Challenges and Investigations for the Application of Nanofluids in Distribution Transformer

Abstract

Transformer is the main component to transfer electrical power from one side of the circuit to the other side. Transformer fault is more concerned and its health monitoring is an area of the major concern. Under health monitoring various faults are taken in to consideration and it provides less maintenance cost. Health monitoring, of power transformer measures temperature which is produced due to faults [16]. As a result temperature gets enhanced in insulating oil and windings. This study shows about the insulation failure and production of heat across the surface of the insulating oil. To enhance the reliability and life period of transformer, new technologies are developed to deal with conditional monitoring of power transformer. Transformer oil serves dual purpose first one is as insulator and second one is that of cooling of transformer. New technology deals with nano technology. Now research has been developed about nano fluids, because of its heat transferring properties. In this study, surface temperature analysis of transformer oil, including & excluding nano particles; has been done. Result and analysis have shown that there is a decrease in surface temperature of oil with nano particles for single phase 100KVA transformer. Surface temperature of transformer oil goes down by up to 7K when transformer oil with nano particle is used.