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Analysis and design of nanofluid-filled power transformers

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Abstract

To alleviate the adverse impact due to the deterioration of electrical insulation, this paper presents an electromagnetic-thermal-fluid analysis for the prediction of temperature distribution in transformers with oil-based nanofluids or pure oil. The core loss and copper loss are taken as the heat sources for the temperature analysis using computational fluid dynamics. To strive for computing the temperature distribution accurately in the nano-oil, an effective numerical method using finite volume method and improved physical parameter model are employed. Numerical simulation of the thermal performance of the nanofluid with different volumetric fractions with Al2O3 nanoparticles is compared with those using pure transformer oil in a 500 VA single-phase transformer. From the comparisons of the simulation results, it is found that the volumetric fraction 0.01% is an optimum concentration in reducing the transformer size for the same power rating. The observation is served as useful guidelines and detailed process for the design of oil-based power transformers.

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Acknowledgment

This work is supported by the Research Grant Council of the Hong Kong SAR Government under project PolyU 152118/15E, G-YBPM and the Joint Doctoral Training Foundation of HEBUT.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Reliability and Intelligence of Electrical Equipment, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin, 300130, China

    Xinsheng Yang, Guizhi Xu & Qingxin Yang

  2. Department of Electrical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, 999077, China

    Xinsheng Yang, S. L. Ho, Weinong Fu & Yunpeng Zhang

  3. Maintenance Branch, State Grid Jibei Electric Power Co. LTD, Beijing, 102488, China

    Wanjun Deng

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  1. Xinsheng Yang
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  2. S. L. Ho
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  3. Weinong Fu
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  4. Yunpeng Zhang
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  5. Guizhi Xu
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  6. Qingxin Yang
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Correspondence to Weinong Fu.

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Yang, X., Ho, S.L., Fu, W. et al. Analysis and design of nanofluid-filled power transformers. Electr Eng 102, 321–329 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00202-019-00877-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00202-019-00877-8

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