The 19th International Symposium on High Voltage Engineering, Pilsen, Czech Republic, August, 23 28, 2015

RELIABILITY OF ELECTRICAL INSULATING SYSTEMS

STATISTICAL APPROACH TO EMPIRICAL ENDURANCE MODELS
1
M. Svoboda, P. Trnka, L.Harvnek, J. Hornak
Dept. of Technologies and Measurement
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of West Bohemia
Pilsen, Czech Republic
*Email: michal88@ket.zcu.cz

Abstract: Reliability of electrical appliances is long term observed parameter. There has
been always conflict of interest; however the idea conflict is still sharpening. While end
users require reliable operation (especially continuous energy supply), operators of power
apparatus face reduction of funds for the repair and maintenance. Managers form their
economical point of view try to reduce costs of new assets and operating costs of current
assets. This leads to increasing demands on diagnostics and prognostics. As physical,
empirical and statistical models are involved, it is possible to predict the behavior of
operated assets and though to plan the service activities. The more precise these models
are, the more accurate is the prognosis.
For prognosis of insulation system reliability, usually empirical and statistical models are
involved. The empirical part came from accelerated aging tests. One or more degradation
mechanisms are affecting the samples under test. The level of degradation factors must
be elevated, so the end of life is achieved in significantly shorter time, than in real
operation. So called endurance curves are obtained and sample performance in lower
stress is estimated. The paper presents completion of such empirical tests with probability
calculations. As there is always variation between samples and also variation caused by
manufacturing process, mathematical statistics helps in lifetime calculations and brings
the quantification of error and reliability.

