1918 J.-L. Wei et al.

: Novel Characteristic Parameters for Oil-paper Insulation Assessment from Differential Time-domain Spectroscopy

Novel Characteristic Parameters for Oil-paper

Insulation Assessment from Differential Time-domain
Spectroscopy Based on Polarization and Depolarization
Current Measurement
Jian-Lin Wei, Guan-Jun Zhang, Hao Xu, Hua-Dong Peng, Shi-Qiang Wang and Ming Dong
State Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation and Power Equipment, School of Electrical Engineering
Xi’an Jiaotong University
Xi’an, Shaanxi 710049, China

ABSTRACT
For achieving the aging characteristic parameters of transformer oil-paper insulation, oil-
impregnated pressboard samples are acceleratedly thermally aged at high temperature (~
150 oC) in laboratory, and on the same sample before and after being aged, polarization and
depolarization current (PDC) tests are performed at different temperatures (30, 40, 50 and
60 oC), respectively. Besides analyzing the PDC results, the differential time-domain
spectroscopy (DTDS) technique is introduced to investigate the aging status of oil-paper
insulation and the influence of measurement temperature. The DTDS parameters such as
polarization component Qn, polarization response time τn and line-shape parameter αn are
extracted with DTDS unscrambling method based on PDC data. It is revealed that DTDS
represents similar polarization process and mechanism to PDC, and all the DTDS curves
calculated with the obtained parameters (Qn, τn, αn) are in good fit with those measured. By
analyzing the effect of temperature and aging, two types of relaxation polarization
mechanism are observed, i.e., the interfacial polarizations between oil and paper insulation
and inside the pressboard. The polarization components, response speeds and line-shape
parameters of both the polarization mechanisms increase evidently on the whole with
temperature rising or sample aging. It is demonstrated that, the DTDS theory is suitable for
oil-paper insulation material, the DTDS unscrambling method is effective and objective,
and such DTDS parameters are sensitive and can quantitatively reflect the changing of
temperature and aging condition with regularity. Consequently, the parameters (Qn, τn, αn)
can be considered as the novel characteristic parameters for aging condition estimation of
oil-paper insulation to upgrade the application effect of PDC curves.
Index Terms — Transformer, oil-paper insulation, thermal aging, polarization and
depolarization current (PDC), differential time-domain spectroscopy (DTDS), characteris-
tic parameters.

1 INTRODUCTION In recent decades, the convenient and non-destructive tech-

OIL paper insulation system, especially the solid insulation
like insulating paper, is the most important determinant for the
safety operation of large power transformer [1-3]. All along,
much attention has been paid to aging condition estimation of
oil-paper insulation. The traditional diagnostic techniques,
such as Dissolved Gas Analysis (DGA), Partial Discharge
(PD), furan and moisture content (m.c.) in oil, and DP of
cellulose paper regarded as the most effective and reliable
methods, have been widely accepted and applied to monitor
the aging condition of oil-paper transformers [4-7].
Nonetheless, obvious measurement dispersion and destructive
sampling restrain the application of some above techniques.
Manuscript received on 12 December 2010, in final form 29 May 2011
niques based on dielectric relaxation response characteristics,
Return Voltage (RV), Polarization and Depolarization Current
(PDC) and Frequency Domain Spectroscopy (FDS), have been
introduced in oil-paper insulation aging condition assessment
[6-11]. On study of these three kinds of dielectric response test
methods, many researchers all over the world have made
valuable progress and drawn some instructive conclusions for
practical applications [7-19]. The dominant time constants of
RV curves [19-22] and the minimum values of loss factor
(tanδmin) of FDS curves are extracted as the aging characteristic
parameters to assess moisture content in solid insulation,
improving the application effect of these test methods [8, 9].
While for PDC test, presently the aging condition is estimated
mainly through the comparison between measured curves and

1070-9878/11/$25.00 © 2011 IEEE

IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Vol. 18, No. 6; December 2011 1919

