2011 IEEE International Conference on Dielectric Liquids

An Assessment on Aging Model of IEEE/IEC

Standards for Natural and Mineral Oil-Immersed
Transformer

Yunus BİÇEN, Member, IEEE Yusuf ÇİLLİYÜZ Faruk ARAS, Member, IEEE Guzide AYDUGAN
Industrial Electronics Dept. Electrical Edu. Dept. Electrical Edu. Dept. Power Transformer Dept.
Duzce Univ. TR-81010 Kocaeli Univ. TR-41380 Kocaeli Univ. TR-41380 AREVA T&D TR-41410
Uzunmustafa Duzce, Turkey Umuttepe Izmit, Turkey Umuttepe Izmit, Turkey Gebze, Kocaeli/Turkey
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Abstract—This paper presents an assessment on aging model of natural ester viscosity is high and thermal conductivity is low
IEEE and IEC standards using thermal model of oil-immersed [5,6]. But nevertheless, in the amount of soluble water
power transformer for natural ester and mineral oil. For this transferred from kraft paper to the natural ester, is much more
purpose, a model created for the analysis of behavior transient than mineral oils. That’s the reason why the paper is slow
thermal performance with aging both of natural ester down aging and less deterioration in natural ester. Other
and mineral oils. Thermal model of the transformer is based on positive features are presented in table I.
thermal-electrical analogy that is calculated separately
for natural and mineral oils covering top-oil and hot-spot
temperatures. The hot-spot temperature values of each ester/oil TABLE I. DOMINANCE VECTOR
are used to calculate aging parameters which include the aging Dominance vector of natural esters to mineral oils, related eco-friendly,
acceleration factor, time dependent relative aging rate and aging, cost, safety and reliability features
insulation life loss variations.
Environmental safety Viscosity*
Eco-friendly, be recyclable Thermal conductivity*

Dominance vector
Keywords- aging; insulation; thermal model; natural oil;
Fire safety Hot-spot temperature rise
trasformer; temperature; loadability Transformer material compatibility
Insulation paper aging rates
I. INTRODUCTION Acidity stability*
Dissolution of water in oil*
Today, clean energy is emerging as a new trend in electric Mixable with mineral oil
power systems. Therefore, green oils have been preferred as Dielectric strength
liquid insulator in power transformers especially since 2000. * These things directly or indirectly affect the hot spot temperature
As the three most important features of green oils, they have
slow down the impact of the aging process; they provide a safe According to the experimental studies in the literature
work performance and are biodegradable as close to 100%. related to accelerated aging tests, paper aged in natural ester
Green oils named as the natural esters can be mixed with took 5-8 times longer to reach end of life parameters than paper
mineral oils and their utilization rates are increasing every day aged in mineral oil at the same temperature values [7]. But
due to non-toxic and eco-friendly features. actually, the hot spot temperatures, taken into account for the
aging calculations, will be different from each other for natural
Thermal aging of insulation materials in mineral oil- ester-immersed transformer and mineral oil-immersed
immersed transformers have been formulated in ANSI/IEEE- transformer. Consequently, the formulas should be revised
C57.91 and IEC-354.91 standards [1,2]. However, these relatively.
formulas should be revised anew for natural ester due to slow
down the aging process. There are some differences between
IEEE and IEC standards on thermal ageing methods for THERMAL MODEL AND LIFE LOSS EQUATIONS
mineral oil-immersed transformers. According to the IEEE, the
normal lifetime of power transformer equals to 20,55 years, A. Top-oil and hot-spot thermal models
whereas a total life has not been defined by the IEC standards, The top oil thermal model is based on the equivalent
but it is usually equal to 30 years depending on the aging rate thermal circuit theory proposed by G. Swift. The differential
determined by the hot spot temperature [3,4]. Hot spot equation for the equivalent circuit is [8];
temperature of natural ester-immersed transformers is higher
I 2β +1 dθ
than mineral oil-immersed transformers. And it is emphasized .[Δθ oil − R ] n = τ oil oil + [θ oil − θ A ] n
1 1

that the deviation of the hottest temperature between the two is β +1 dt (1)
increased with load [5,6]. Because, comparing to mineral oil, where,

This work is supported by the Scientific Research Projects Unit of

Kocaeli University. Project numbers: 2010/33 and 2010/37.