1 INTRODUCTION These indexes are intended by law in each

An integral quality of electrical energy is its
continuous supply. Interrupts and related
characteristics are standardized to align the
terminology and help in energy regulation.
Standard EN 50160 [1] specifies the voltage
characteristics such as frequency, variations and
fluctuations of voltage, rapid changes and short-
term and long-term interruptions. Each country has
national energy regulatory office, which monitors
and evaluates interrupts. Generally interruptions
longer than 3 minutes are included in the voltage
quality analysis. The distribution system operator
must keep records of interruption, which must
indicate the origin, causes and duration of
interruptions.
Several types of interruptions are distinguished [1]:
CAIDI - Customer Average Interruption
Duration Index
CAIFI - Customer Average Interruption
Frequency Index
SAIDI - System Average Interruption
Duration Index
SAIFI - System Average Interruption
Frequency Index
ASAI - Average Service Availability Index
MAIFI - Momentary Average Interruption
Frequency Index
country, so transmission systems operators must
fulfill these requirements.
Interruptions are basically caused by weather
disfavor and asset outages. While the weather can
not be influenced, so interruptions arise when
natural disasters arrives, however asset outages
may be predicted and avoided, which is the task
for asset management and maintenance service.
In operation, all power energy assets are aging,
both physically and morally. Physical aging is
continuous irreversible processes that cause
permanent changes in the structure and properties
of object subsystems and elements. Usually
dielectric subsystem is observed, because it is the
most sensitive to degradation phenomena. These
degradation processes can be classified according
to the mechanism as:
Temperature
Mechanical
Electrical
Other
Generally electrical machines are stressed by all
these factors simultaneously; however one or
some of them may be dominant. The situation is
more complex due to synergistic effect of these
degradation processes. If more factors act at the
same time, their influence is not a simple arithmetic
sum, but the machine is aging significantly faster.
2 ACCELERATED LABORATORY AGING
To describe and quantify aging of electrical
machines, accelerated laboratory aging tests are
performed on both materials and stocks. The
principle of these tests is to get the information
about degradation in sufficiently short time
compared to real operation of the material. As
power assets are designed for 30 years of
continuous operation, it is evident that material
testing cannot take comparable time. To reach the
end of test in sufficiently short time, higher loading
(stressing) is applied.
Accelerated laboratory aging tests are used for the
qualitative and quantitative description of aging.
Their purpose is the faster aging of material then in
operation. It is caused by higher loading. It is
possible to predict the life of the insulation system
in a relatively short time compared to the life of the
electric machine. These tests must affect the
material by the same physical mechanism as the
degradation in operation. If the loading of material
is extreme, it could degrade by other physical
mechanisms, so the test loses its explanatory
power.
Accelerated laboratory aging can be performed in
two ways, the samples are being measured during
the defined aging (e.g. temperature aging) or they
are aged until failure (e.g. electrical aging).
2.1 Aging to failure
Aging to failure is a destructive test during which
the time to failure of sample is usually observed.
Samples are subjected to particular stress level
and time is measured to the moment when the
observed property is insufficient. A typical example
is electrical aging to breakdown (see Fig. 1).
Figure 1: Example of a aging to failure,
transformer paper samples, width 1mm, electrical
aging, AC, 50Hz, n=5
2.2 Aging with continuous parameter
measuring
This procedure is suitable for non-destructive
testing. Various parameters may be observed
during aging, in case of electrical aging it may be
dissipation factor, relative permittivity change,
absorption and resorption currents and others.
Based on experience, a suitable criterion must be
set, for which the material does not fulfill the
requirements. Usually insulation resistance or
dissipation factor values are set; and when the
material samples reach the criterion value, the test
is evaluated.
3 SETTING OF EXPERIMENT
At the beginning, experiment must be properly
planned and prepared. If necessary, a short pretest
conducted prior to experiment should provide
information suitable for stress level adjusting.
Thermal aging test is described in IEC 60216
Chyba! Nenalezen zdroj odkaz., where setting
of experiment is further determined. Similar guide
can be found in IEEE Std 98-1984 [4]. The integral
part is to properly choose stress levels so the end
of life is reached in reasonably short time, while
preserving identical degradation mechanism. As
endurance curve can be made up two points,
standard suggest to use minimum three points. Of
course the more points are obtained (the more
stress levels are applied to particular samples), the
more information carry the test.
Each experiment is subjected to many errors. One
of them is an error in stress level setting. Assuming
no systematic error (this could be minimized by
proper test apparatus design and adjusting), there
is always a random error, which can be minimized
by more test points (see Fig. 2, Fig. 3).
Values influenced with error
Correct values
Time to end of life [h]
Stress level
Figure 2: Example of regression error caused by
random error of one point out of three
 Values influenced with error
Correct values
Time to end of life [h]
Stress level
Figure 3: Example of regression error caused by
random error of one point out of five
As aging phenomena is described by exponential
probability distribution, usually exponential
regression curve is used for experimental data
fitting. In general two ways are possible. The first
option uses transformation of one coordinate (axis)
and linear function for regression. The second way
uses directly non-linear exponential regression.
This can be easily solved numerically. Following
equation is used for exponential model:
2 (1)
Yi aebxi
n
S ( a, b)
i 1
where:
S(a,b) is the criterion function (sum of squared
residuals)
Yi are measured values
Theoretical explanation is more complex, however
further information and error estimation formulas
can be found [4].
The only issue of this procedure is convergence.
As every numerical method, it is necessary to
estimate starting conditions. If they are not chosen
properly, the method should not converge to
correct solution.
Another issue of setting accelerated aging
experiment is the choice of number of points for
particular stress level. In general the more points
are available, the better for accuracy. However it
should be very demanding on experimental
material. Following can be generalized:
1) The basic number of samples for statistic
evaluation is 10 at each level of stress.
2) The more stress levels are to be applied
(the more set of samples are tested), the less
samples should be at each level (in each set).
3) The higher is variability (based on pre-
test), the higher number of samples is necessary
4) The bigger are the samples (and
electrodes), the less samples are necessary
(especially for non-homogenous materials)
4 EVALUATING THE EXPERIMENT
4.1 Testing outliers
The first task when data are collected is to test
outliers. Due to random errors (in setting the stress
level, measuring the time to end of life, variation of
material dimensions and properties) and stochastic
nature of aging tests, sometimes outliers occur.
There is a variety of tests to point out outlier value
(Grubbs test, Dixons test, 4s test, Shapiro-
Wilson test and others). In general all of them are
applicable for normal distribution of samples; the
decision depends on the expert who evaluates the
test. This procedure requires certain experience as
there is a great level of uncertainty. The value
suspected to be outlier may be out of others
because of random error or because of physical
nature. Neglecting such a value results in loosing
information carried by the test. Therefore a great
experience in testing and also good knowledge of
phenomena acting in the material structure are
required to highlight the outlier. These tests are
more to promote test performer, so he can lean on
them and support its decision. Grubbs test should
be explained as an example:
(2)
max Y Y
i 1,..., N
i
G
s
where:
Yi are measured values
Y is sample mean
s is standard deviation
Than G value is compared with table (for particular
number of tested samples and particular
significance level ) [5] and signed as belonging to
set or as outlier.
Another possibility is to use box plots. Modern
statistical software offers using box plots to
graphically visualize basic statistic indicators. An
example is shown on Fig. 4
 oil-paper breakdown
2 3
measured values
regression curve
2.5
lower confidence interval, = 0.1%
1.5
lower confidence interval, = 1%
time to end of life [h]