“fingerprint” curves stored in off-line database [7, 15, 23]. The u(t)
comparison method is effective in application, however, not
U0
satisfying enough. Because the method is mainly based on the
dielectric phenomenon comparison, and unable to deeply Tc Tc
analyze the mechanism how aging condition influences the
dielectric properties. Therefore, it is necessary to perform deep t
investigation on aging characteristic parameters with exact i(t)
physical significance from PDC measurements to improve
PDC test effect.
In this paper, oil-paper insulation samples are artificially ip(t)
aged at high temperature (~ 150 oC) in the laboratory. On the
same sample before and after being aged, PDC tests are carried t
id(t)
out at different temperature respectively. The theory of
differential time-domain spectroscopy (DTDS) based on PDC
measurement is introduced, and the effect of aging condition
and measurement temperature on PDC and DTDS are i(t)
analyzed to investigate the sensitive aging characteristic
parameters and further to prompt the utilization efficiency of ip(t)
PDC measurement data in condition assessment of oil-paper
insulation.
Tc t
id(t)
2 THEORY OF MEASUREMENT AND Figure 2. Waveforms of polarization and depolarization currents.
ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES
Based on basic theory of dielectric response, the
2.1 PDC MEASUREMENT
polarization current is deduced as equations (1); while
The schematic diagram and waveforms of PDC measure- equation (2) expresses the depolarization current [6, 16,
ment are shown in Figures 1 and 2, respectively [6, 15, 24]. 24].
PDC test is performed in two steps. Firstly, the test object
(insulating material or equipment) is charged with a step  
excitation U0 for a long period Tc. During this period, the
i p (t )  C0U 0   f (t )  (1)
polarization (charging) current ip through the object as the
0 
step response is measured. The current is divided into two id (t )  C0U 0  f (t )  f (t  Tc )  (2)
parts, one of which arising from the activation of polariza-
tion process determines the decay segment of current curve, where C0, U0, Tc, σ, ε0 represents the geometric capacitance,
and the other related to the electric conductivity determines applied charging voltage, charging/discharging period,
the steady segment [15, 24]. Secondly, the voltage U0 is composite dc conductivity and vacuum permittivity of the
removed and the object is short-circuited for the same pe- test object, respectively. And f(t) is the response function in
riod Tc. The previously activated polarization process now time domain, defined to describe the polarization
gives rise to the decay depolarization (discharging) current characteristics. For oil-paper insulation, the function and
id in the opposite direction, where no contribution of the the conductivity are mainly influenced by aging degree,
conductivity is present [15, 24]. Restricted by the practical moisture content and geometric structure [13-16, 24].
voltage rising characteristics of dc voltage source, both the Correspondingly, the condition of oil-paper insulation can
polarization and depolarization currents are generally rec- be evaluated by PDC measurement.
orded and analyzed from 1s to Tc. And the depolarization Moreover, PDC measurement can be used for estimation
current is always flipped vertically and shifted leftwards for of sample conductivity σ. If the charging/discharging period
the convenience of data analysis, as shown in Figure 2. Tc is sufficiently long so that f(t+Tc)≈0, equations (1) and
(2) can be combined into equation (3a) to express the
conductivity. And if the values of distance between elec-
trodes d and area of electrodes A are given, the conductivity
ip id can also be obtained from equation (3b) as an equivalent
U0 expression of equation (3a). Practically, the conductivity is
approximately calculated by replacing t with Tc in equation
Test Object (3b) [6, 16, 24].
0
 [i p (t )  id (t )] (3a)
C0U 0
A
d
 [i p (t )  id (t )] (3b)
Figure 1. PDC measurement schematic circuit.
AU 0
1920 J.-L. Wei et al.: Novel Characteristic Parameters for Oil-paper Insulation Assessment from Differential Time-domain Spectroscopy
2.2 THEORY ANALYSIS
2.2.1 Time-Domain Dielectric Spectroscopy
(TDDS)
Li was first to present the time-domain dielectric
spectroscopy (TDDS) theory [25, 26], which holds that
there are exactly finite polarization mechanisms in many
dielectrics especially in polymer materials. The
mechanisms exhibit different response times under external
electric field stress, and are closely related to the molecular
structure in different levels. If a dielectric is fully charged
for a sufficiently long time, the charges stored from all the
active polarization mechanisms will reach the equilibrium
value. When the dielectric is discharged through short
circuit after removing charging voltage, the stored charges
decay with time as equation (4a), called the TDDS function.
N
 Q G(t ,
n 1
n n ,  n )  Q0  Q(t )
with
G (t ,  n ,  n )  exp[  (t /  n ) n ]
where τ1<τ2···<τN, 1/2≤аn≤1, Q0 is the total charge in equili-
brium stored only by dielectric polarization, Q(t) represents
the charges through the dielectric, N is the mechanisms
number, and (Qn, τn, αn) are the TDDS parameters in time
domain of the n-th polarization mechanism [25, 26].
Among them, Qn is called polarization component,
indicating the polarization intensity and the contribution of
the n-th mechanism in Q0, expressed as equation (5). τn is
defined as polarization response time that denotes the
corresponding polarization speed. And αn is called the line-
shape parameter that describes the shape of TDDS curve
[25, 26].
N
Q0   Qn
n 1
2.2.2 Differential Time-Domain Spectroscopy
(DTDS)
Generally, it is essential to accurately separate and deter-
mine each polarization mechanism without any disputation
from the measured TDDS curve as equation (4a), where
more than one mechanism overlapping takes effect during
the discharging period. However, it is hardly to be accom-
plished simply by the uncharacteristic decay curve itself.
Thus, as the development, the differential time-domain
spectroscopy (DTDS) function is defined as the product of
the discharging time t and the discharging current I(t) [25,
26]. Here, I(t) is the differential coefficient of the TDDS
function, and the DTDS function thus can be expressed by
N determined by fitting the measured curve with
tI (t )   Qn g (t , n ,  n )
n 1
with
g (t ,  n ,  n )   n (t /  n ) n exp[  (t /  n ) n ]
It is observed that the curve of equation (6b) has a unique
characteristic peak only contributed by the n-th mechanism
lying at t=τn, and it is also thought that each mechanism in
equation (6a) has little effect on the others for ordinary
dielectric material [25, 26]. This makes it easy to distin-
guish every peak and objectively get such TDDS
parameters (Qn, τn, αn) from the measured DTDS curve as
equation (6a), and the process is called unscrambling for the
DTDS.
For the convenience of DTDS unscrambling, the norma-
lized expression of equation (6b) is written as
 ( x)  e  x exp( x ) (7)
where e is a constant of the base of natural logarithm and α
is the line-shape parameter. Figure 3 shows the standard
curve of equation (7) with different line-shape parameter
[25,26]. It can be seen that the peak, where Φ(1)=1, is
corresponding to that of equation (6b).
(4a)
(4b)
Figure 3. Standard DTDS curve with different line-shape parameter α.
Compared with PDC test process, the DTDS theory is
considered suitable to PDC measurement, and the
(5)
depolarization current of PDC can be utilized as the
discharging current I(t) in equation (6a). Then the DTDS
unscrambling based on PDC result is performed in three
steps as follows.
Step 1) The number of polarization mechanisms N is ob-
tained by counting the apparent peaks in the
measured DTDS curve on basis of depolarization
current after PDC test. This can avoid any subjec-
tive assumption to determine the relaxation
polarization number.
Step 2) Approximate value ranges of the DTDS parame-
ters (Qn, τn, αn) are gotten through comparison be-
tween the measured DTDS peaks and that in the
standard curves in Figure 3.
Step 3) Accurate values of the DTDS parameters are
(6a) equation (6a) with the boundary conditions of ob-
tained approximate ranges in Step 2).
With the unscrambling method, DTDS theory has been
successfully applied in describing the depolarization current
(6b)
of such dielectrics as capacitor paper, polyethylene
terephthalate (PET), polypropylene (PP), etc. [25-27], in
estimating little content of sulphur and oxygen doped in
IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation
gasoline [28], and in analyzing the changes of molecular
structure of benzene and paraffin with temperature varying
[26, 29]. As for oil-paper insulation, it is certain that the
aging condition affects its molecular structure and polariza-
tion mechanisms, and the parameters (Qn, τn, αn) can be ex-
tracted to evaluate the condition accordingly.
Vol. 18, No. 6; December 2011 1921
o
Firstly, the aged sample is cooled from 150 C down to
60 oC, and kept for 3 d to condense the steam evaporated
from oil and pressboard during aging process and re-reach
moisture equilibrium [30]. The aged oil is then sampled to
measure the physical and chemical properties.

