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Application of the Gaussian Mixture Model to Classify Stages of Electrical Tree Growth in Epoxy Resin

Abubakar Mas’ud, Abdullahi; Sundaram, Arunachalam; Alfredo Ardila-Rey, Jorge; Schurch, Roger; Muhammad-Sukki, Firdaus; Aini Bani, Nurul

Application of the Gaussian Mixture Model to Classify Stages of Electrical Tree Growth in Epoxy Resin Thumbnail


Authors

Abdullahi Abubakar Mas’ud

Jorge Alfredo Ardila-Rey

Roger Schurch

Firdaus Muhammad-Sukki

Nurul Aini Bani



Abstract

In high-voltage (HV) insulation, electrical trees are an important degradation phenomenon strongly linked to partial discharge (PD) activity. Their initiation and development have attracted the attention of the research community and better understanding and characterization of the phenomenon are needed. They are very damaging and develop through the insulation material forming a discharge conduction path. Therefore, it is important to adequately measure and characterize tree growth before it can lead to complete failure of the system. In this paper, the Gaussian mixture model (GMM) has been applied to cluster and classify the different growth stages of electrical trees in epoxy resin insulation. First, tree growth experiments were conducted, and PD data captured from the initial to breakdown stage of the tree growth in epoxy resin insulation. Second, the GMM was applied to categorize the different electrical tree stages into clusters. The results show that PD dynamics vary with different stress voltages and tree growth stages. The electrical tree patterns with shorter breakdown times had identical clusters throughout the degradation stages. The breakdown time can be a key factor in determining the degradation levels of PD patterns emanating from trees in epoxy resin. This is important in order to determine the severity of electrical treeing degradation, and, therefore, to perform efficient asset management. The novelty of the work presented in this paper is that for the first time the GMM has been applied for electrical tree growth classification and the optimal values for the hyperparameters, i.e., the number of clusters and the appropriate covariance structure, have been determined for the different electrical tree clusters.

Citation

Abubakar Mas’ud, A., Sundaram, A., Alfredo Ardila-Rey, J., Schurch, R., Muhammad-Sukki, F., & Aini Bani, N. (2021). Application of the Gaussian Mixture Model to Classify Stages of Electrical Tree Growth in Epoxy Resin. Sensors, 21(7), Article 2562. https://doi.org/10.3390/s21072562

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Apr 2, 2021
Publication Date Apr 6, 2021
Deposit Date Jul 17, 2024
Publicly Available Date Jul 18, 2024
Journal Sensors
Print ISSN 1424-8220
Publisher MDPI
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 21
Issue 7
Article Number 2562
DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/s21072562
Keywords gaussian mixture models; electrical trees; partial discharge