered different statistical indicators (SIs) on an individual basis. However, the utility of each SI in its “silo” may lead to different and possibly contradictory decisions. Inspired by the bolstered error estimation technique used in pattern recognition, this article presents a new method that can utilize multiple SIs obtained from the FRA data to classify transformer operating conditions and estimate the level of confidence in decisions made. The probabilistic method proposed herein is an attempt to bridge the gap between these decision-making silos. The practical implementation of the proposed technique on distribution and power transformers revealed a reliable interpretation and classification results. At the same time, having an estimate for the level of confidence in the decision made by the method further helps engineers and utility operators make informed decisions and have a better understanding of the level of the transformer fault severity.