3 EXPERIMENTAL ARRANGEMENT
As test object, the oil-paper insulation sample comprises
ordinary 25# naphthenic transformer oil (freezing point not
higher than -25 oC) and a single-sheet high density
(1.1g/cm3) transformer pressboard of 1.5 mm thick in this
paper. The whole experimental procedure is shown in Fig-
ure 4, as is divided into 3 phases, i.e., the treatments and
tests on the new sample before being aged, the aging
process, and the treatments and tests on the same sample
after being aged.
Phase 1). The sample is prepared and tested with relevant
methods under unaged condition as follows.
Firstly, the circular disk samples of 134 mm diameter are
cut from an original 1.5 mm thick single-sheet pressboard,
and dried for 48 h at 105 oC/100 Pa in a vacuum drying
cabinet. Then it is exposed to ambient air to reach the initial
moisture content 0.5% by monitoring its weight increment
with a high-precision electronic balance. Meanwhile, DP
measurement is applied on some other dried part of the cut
original pressboard to describe the unaged properties.
Secondly, the disk pressboard is clamped between copper
parallel plate electrodes in a metal container for volume
current measurement as shown in Figure 5. Here, the three-
electrode test system is employed with a top electrode (120
mm diameter), a bottom electrode (100 mm diameter) and a
guard ring electrode (120 mm diameter) surrounding the
bottom one, and the electrodes are connected to the high
voltage source (HI), current input connector (LO) and
ground of PDC test equipment, respectively.
Subsequently, the container is sealed and the air inside is
pumped out through the exhaust port on container top by a
vacuum pump, and the pressure is kept below 100 Pa for a
while. New transformer oil is continuously pulled into the
container through the oil port at the bottom under vacuum
condition until submerging the pressboard. The completely
Figure 4. Flowchart of the experiment.
sealed container is put into a temperature-controlled oven
shown in Figure 5, and stands at 60 oC for 7 days to ensure
the oil fully immerse pressboard and reach moisture equili-
brium between pressboard and oil [30]. The unaged oil in
the container then is sampled through the oil port for physi-
cal and chemical properties analysis.
Finally, the PDC tests are performed on the prepared un-
aged oil-paper insulation sample at 60, 50, 40 and 30 oC,
respectively. For decreasing the effect of moisture
migration between oil and pressboard on PDC tests due to
temperature variation, the sample is maintained at each
temperature for 12 h including the test time.
Phase 2). The sample is heated at high temperature 150
o
C for 8 d under sealed condition to induce
accelerated thermal aging.
Phase 3). The aged sample is treated for relevant tests un-
der aged condition as follows. Figure 5. Structure schematic of aging test device.
1922 J.-L. Wei et al.: Novel Characteristic Parameters for Oil-paper Insulation Assessment from Differential Time-domain Spectroscopy

