Study of Parameters Affecting the Aging of Transformer Oil

An electricity board acquires several transformers from a manufacturer in a belief that their advertised lifetime of the transformer thus purchased is true. However, they don’t take in the case of negligence in maintenance of transformer, which is a strenuous job. The advertised thirty-year lifetime is reduced to a mere two-year lifetime, mainly because of the degradation of the insulation medium (Transformer oil), thus increasing losses in the transformer and decreasing its efficiency. The degradation of transformer oil leads to safety hazards like transformer bursting, consequently forcing the electricity board to replace the transformer, thus incurring huge amount of costs. This is the most relatable problem faced by the electricity board in every state. This research work aims at listing out various properties of transformer oil and ascertaining major impurities in a transformer oil by testing it using various techniques. The proposed work deals with long term observation and analysis of transformer oil to determine its degradation rate. Breakdown voltage, Moisture content, Resistivity, Acidity, Furan Analysis and Dissolved Gas Analysis were done using Mushroom electrodes, Karl Fischer Titration test, Tan delta test, Potassium Hydroxide Titration, High performance liquid chromatography, and dissolved gas analyzer respectively. The results reveal that, deviation of Breakdown Voltage, Moisture content, and 2-Furaldehyde (1197ppb) from the permissible limits can indicate the aging of the transformer.