Classification of partial discharge fault sources on SF6 insulated switchgear based on twelve by-product gases random forest pattern recognition

Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) gas insulated switchgear (GIS) is widely used in electrical power supply system and therefore needs regular preventive maintenance. Prediction and diagnosis analysis of faults in GIS using SF6 gas by-products was introduced previously by using 4 to 8 types of by product gases. As latest development on gas analyser, more by-product gases can be detected and used for condition monitoring of the GIS. The type, number, concentration and chemical stability of by-product gases of SF6 GIS are found to be closely correlated to the type of defect. However, the number of by-product gases used increases, the pattern for faults classification become more complex. Thus, further analysis on increasing number of by product gases using intelligent techniques such as pattern recognition is required. In this article, 12 significant by-products captured due to various sources of partial discharge fault in GIS were used. Random Forest (RF) was selected in this work as a multi-class classification technique. The analyses using RF pattern recognition with eight algorithms based on the presence and concentration of the gas by-products were carried out. The RF algorithm successfully recognises a given defect with an accuracy of 87.5% for all defects fault classification. The performance of the RF algorithm is 1.5 times better than the decision table algorithm which is the next best algorithm. This research illustrates the feasibility and applicability of an effective GIS diagnostic using gas by-products analyses, and in particular, using the RF pattern recognition