Secondly, like the PDC test process before aging, the lower grade transformer. Despite all that, the mechanical
aged sample is sequentially maintained at 60, 50, 40 and 30 tensile with the DP value 748 is not much weaker than that
o
C for 12 h to perform PDC tests at these temperatures, with the value of 1000, for the two values both mean the
separately. Until now, the sample is kept isolated from out- early stage of pressboard aging process. Moreover, the used
side air since put into the container. pressboard can be gotten more easily from market.
Finally, the container is opened and the aged pressboard
is taken out for DP measurement. Thus the whole experi- Table 1. Relevant properties of oil-paper sample.
ment is completed. Press-
Oil
board
The PDC measurement equipment is developed at Xi’an Aging
Acid Moisture Volume
Jiaotong University, with a high resistance electrometer condition pH
DP value content resistivity
value
with a built-in dc charging voltage source (Keithley 6517A) (mg KOH/g) (mg/L) (m)
[31], a computer and a GPIB card. A required software plat- Unaged 748 5.8 0.0096 18.5 1.7×1011
form is developed to control this hardware system and
record PDC measurement results. The charging voltage of Aged 211 4.3 0.025 23.5 6.4×1010
every PDC test is set at 500 V with a period of 5000 s. To
avoid influence of residual charges, the sample is grounded
at least 2 h before each test. 4.2 PDC MEASUREMENTS
4.2.1 Temperature Effect
4 EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND Figures 6 and 7 show the PDC curves under unaged and
DISCUSSION aged conditions at different temperatures, respectively. The
results indicate that temperature has evident effect on both
4.1 PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL PROPERTIES currents, and the curves under unaged and aged conditions
The physical and chemical properties of oil-paper insula- behave consistent variation tendency.
tion sample measured under unaged and aged conditions are As mentioned in above section, polarization current is
both shown in Table 1. composed of two parts. One is the decay current generated
It can be seen that the properties of oil-paper insulation by charged polarization mechanisms, and the other is the
change significantly, the DP of pressboard and pH value of steady conduction current related to the conductivity [15,
oil both decrease, and the acid value, m.c. and volume 24]. While depolarization current only comprises the former
conductivity of oil all increase after aging. part. Accordingly, it can be found from Figures 6 and 7 that,
For oil-paper insulation, during aging process, the chemi- with temperature rising, the decay segment of polarization
cal reactions under combined effect of thermal stress, acid current shifts upwards and leftwards as well as that of
and the impossibly eliminated oxygen, break masses of depolarization current. The shift regularity indicates that
cellulose molecules in pressboard and decrease its DP value polarization intensity and current contributed by active
[1-4]. Meanwhile, strongly polar and conductive polarization mechanisms, and the corresponding polariza-
substances, such as organic acid and water, are produced. tion response speed both improve. Due to that the oil
These substances result in the increase of hydrogen ion conductivity σoil is generally much larger than paper
concentration and higher conductivity of oil [1-4, 32]. All conductivity σpaper, σoil and σpaper are deduced to be approx-
above are in charge of the changes shown by Table 1. imately proportional to the initial part and steady part of
It can be noticed that DP of the unaged pressboard is 748, polarization current, respectively, by the conductivity
smaller than the normal value about 1000. This difference calculation equation of composite insulation [13, 16, 24].
may be due to that the pressboard used in this experiment is Both the two parts of the polarization current shift upwards,
produced by a small-scale factory and served in 35kV or representing higher conductivity of both oil and pressboard.