978-1-4244-7354-0/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE

 II. TRANSIENT MODELLING
Ipu is the load current per unit. In this study, two different models are created in Matlab-
θA is the ambient temperature, oC. Simulink for natural ester and mineral oil immersed power
θo is the top oil temperature, oC. transformers which have the same technical specifications.
β is the ratio of load to no-load losses (ONAF - 250MVA). Parameters of the power transformer were
τ oil is the top oil time constant, min. taken in the IEEE Loading Guide and specifications are shown
in the in table II.
∆θ oil-R is the rated top oil rise over ambient, K.
n is the exponent defines non-linearity.
TABLE II. 250 MVA TRANSFORMER PARAMETERS [2,8]
As the same mentioned method, the differential equation No Load 78100 W
used to calculate the hot spot temperature is; Pdc losses (I2 Rdc ) 411780 W
Eddy losses 41200 W
[
I 2 1 + PEC − R ( pu ) ].[Δθ ] 1
m =τH
dθ H
+ [θ H − θ oil ] m
1 Stray losses
Rated top oil rise over ambient
31660 W
38,3oC
H −R
1 + PEC − R ( pu ) dt Rated hot spot rise over top oil 20,3oC
(2) Ratio of load losses to no load losses 6,20
pu eddy current losses at hot spot location, LV 0,65
Where,
pu eddy current losses at hot spot location, HV 0,3
Top oil time constant 170 min
θH is the hot spot temperature, oC. Hot spot time constant 6 min
PEC -R(pu) are the rated eddy current losses at the hot spot Exponent n 0,9
Exponent m 0,8
location
∆θH-R is the rated hot spot rise over ambient, K.
τH is the winding time constant at the hot spot location, The established model has two stages. In the first stage,
ambient temperature and load factor are taken as input
min.
parameters. The hot-spot temperatures that will be used in loss
of life calculation are found out by using these parameters with
B. Insulation life loss running the thermal model. However, the hot-pot temperature
The IEEE guide recommends that users select their own calculation procedures are different for natural ester and
assumed lifetime estimate. In this guide, 180 000 hours (20.55 mineral oil immersed transformers. According to the
years) is used as a normal lifetime [3]. experimental studies in the literature, the difference of the
temperature rise doesn’t exceed 21 oC between natural ester
It is assumed that insulation deterioration can be modeled and mineral oil [5,6 and 9]. At nominal operating conditions,
as a per unit quantity for a reference temperature of 110 °C, the this difference can vary between in the 5 to 10 oC [6]. For this
equation for accelerated ageing is [3,4]; reason, a lookup table changing as exponential is intended in
the model for natural oil immersed transformer according to
⎡ 15000 15000 ⎤
⎢ − ⎥
383 θ H + 273 ⎦
the studies in literature.
FAA = e ⎣ pu (3)
The IEC guide is applicable mainly for the non-thermally TABLE III. AGING ACCELERATION FACTORS
upgraded paper, and the hot-spot temperature is limited to 98oC at
Mineral Oil Natural Ester
20oC ambient temperature. It can be expressed in the following Standards
(Aging acceleration factors) (Relatively revised)
manner [3,4]: ⎡ B B ⎤ ⎡ B B ⎤
⎢ − −
(θ H − 98 ) / 6
ANSI/IEEE C57: 91
⎣ (383 ) (θ H + 273 ) ⎥⎦ ⎢
⎣ (383 ) (θ H + 273 ) ⎥⎦
Aging rate (V ) = 2 (4) e R.e
(θ H − 98 ) (θ H −98 )
The loss of life during a small interval dt can be defined as; IEC 354: 91
2 6 R.2 6

dL = FAAdt (5) B is the ageing rate constant.

θH is hot spot temperature.
R is a ratio of slow insulation aging for natural ester. It can be selected between
The loss of life over the given load cycle can be calculated by; (1/5) and (1/8) according to the characteristics of natural ester.

