Fault diagnosis in power transformers using multi-class logical analysis of data

This paper presents the implementation of a novel multi-class diagnostic technique for the detection and identification of faults based on an approach called logical analysis of data (LAD). LAD is a data mining, artificial intelligence approach that is based on pattern recognition. In the context of condition based maintenance (CBM), historical data containing condition indices and the state of the machine are the inputs to LAD. After training and testing phases, LAD generates patterns that characterize the faulty states according to the type of fault, and differentiate between these states and the normal state. These patterns are found by solving a mixed 0–1 integer linear programming problem. They are then used to detect and to identify a future unknown state of equipment. The diagnostic technique has already been tested on several known machine learning datasets. The results proved that the performance of this technique is comparable to other conventional approaches, such as neural network and support vector machine, with the added advantage of the clear interpretability of the generated patterns, which are rules characterizing the faults’ types. To demonstrate its merit in fault diagnosis, the technique is used in the detection and identification of faults in power transformers using dissolved gas analysis data. The paper reaches the conclusion that the multi-class LAD based fault detection and identification is a promising diagnostic approach in CBM.