Experimental Investigation on Surface Discharge

Phenomena of Oil/Paper Insulation with Different Aging

States

Rudiana Nurhadian1,2,3, Yuan Li3, Ming-Xiao Zhu3, Yan-Hui Wei3, Yoga Napitupulu1,2,3, Hai-Bao Mu3, Jun-Bo Deng3,
Suwarno1, Guan-Jun Zhang3
1
School of Electrical Engineering and Informatics,
Institut Teknologi Bandung, Bandung, 40312, Indonesia
2
PT PLN (Persero), Jakarta, 12160, Indonesia
3
State Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation and Power Equipment
Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710049, P.R. China

Abstract - Surface discharge is one of the most important and A. Experimental Setup
serious types of PD which may cause the breakdown failure of
In this paper mineral oil and Kraft paper are selected to
a transformer. This paper is aimed at probing the evolution
process of surface discharge characteristics of oil/paper study surface discharge characteristics in oil/paper
insulation with aging states extension and applied voltage insulation. The mineral oil is dried, filtrated and degassed.
increasing. Experimental test results show that PD number Kraft paper is inter-turn insulation paper in transformer with
and PD magnitude increase with the increasing of aging the thickness of 130 μm.
degree. The PD magnitude and PD number also show great
difference from PD inception until breakdown with applied
step-on voltage. With the aging time increases, Scanning
Electron Microscope (SEM) and Polarizing Microscope (PM)
test results show that paper structure become more
disconnected and serious fracture.

Keywords - Surface discharge, Phased-Resolved Partial

Discharge (PRPD), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM),
oil/paper insulation, thermally aging.

I. INTRODUCTION
Oil and paper are two widely used dielectrics in large power
transformer insulation. Transformer oil impregnates the
voids in paper insulation and fills the gaps between
components in the transformer tank to increase the dielectric
strength of the insulation. Oil itself is not only an excellent
insulating liquid, but also plays the cooling system, which
can transfer heat generated from the losses of transformer
windings and cores. Furthermore, oil also acts as the
information carrier for monitoring the condition of a power
transformer.
PD occur in various places with the various type on the
transformer as described in [1],[2]. This paper will discuss
the electrical, chemical and physical phenomena to gain a
better understanding of the characteristics of surface
discharge in oil/paper insulation. It is very important to
develop the diagnostic process for PD identification in
power transformers.
Fig. 1. Experimental Procedure
In order to understand the impact of oil aging, a four
different aging has been performed to analyze the
characteristics of PD activity. The relative rate of thermal
aging is taken to be equal to unity for hot-spot temperature of
98°C, which corresponds to operation at ambient
temperature of 20oC [3]. The first step thermally aging
procedure is inserting Kraft paper into vessel in a vacuum
dry oven at 105°C. At the same time, new mineral oil drop-
by drop through oil hose into vessel containing papers in
vacuum dry oven for 24 hours (drying, degassing and
filtering). Then oil/paper insulation is accelerated thermally
aging under 140°C for three different aging-states, i.e. 50h, The test results of acidity, dielectric loss and furans shows
330h and 800h. an increase, while the resistance insulation value decreased
with the increasing of aging as shown in Table 1.

C. DP Value Analysis
The accelerated aging experiment lasted for 800h. The trace
of DP with aging time is shown in Fig.4. DP values
decreased dramatically from 928 at the beginning, to 733 at
50h in the earlier aging stage and 420 at 330h in the middle
aging stage. In the final aging stages, DP decreased slowly
Fig. 2. Surface in oil discharge model and approached 311 at the final point of the experiment, at
800h.
A sphere to plane electrode arrangement immersed in oil was
used to produce surface discharges as shown in Fig.2. The
ground plane electrode is covered by paper. The sphere
electrode touches the surface of the paper, which is laid on
the plane. This arrangement creates a surface discharge in
oil.
II. DATA COLLECTING
The test configuration and procedure, as described in Fig.1
& Fig. 2, were adopted to investigate PD behaviors in
oil/paper insulation as a function of voltage and as a
function of aging. The applied voltage was increased from a
level lower than the inception voltage until breakdown. PD
pulses were recorded at each voltage increment. Four Fig. 4. Development of DP value with aging time
groups of oil and paper samples, i.e. new, 50h, 330h and
800h aged, are taken out separately and placed in glass- D. Morphological Paper Analysis
sealed bottles for further chemical and physical analysis.
Inspection of the paper surfaces under the SEM and the PM
revealed serious damage after final aging stage at 800h.
B. Oil Quality Test Result From Table 2 can be observed that the fibers gradually
become slim and serious fracture than an un-aged paper
with the aging time increases.