-8
10

-8
10

-9
Pol Current (A)
Pol Current (A)

10 o
60 C
o
60 C
-9
o
50 C 10
o
50 C
o
-10
40 C
10 40 C
o

o
(b) o
(a) 30 C -10
10 30 C

0 1 2 3 4
10
0 1
10 10
2
10
3 4
10 10 10 10 10 10
Time (s) Time (s)
Figure 6. Temperature effect on polarization current of PDC under (a) unaged condition (b) aged condition.
IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Vol. 18, No. 6; December 2011 1923
-8
10 o
60 C
o
60 C o
50 C o
-8
50 C
10
-9
10
Depol Current (A)

Depol Current (A)

o
40 C -9
-10
10 10
o
o 40 C
30 C
o
30 C
-11
10 -10
10

-12
10 (a) A second decay segment
(b) A second decay segment
-11
in the same curve 10 in the same curve
0 1 2 3 4
10 10 10 10 10 10
0 1
10 10
2
10
3
10
4

Time (s) Time (s)

Figure 7. Temperature effect on depolarization current of PDC under (a) unaged condition (b) aged condition.

4.2.2 Aging Effect

Earlier researchers report that PDC measurement can re-
flect two types of polarization phenomena, i.e., the interfa- Figure 8 shows the aging effect on PDC measurement
cial polarization between oil and pressboard materials with under different temperature through rearranging the
the general response time of less than 1000 s, and the curves in Figures 6 and 7, and it is similar to temperature
dielectric response of pressboard with response time of effect above. The similar observation represents identical
greater than thousands of seconds [6, 8, 14, 23]. Thereupon, variation trend of relevant dielectric properties. With
it is considered that, for the former polarization, tempera- insulation aging, the shift tendency of PDC curves under
ture rising causes the increase of temperature-dependent different four temperatures are consistent. The decay
mobility of charge carriers in both oil and pressboard, segments of both the polarization and depolarization
improving the conductivity and the polarization response currents shift upwards and leftwards, and the steady
speed as observed above from Figures 6 and 7. And the segment of polarization current shifts upwards. These shift
rising of temperature also maybe enlarge the difference of behaviors mean, respectively, that both the intensity and
dielectric properties between oil and pressboard, inducing response speed of interfacial polarization between oil and
higher interfacial polarization intensity and current. For the paper are improved, and the conductivity of insulating
latter polarization, it is considered as the interfacial paper is enhanced. The interfacial polarization inside the
polarization inside the pressboard. Cellulose paper is a very pressboard is still too weak to be observed clearly.
inhomogeneous dielectric material due to its non-uniform Although similar to temperature effect phenomenally,
molecular structure, non-uniform contribution of aging de- aging effect is quite different in mechanism. As shown by
gree and absorbed moisture. Such structure properties measured properties in Table 1, when oil-paper insulation
maybe lead to interfacial polarization inside itself under is aged, the strongly polar byproducts such as water and
external electric field. From Figure 6, this slower polariza- organic acids are produced, and cellulose molecules are
tion is difficult to be found only from polarization current, broken and pressboard is loosened [1-4, 32]. As a result,
whereas can be observed from depolarization current in the conductivity increases and more oil permeates into
Figure 7. insulating pressboard to generate more interface between
As in Figure 7, a second decay behavior appears in the oil and pressboard. Under the combination effect of these
segments whose depolarization time is greater than 2000 s factors, not only the response speed but the intensity of
of the curve at 60 oC under unaged condition, than 1000 s at interfacial polarization between oil and pressboard is
50 oC and than 600 s at 60 oC under aged condition, in improved.
comparison with those in the rest curves and rest segments
of the same curves. It means another different polarization 4.2.3 Conductivity Dependent on Temperature
mechanism that responds more slowly than interfacial It has been analyzed above that the conductivity
polarization between oil and pressboard [8, 14, 23], and can improves qualitatively with temperature rising whether the
be identified as the interfacial polarization inside sample is aged or not. Actually, its quantitative value can be
pressboard. Thereby, with rising temperature, this estimated by equation (3b) based on PDC measurement
polarization behaves more obviously. Despite of that, it is result and the given distance and area of electrodes as
still weaker due to the long response time so as to be easily mentioned formerly. Considering the specific insulation
covered by strong conduction current and difficultly found structure, the dc conductivity of the sample can be regarded
in polarization current. While it can be found in as that of the pressboard [16, 24]. Thus, the pressboard
depolarization current without interference of conduction conductivities dependent on temperature under unaged and
current. aged conditions are, separately, calculated as in Table 2.
1924 J.-L. Wei et al.: Novel Characteristic Parameters for Oil-paper Insulation Assessment from Differential Time-domain Spectroscopy
-8
10