L = ∫ FAA dt (6)
The second phase of the modeling is the calculation of
and the per unit loss of life factor is; aging characteristics. Here, different equations are
recommended for natural ester (revised) and mineral oil (not
L=
∫ F dt
AA
(7)
revised) to calculate the aging acceleration factor as shown in
table III. In the literature, it is commonly, mentioned that
∫ dt vegetable-based oils prolong life solid insulation between 5 to
8 times compared to the same temperature. For this purpose a
The insulation loss of life is usually taken to be a good factor, R should be added to the calculation process of the
indicator of transformer loss of life. aging model for natural ester.
 Under the same time duration, the hot-spot temperature rise
Environment Life loss calculated for the natural ester and the mineral oil is shown in
temperature Thermally modeling Thermal aging
of power transformer Hot spot
fig. 4. The difference of the temperature between the natural
temperature
ester and mineral oil increases as power factor increase. This is
because the thermal resistance and thermal capacity of the
Load FOR NATURAL FOR NATURAL
information ESTER ESTER
Remaining natural ester are greater than that of the mineral oil.
life
Taking into account Relatively revised
the information of IEEE and IEC 140 Vegetable-oil
the dominance vector standards
Mineral-oil
120

Temperatures ( oC)
100
Figure 1. Proposed thermal model and aging calculation stages
80

60
In the model, firstly the hot-spot temperatures and secondly 40
aging parameters such as insulation loss-life and remaining life
20
can be calculated taking the ambient temperature and transient
characteristics of the load into account for each natural ester/ Time (750 min)
mineral oil immersed power transformer.
Figure 4. Hot-spot temperature differentiation between natural ester
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS and mineral oil

A. Transient thermal characteristics B. Transient aging characteristics

The load step variation for 750 minutes time duration is To determine of the aging characteristics clearly, the load
shown in fig. 2. Calculation of the hot spot temperature and time duration is increased to 48 hours, and load sample repeats
top-oil temperature for mineral oil-immersed power three times in this time duration. The following situations are
transformer using thermal model are shown in fig. 3. It can be analyzed using the model.
seen that the temperature rise for the certain time periods does
not reach to the steady state point. • Aging acceleration factor variation
• Time dependent relative aging rate variation
710 - 735 min • Life loss variation
2

365 - 500 min Fig. 5 (a) and (b) shows the acceleration of aging for
1.5 natural ester and mineral oil. Although the aging characteristics
Load factor

0 -190 min are the same, the aging acceleration factor of mineral oil is
1 approximately two times more than that of natural ester. Also,
190 - 365 min
this affects to the relative aging rate. As shown in fig. 6, the
0.5 500 - 710 min trend of the relative aging rate instabilities for natural ester and
mineral oil decreases as the time increases. The life loss
0 variation of the solid insulation which is known generally
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5
Time (750 min) 4
x 10 sec
wrongly as transformer life loss is shown in fig. 7. The life loss
of insulation for mineral oil-immersed transformer is two times
Figure 2. Load step changes (IEC 60076- Part 7) longer (approximately 2.4 times) than the life loss of insulation
for natural ester-immersed transformer under same conditions.

CONCLUSIONS
120
The results of this study show that the natural ester has
100 Hot-spot temp.
significant benefits in slowing down aging of insulation. Solid
Temperatures ( oC)

80 insulation life loss variations which is mentioned as 5-8 times

slower at the same temperature, experimented by modeling two
60
different 250 MVA power transformers which have the same
40 technical characteristic features for mineral oil and natural
20
Top-oil temp. ester. The factor R should be added to the proposed model for
natural ester and, its temperature rise more than that of mineral
Time (750 min)
oil is also considered in this study. In particularly, natural
ester-immersed transformer is very advantageous in the
Figure 3. Temperature responses for mineral oil nominal operating conditions. This advantage decreases with
increasing load values over the nominal operating condition.
 14 7

12 6

Aging acceleration factor

Aging acceleration factor

10 5

8 4

6 3

4 2

2 1

0 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
Time (48 hours) 4 Time (48 hours) 4
x 10 sec x 10 sec

(a) (b)
Figure 5. Aging acceleration factor variations, (a) for mineral oil, (b) for natural ester
0.5 0.2

0.4
0.15

Relative ageing rate

Relative ageing rate

0.3
0.1
0.2

0.05
0.1

0 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
Time (48 hours) 4 Time (48 hours) 4
x 10 sec x 10 sec

(a) (b)
Figure 6. Time dependent average relative aging rate variations, (a) for mineral oil, (b) for natural ester
-4
x 10 x 10
-5
1 5

0.8 4
Transformer life-loss

Transformer life-loss

0.6 3

0.4 2

0.2 1

0 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
Time (48 hours) 4 Time (48 hour) 4
x 10 sec x 10 sec

(a) (b)
Figure 7. Life loss variations, (a) for mineral oil, (b) for natural ester

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