Development of an experimental setup to study temperature distribution of liquid natural cooled power transformers

Zhao, SC, Zhang, X ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8790-0313, Liu, Q, Wilkinson, M, Negro, M and Daghrah, M (2021) Development of an experimental setup to study temperature distribution of liquid natural cooled power transformers. In: 22nd International Symposium on High Voltage Engineering (ISH 2021), 21 November 2021 - 26 November 2021, Hybrid Conference, Xi'an, China.

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Abstract

Knowing the temperature profile of a transformer is of great interest because the expected thermal lifetime of the transformer is mainly determined by the hotspot temperature in windings. Understanding the thermal behaviours of the transformer in different conditions facilitates better utilizing and managing transformer assets for a utility in the most optimum manner. Thermosiphon-driven liquid natural (ON/KN) cooled transformers are widely used in the electric grid as they generally require less maintenance compared to pump-driven liquid forced and directed (OD/KD) cooled transformers. Therefore, a complete-cooling-loop experimental setup is developed to study the parameters affecting the thermal behaviour of an ON/KN cooled transformer. The affecting parameters can be categorized into three categories: geometric characteristics, operational conditions and material properties. Geometric parameters include the transformer thermal head and the number of discs per pass for the winding model studied. Operational conditions are considered by different loading scenarios. The material properties refer to alternative insulating liquids. In this paper, the design and implementation of an experimental setup is presented which is used to study the effects of these parameters on the thermal behaviour of liquid natural cooled transformers.