Aged
-9
10 Aged
Pol and Depol Currents (A)

Pol and Depol Currents (A)

-9
10

-10
10
-10
10

Unaged Unaged

-11
10
(a) -11
(b)
10
0 1 2 3 4
10 10 10 10 10 10
0
10
1
10
2
10
3
10
4

Time (s) Time (s)

-8 Aged
10 10
-8
Aged

Pol and Depol Currents (A)

Pol and Depol Currents (A)

-9
-9
10
10

-10
10
Unaged
-10
10
-11
Unaged 10

-11
10 -12
10 (d)
(c)

0 1 2 3 4
10
0
10
1
10
2
10
3
10
4 10 10 10 10 10
Time (s) Time (s)

--- Pol Current,  Depol Current

Figure 8. Aging effect on polarization and depolarization currents at (a) 30 oC (b) 40 oC (c) 50 oC (d) 60 oC.

Table 2. Calculated DC conductivity of pressboard sample at different temperature. The observation would be helpful to
temperature.
efficiently utilize PDC measurement data.
Aging Conductivity, σpaper (S/m)
Temperature, T (C)
Condition 30 oC 40 oC 50 oC 60 oC
60 50 40 30
-12
Unaged 1.25×10-14 3.38×10-14 9.12×10-14 2.33×10-13 10
Unaged
Aged 2.31×10-14 5.4×10-14 1.59×10-13 4.56×10-13 Aged

The temperature-dependent conductivity of pressboard

Conductivity, paper(S/m)

can be expressed as [33, 34]

-13
10
 paper (T )  Ae(  E ac / kT )
(8)

where T is the absolute temperature in Kelvin, A is a con-

stant related to the mobility of ions in the insulation, k is the
Boltzman constant and Eac is the activation energy. Taking
natural logarithm on both sides of equation (8), it can be 10
-14

shown that the logarithm of conductivity varies linearly

with the inverse of the absolute temperature. 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3

The calculated conductivities in Table 2 are plotted in Reciprocal Temperature, 1000/T (K )

-1

Figure 9, from which it should be noted that the logarithms Figure 9. Calculated conductivity of pressboard sample versus reciprocal
absolute temperature.
of conductivities demonstrate linear variation with inverse
of absolute temperature and are in agreement with equation 4.3 DIFFERENTIAL TIME-DOMAIN
(8) under both unaged and aged conditions. The slopes of SPECTROSCOPY
two straight lines are much close to each other. This
represents that the conductivities obtained under different 4.3.1 Temperature and Aging Effects
temperature and aging condition are comparable by Based on the measured PDC results, the measured DTDS
converting them into those at a certain standard curves are obtained, as in Figures 10-12.
IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Vol. 18, No. 6; December 2011 1925

Measured peak 1 Measured peak 1

-7
10

-7
Time Current (As)

10

Time Current (As)

o
60 C
Measured o
-8 peak 2 60 C
10 o
50 C
o
Measured
40 C
o
50 C peak 2
—— Measured -8
—— Measured
10 o
- - - Calculated 40 C - - - Calculated
o
30 C
o
30 C
-9
10 0 1 2 3 4
0 1 2 3 4
10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10
Time (s) Time (s)
Figure 10. Temperature effect on DTDS curves under unaged Figure 11. Temperature effect on DTDS curves under aged
condition. condition.

The solid lines in Figures 10 and 11 show the effect of interfacial polarizations can be indicated by PDC measure-
measurement temperature on the DTDS under unaged and ment. Therefore, they are just corresponding to the two
aged conditions, respectively. It can be seen that tempera- peaks, i.e., the interfacial polarization between oil and
ture greatly impacts the DTDS, and the unaged DTDS pressboard is related to peak 1 and the polarization inside
curves show similar trend to the aged ones with temperature pressboard to peak 2. Temperature rising enhances both the
changing. At lower temperature, each curve has only a peak polarization intensity and response speed of the two interfa-
(measured peak 1). With temperature rising, the peak shifts cial polarization mechanisms. The observation is qualita-
upwards and leftwards, and another slight peak (measured tively consistent to that of temperature effect on PDC test.
peak 2) becomes more evident. The solid lines in Figure 12 show the aging effect on
According to the DTDS theory, the two peaks are consi- DTDS by rearranging the measured curves in Figures 10
dered to be contributed by two kinds of different polariza- and 11, and it is similar to the temperature effect on DTDS.
tion mechanisms [25, 26]. As analyzed above, the two