Table 2. SEM & PM Micrographs of paper

SEM Polarizing Microscope

New
DP
928
Fig. 3. Oil sample for un-aged, 50h, 330h & 800h

It was observed that the oil color changed from bright to

dark brown as can be seen in Fig.3. That can be analyzed
visually that oil color changes becomes darker indicates that 50h
a decline in the quality of the oil insulation DP
733
Table 1. Physicochemical Analysis on oil sample
Acid Tan Resistance Furan
(mgKOH/ Delta Insulation (mg/L)
g) (Ω.m) 330h
New 0.007 0.0003 3.20*1010 0.01 DP
50h 0.008 0.0004 3.00*1010 0.75 420
10
330h 0.015 0.0015 1.70*10 2.85
10
800h 0.049 0.0256 1.50*10 8.04
 800h
DP
311

Porosity on the surface of paper occur after aging and with
the increasing of the aging time, the holes also show an
increasing trend as can be seen with yellow circle marked.
E. PD Measurement
General characteristics of surface in oil discharge are
summarized in Table 3.
Fig. 7. Actual voltage U at which PD occurred
As can be seen in Fig. 5-7 the partial discharges did not
always occur at the peak of the AC voltage, but in some
cases also at lower voltages. Consequently the curve of the
actual voltage level U at which the discharges occurred
shows some scatter. Occurrence of PD on positive half cycle
is more dominant than negative half cycle.

Table 3. General characteristics of surface in oil discharge • Voltage Differences between Consecutive Discharges
General Characteristics
 Phase of occurrence : 0o-
150o and 180o-330o
 Magnitude : small-
medium
 The magnitude of
discharge changes with
the applied voltage and
increasing aging time. Fig.8. Frequency distribution of voltage changes
 Number of the discharge
changes with applied
voltage and increasing
aging time.
 Repetition rate : high

III. DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

The sequence of the partial discharge events contains the
information for PD analysis. In this paper, PRPD with
statistical Analysis and PSA were used to find out the
characteristics of surface in oil discharge. Some parameters
that will be used for analysis in this paper as follows,
• Actual Voltage at Which the Discharges Occurred
Fig. 9. Voltage changes dU at which PD occurred
In some cases, initially only one discharge per cycle occurs
and mostly at the peak value in one of the half waves of the
applied voltage. In this case the voltage change ΔU between
consecutive discharges is about zero. If the voltage is
increased, either more discharges occur in the same half
waves or discharges occur in the opposite half waves also.
Besides that, clearly show that PD free cycles become more
lower when the voltage level higher.

• Discharge Magnitude

Fig. 5 Frequency distribution of actual voltage

Fig. 10. Discharge magnitude at which PD occurred

It shows clearly that the frequency distributions of the

discharge magnitudes in both diagrams are not the same.
Various discharge with higher magnitude appear along with
Fig. 6. Sequence of PD
the increasing applied voltage.
• Time Differences between Consecutive Discharges
Fig. 11. Time differences between consecutive discharge
Fig. 12. Frequency distribution of time differences
In the first mentioned case the voltage differences (ΔU) do
not change significantly, but in the distribution of the time
differences (∆t) between consecutive discharges in addition
to the value of 20 ms (or multiples of this), values less than
a few ms occur. In the other case voltage differences (ΔU)
of twice the peak value of the applied voltage and time
differences (∆t) around 10 ms occurs. With higher applied
voltages also in this case additional smaller time differences
occur rapidly.
• PD Repetition rate
Fig. 13. PD repetition rate over applied voltage
Trend of PD repetition rate increase with increasing of
applied voltage and PD repetition rate tends to decrease
with increasing levels of aging. This happens because aging
makes the declining quality of the insulation so that the low
PD repetition rate has enough to make the insulation
breakdown.
• Equivalent current
Fig. 14. Equivalent current over applied voltage
• Equivalent power
Fig. 15. Equivalent power over applied voltage
Equivalent current and equivalent power also shows the
same characteristics that are increase with the increasing
applied voltage and decrease with increasing levels of
aging. Aging causes conductivity value of insulation
become higher, so that the current and power needed to
make the PD occur become lower.
IV. CONCLUSION
In this paper, characteristics of surface discharge in oil with
overstressed voltage and aging extension is investigated.
PRPD Analysis & PSA method is used for analysis. From
experimental results, it can be concluded as follows:
 The results show that the number and the maximum
magnitude of PD increase with the increasing of applied
voltage.
 Thermally aging makes declining on oil/paper insulation
quality, which causes the duration and energy of PD
occurrence tend to decrease for achieve breakdown
condition.
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