Improvement on Condition Assessment Model for Oil-paper Insulation

Identification of the aging condition and the failure probability of oil-paper insulation in transformer is important for improving the reliability of electric power transmission system and applying life cycle cost (LCC) management to electrical equipment. Based on data obtained in a series of multi-accelerated-aging experiments, two approaches for calculating failure probability of oil-paper insulation were compared in aspects of degree of polymerization (DP) and condition ranking. In the experiments, mineral oil and cellulose paper are sub- jected to electrical and thermal stresses, and several parameters, including dissolved gases’ volume fraction, furfural content, moisture content, and degree of polymerization, are measured after the aging process. Results show that weight of carbon oxide, which has a close relationship with cellulose paper degradation, is much higher in DP model than in condition ranking model. Moreover, it is concluded that DP model is more practically accurate than condition ranking model, because aging of cellulose paper rather than mineral oil is the key and critical factor of oil-paper insulation aging.