(b)
(a) Unscrambled
peak 1 (aged)
10
-7 Unscrambled
peak 1 (aged)
Unscrambled -7
10
Time Current (As)
Time Current (As)

peak 1 (unaged) Unscrambled

peak 1 (unaged)

-8
10

aged
-8
10
unaged aged
-9
unaged
10
0 1 2 3 4
10 10 10 10 10 10
0
10
1 2
10
3
10 10
4

Time (s) Time (s)

Unscrambled
(c) Unscrambled (d) peak 1 (aged)
peak 1 (aged) Unscrambled
peak 1 (unaged)
Unscrambled -7
Unscrambled 10
peak 2 (aged)
-7 peak 1 (unaged)
Time Current (As)

Time Current (As)

10
aged

unaged
Unscrambled
-8
10 peak 2 (aged)

aged Unscrambled
peak 2 (unaged)
-8
10
unaged
-9
0 1 2 3 4
10
0 1 2 3 4
10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10
Time (s) Time (s)
 Measured, --- Unscrambled
Figure 12. Aging effect on DTDS curves at (a) 30 oC (b) 40 oC (c) 50 oC (d) 60 oC.
1926 J.-L. Wei et al.: Novel Characteristic Parameters for Oil-paper Insulation Assessment from Differential Time-domain Spectroscopy

temperature and aging effect quantitatively, but it is difficult

4.3.2 DTDS Unscrambling
just from PDC curves.
With the DTDS unscrambling method, the DTDS parame- In summary, the DTDS technique is suitable for aging
ters (Qn, τn, αn) are extracted, as shown in Tables 3 and 4, condition estimation of oil-paper insulation and the DTDS
after counting the measured peaks in Figure 10 and 11. The unscrambling method is objective and effective. The obtained
calculated DTDS curves by equations (6a) and (6b) with the parameters (Qn, τn, αn) are sensitive and can quantitatively
extracted parameters are shown by dashed lines in Figures 10 reflect the changing of temperature and aging condition with
and 11, and each unscrambled DTDS peak is also shown by regularity.
dashed lines in Figure 12. From Figures 10 and 11, it can be
seen that all the calculated curves are in good fit with the -6
10
measured, representing the employed unscrambling method aged, Q1 aged, Q2
1.2
objective and effective. In Figure 12, the development ten- unaged, Q1 unaged, Q2
dency of unscrambled peaks further affirms the observation
from the temperature and aging effects on measured DTDS

Pol Component, Qn (C)

0.9
curves above.

Table 3. Extracted DTDS parameters under unaged condition.

0.6
Temp Peak 1 Peak 2
(oC) Q1 (C) τ1 (s) α1 Q2 (C) τ2 (s) α2
0.3
-7
30 1.64×10 2824 0.45 \ \ \
40 2.69×10-7 1773 0.5 \ \ \
50 3.18×10-7 580 0.59 \ \ \ 0.0
30 40 50 60
-7 -8
60 3.63×10 177 0.65 1.1×10 1970 0.38 Temperature, T(C)
Figure 13. Variation of polarization component with temperature.

Table 4. Extracted DTDS parameters under aged condition. 10

3

3.0
Temp Peak 1 Peak 2
aged, 1 aged, 2
(oC) Q1 (C) τ1 (s) α1 Q2 (C) τ2 (s) α2 2.5 unaged, 1 unaged, 2
-7
30 8.9×10 2580 0.68 \ \ \
Pol Response Time, n (s)

2.0
40 1.08×10-6 780 0.73 \ \ \
50 1.01×10-6 215 0.75 2.4×10-7 1300 0.55
1.5
-6
60 1.05×10 64 0.76 3.1×10-7 1020 0.66

1.0

For the purpose of better display, the parameters in Tables

0.5
3 and 4 are plotted in Figures 13-15, respectively, exhibiting
sensitive to temperature variation with regularity.
In Figure 13, with temperature rising or aging, both the 0.0
30 40 50 60
polarization components Q1 and Q2 gradually increase on the Temperature, T(C)
whole, denoting that the polarization intensity and contribu- Figure 14. Variation of polarization response time with temperature.
tion of both interfacial polarization mechanisms between oil
and pressboard and inside pressboard become stronger, and
aged, 1 aged, 2
the polarization inside pressboard appears at high unaged, 1 unaged, 2
temperature. As for the abnormal behavior of Q1 under
aged/40 oC condition with temperature rising, it may be due 0.7
Line-Shape Parameter, n