2 lower confidence interval, = 5%

lower confidence interval, = 10%

time to end of life [h]

1
1.5

1
0.5

0.5
0
2.4134 3.2476 3.605 3.9029 4.5583 4.7371 4.9158 5.1541 0
field intensity E [kV/mm]

-0.5
1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Figure 4: An example of boxplot created in Matlab; electrical field intensity [kV/mm]
circle median, thick line 25 and 75 percentiles,
whiskers extreme data points, dots - outliers
Figure 5: Regression curve for paper- oil samples
aged to breakdown, lower confidence interval
displayed at different levels of significance level
= (0,1; 1; 5; 10) %.
4.2 Confidence intervals
The level of significance is chosen according to
When outliers are excluded, a simple regression
particular application. For small machines, where a
may be performed as was shown (1). Such a
certain percentage of failure is acceptable, it is
procedure gives a regression curve on which a
possible to choose higher significance level , so
mean value of particular set of samples should be
economical costs can be lowered. On contrary
located. However for proper dimensioning and
large generators must be designed with high
design of insulation materials a mean value is not
reliability, so it is necessary to pick the strictest
sufficient. If an insulating element would be
criteria. Furthermore these interval estimations
dimensioned to mean value according to this
enable comparison between materials, especially
procedure, it would last till calculated end of life
in term of variability.
with 50% probability. Hence an information about
variability must be added.
5 CONCLUSION
Usually accelerated aging test results in regression
curve which is possible to extrapolate to obtain Empirical models over the time proven its ability to
time to end of life for lower stresses. As there is no describe electric insulation material aging, hence
they are widely used in electrical engineering. As
information about variability at low stresses,
interval estimations are rather utilized to predict stronger efforts are paid to increasing performance
material behavior with particular level of certainty. of electrical machines, it is necessary to push
Generally not mean time to end of life is searched materials to its limits, while preserving reliability.
(the time when 50% of samples fail) but the time, Proper statistical evaluation of experimental data
when the first fails. As electrical machine can work is a key task that enables correct dimensioning of
electrical insulation elements and systems.
until first insulation element fails. Thus interval
estimations are involved, especially lower Statistical tools and understanding of stochastic
confidence interval, which describes that the behavior may help in design of experiments as well
material will last longer than the subjected curve as during their evaluation.
with probability 1-. The lower is the parameter,
the higher is the probability that the sample exceed ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
the estimate curve. However choosing very low This research has been supported by the
significance level yields also very low estimate, European Regional Development Fund and the
see Fig. 5. Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the
Czech Republic under the Regional Innovation
Centre for Electrical Engineering (RICE), project
No. CZ.1.05/2.1.00/03.0094 and grant No. SGS-
2015-020 "Technology and Material Systems in
Electrical Engineering.
 REFERENCES
[1] EN 50160: July 2010. Voltage characteristics
of electricity supplied by public electricity
networks
[2] Pham, Hoang , Handbook of reliability
engineering, Birkhuser, ISBN 978-1-85233-
453-6, July 2011
[3] IEC 60216-1:2013 Electrical insulating
materials - Thermal endurance properties -
Part 1: Ageing procedures and evaluation of
test results
[4] IEEE Std 98-1984, Standard for the
Preparation of Test Procedures for the Thermal
Evaluation of Solid Electrical Insulating
Materials," 2002
[5] Richter, P. H.: Estimating Errors in Least-
Squares Fitting, TDA Progress Report, Aug.
1995, URL:
http://ipnpr.jpl.nasa.gov/progress_report/42-
122/122E.pdf
[6] Boddy, R., Smith, G.: Effective
Experimentation: For Scientists and
Technologists, John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2010,
ISBN 978-0-470-68460-3
[7] Seber, G. A. F., Wild C. J.: Nonlinear
Regression, John Wiley & Sons Inc., 1989.