to that, because the unobvious second peak is neglected in

process of unscrambling, Q1 value is falsely improved. The
error can be reduced through prolonging PDC test period.
In Figure 14, the polarization response times τ1 and τ2 de-
crease, indicating that the two interfacial polarizations re- 0.5
spond faster with temperature rising or aging. In Figure 15,
temperature rising or aging also makes line-shape parameters
α1 and α2 increase regularly.
Likewise, all the qualitative observation and analysis from
0.3
Figures 13-15 are similar to that of temperature and aging 30 40 50 60
effects on PDC test. Furthermore, it is possible that the ob- Temperature, T(C)
tained parameters (Qn, τn, αn) can be used to analyze the Figure 15. Variation of line-shape parameter with temperature.
IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Vol. 18, No. 6; December 2011
5 CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, PDC tests are implemented on the oil-paper
insulation sample at different test temperature before and after the
sample is aged, respectively. The DTDS theory is employed to
investigate aging and temperature effect based on PDC results.
Above all, the investigation on DTDS parameters (polarization
component Qn, response time τn and line-shape parameter αn) is the
main focus of this paper.
The results show that, PDC is sensitive to the test temperature
and aging status of samples, which can qualitatively indicate the
interfacial polarizations between oil and paper insulation materials
and inside pressboard. Pressboard conductivity obtained from
PDC under different temperature and aging condition can be
converted into the one at some standard temperature for
convenient comparison, which is helpful to analyze PDC data.
The DTDS represents similar polarization process and me-
chanism to that of PDC. All the DTDS curves calculated with the
extracted parameters (Qn, τn, αn) are in good fit with those
measured. With temperature rising or sample aging, the polariza-
tion components, response speeds and line-shape parameters of
both the interfacial polarization mechanisms increase evidently on
the whole. These parameters can be considered as the novel
characteristic parameters for aging condition estimation of oil-
paper insulation to upgrade the application effect of PDC curves.
Furthermore, more and deeper regularity investigation on the
DTDS parameters of oil-paper insulation samples with different
insulation structure, moisture content and distribution between oil
and paper, will be performed to make PDC measurement more
effective for on-site applications.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work is supported by the National High Technology
Research and Development Program (863 Program) of China
(2007AA04Z411), by National Natural Science Foundation
of China (50907051) and by the Open Fund of State Key
Laboratory of Power Transmission Equipment & System
Security and New Technology (2007DA10512709405).
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Jian-Lin Wei was born in Henan Province, China, in

1980. He received the B.E. and M.E. degrees in elec-
trical engineering from Xi’an Jiaotong University,
Xi’an, China, in 2002, 2006, respectively. He is pre-
sently a Ph.D. candidate at the same university. His
current research interests are dielectric properties and
condition diagnosis of transformer oil-paper insulation. Shi-Qiang Wang was born in Shandong Province,
China, in 1984. He received the B.M.E. degree from the
School of Mechanical Engineering in Xi'an Jiaotong
University, Xi’an, China, in 2006. Currently, he is
pursuing the Ph.D. degree in the School of Electrical
Guan-Jun Zhang (M’02) was born in Shandong Province, engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University. Xi’an, China.
China, in 1970. He received the B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. His research interest is in the diagnostics of power
degrees in electrical engineering from Xi’an Jiaotong transformer insulation
University (XJTU), Xi’an, China, in 1991, 1994 and 2001,
respectively. Since 1994, he has been a Teacher Assistant
with XJTU. From 1998 to 1999, he was a Visiting
Researcher with Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo,
Japan, engaged in surface electroluminescence and
discharge phenomena of solid insulating materials. Since
2004, he has been a full Professor with the State Key Ming Dong (M’06), was born in Xi‘an, China, in 1978.
Laboratory of Electrical Insulation and Power Equipment and the School of He is a teacher of electrical engineering at Xi’an Jiao-
Electrical Engineering at XJTU. From 2006 to 2007, he was a Senior Visiting Fellow tong University. His main research interests are artifi-
with Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, cial neural networks and fuzzy theory applications in
USA, engaged in secondary electron emission characteristic and plasma simulation. power equipment fault diagnosis and techniques for on-
In 2008, he was a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Fellow with line insulation monitoring and diagnosis of power
Saitama University, Saitama, Japan, engaged in flashover physics phenomena in equipment.
vacuum. Since 2010, he has been a visiting scholar at the State Key Laboratory of
Power Transmission Equipment & System Security and New Technology,
Chongqing University. His current research interests include dielectric phenomena
under high voltage, discharge physics and plasma technology, and condition
maintenance of power equipment. He has published more than 100 journal articles
and conference papers. Dr. Zhang received the 2008 Chatterton Young Investigator
Award of IEEE at the 23rd International Symposium on Discharges and Electrical
Insulation in Vacuum (ISDEIV), 2006 Fok Ying Tong Research Award for
University Young Teachers of China, Ministry of Education (MOE), 2003 National
Top 100 Excellent Doctoral Dissertation Award of China MOE, and several other
awards and prizes from Chinese Government.