2007 Annual Report Conference on Electrical Insulation and Dielectric Phenomena

Comparison of HYDRAN and laboratory DGA results for electric faults in ester transformer fluids
Jie Dai, Imadullah Khan, Z. D. Wang and I. Cotton
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Manchester, Manchester M60 1QD, UK

Abstract- Due to the properties of biodegradability and high fire temperature, ester fluids are becoming potential substitutes to mineral oil for power transformers. Laboratory based DGA (Dissolved Gas Analysis) techniques and the online DGA devices have been widely used on mineral oil filled transformers to diagnose faults. It is therefore of importance to understand how these techniques and devices perform with ester fluids. In the paper high and low energy discharges were generated in mineral oil and esters and the on-line readings from HYDRAN 201R were recorded with time and compared with the laboratory DGA results. It is concluded that DGA fingerprints for electrical faults in esters are similar to those in mineral oil. However, in the present experimental configuration, a slower response of HYDRAN reading was found for esters than mineral oil due to both the higher viscosities of esters and the limited oil circulation.

normally installed between the cooling bank and the main tank to take the full advantage of oil circulation. Sometimes a position on the upper part of the transformer tank is preferred to install the on-line DGA monitoring devices. Although HYDRAN is unable to provide the concentrations of all fault gases, it works reliably as an early stage fault indicator since hydrogen is the gas which is normally evolved in most faults.
Element H2 CH4 C2H6 C2H4 C2H2 CO

1 Introduction
The ester fluids, with good dielectric strength, such as the synthetic ester Midel7131 and the natural ester FR3 are available in the market as alternatives to mineral oil. Ester fluids are biodegradable and hence environmentally friendly [1, 2]. Their high flash points and fire points also make them suitable for the transformers located in underground, offshore or urban areas for safety reasons. Esters have already been successfully used in a great number of distribution transformers, and have great potentials to be applied in high voltage transformers in the future. However ester filled transformers face the challenge of being lack of operating experience and especially the experience with condition monitoring and assessment, which mineral oil filled transformer has accumulated over years [3]. Modern high voltage transformers work with relatively low insulation tolerance because of compact structure. A close monitoring is considered important to understand the behavior of transformers [4]. DGA has been used for many years as an effective and reliable tool to detect incipient faults in mineral oil filled transformers. The information provided by DGA analysis is extremely important to the asset managers in electricity supply companies. It is therefore essential to ensure that traditional DGA analysis techniques can still work properly if alternative fluids are used in power transformers. Table 1 gives the types of dissolved gases evolved during faults in a mineral oil filled transformer and their indicative relationships with different types of faults. Former studies suggested that the fault gases or the so called key gases were also found in esters and dissolved gas analysis is therefore still a feasible method to monitor ester oil filled transformers [6, 7]. However, little research covers the performance of on-line DGA devices in association with ester fluids. On-line DGA monitoring has been accepted as an efficient means for early stage fault diagnoses, and the on-line DGA devices, such as HYDRAN, have been widely used in mineral oil filled transformers for years. The HYDRAN sensor reads the ppm (part per million) value of the dissolved gas in oil through the membrane which only allows gases to pass. The sensor mainly responds to hydrogen with 100% efficiency and shows low sensitivity to other gases, which is approximately 15% to CO, 8% to C2H2 and only 1% to C2H4. Its accuracy is said as 10% from 20OC to 40OC [10]. For high voltage transformers, HYDRAN is

Table 1: Fault indicator gases [5, 6] Key indicator Secondary indicator Corona Arcing, Overheated Oil Corona, Arcing, and Overheated Oil Corona, Overheated Oil Overheated Corona, Arcing Oil
Arcing Overheated Cellulose Severely Overheated Oil Arcing if the fault involves cellulose Overheated Cellulose, Arcing if the fault involves cellulose Indicator of system leaks, over-pressurization, or changes in pressure or temperature. Indicator of system leaks, over-pressurization, or changes in pressure or temperature.
6 2 4 2 2 2 4 2

CO2 O2

N2

An experiment was carried out to investigate fault gas generation in esters with comparison to that in mineral oil and to test the performance of HYDRAN 201R in ester fluids. A HYDRAN 201R sensor was connected to an oil filled test vessel, in which partial discharges (PD) and electric breakdown activities were generated. The responses of HYDRAN towards the electrical faults in different insulating fluids were recorded. It was found that after electric faults similar types of gases were dissolved in oil samples for mineral oil, Midel7131 and FR3 according to the laboratory DGA results. HYDRAN 201R successfully performed as an on-line DGA indicator for ester fluids under electric faults, but a certain delay in the response of HYDRAN reading was found for esters due to their relatively high viscosities which result in a slower oil circulation and consequently a slower equilibrium of gases.

The capacity of the glass test vessel is about 3 litres and a head space about 50ml was left above the oil surface for safety reason. The HYDRAN sensor was directly connected to one side of the glass

1-4244-1482-2/07/$25.00 2007 IEEE

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2 Experimental setup
2.1 Test vessel and HYDRAN connection

vessel without any piping as shown in Fig. 1.

The oil samples for the laboratory DGA were taken from the bottom sampling valve of the glass vessel using syringes. During sampling, the oil was naturally forced into glass syringes according to the BS EN 60567 standard [8]. The DGA sampling point is different from the HYDRAN locating point, which to a certain extent inhibits the direct comparisons of the results. This drawback will be discussed further in session 3.

3 Results and discussions

3.1 Oil gap breakdown test
Three breakdowns of the 10mm oil gap were made in each type of fluid with 30 seconds standing time after each breakdown. The voltage was manually controlled with a rising speed about 1 kV/s. The whole process took about 5 minutes. The timing of the HYDRAN response was started immediately after the first breakdown. The breakdown voltages for the 10 mm oil gap varied from 26kV to 32kV, and no significant difference was found among the breakdown voltage values of the three types of fluid. Therefore, comparable energy levels were produced in different fluids during breakdown tests. Small gas bubbles were observed after each breakdown, which travelled to the headspace. Therefore, it is suggested that a significant amount of the gases generated during an electric fault would be maintained in the headspace. As the equilibrium between the head space and the oil volume takes some time to reach, the HYDRAN sensor actually reads the amount of gases already dissolved in the oil at that time other than the total amount of gases being generated. Since the mechanical impact produced by the arcing was relatively strong, some of the small gas bubbles generated from the oil breakdown were pushed 5 to 8 cm sideways from the centre. That is, the HYDRAN membrane had a relatively shorter distance to be in contact with the dissolved gases. HYDRAN readings: Normally, the HYDRAN monitor shows an initial reading around 10 ppm. When an initial increase of 5 ppm was observed, it was recorded as the beginning of the response of HYDRAN sensor to the dissolved gas. The reading of HYDRAN was periodically recorded as shown in Fig. 3. When the reading stopped increasing, two oil samples were taken immediately from the bottom sampling valve of the test vessel for laboratory DGA.
250 200 PPM value 150 100 50
M ineral oil M idel7131 FR3

Fig. 1 Test vessel and HYDRAN connection

There was a distance of ~16 cm from the membrane of HYDRAN sensor to the centre of body of oil, where the electrodes were located. Tests were done under room temperature. In order to create a thermal circulation, a temperature approximately 10OC higher than the ambient was maintained within the bottom oil by adding a heating jacket around the lower part of the test vessel.

2.2 Electric test setup

A 220V/40kV 8kVA 50Hz test transformer was used as the voltage source throughout the experiment. Needle electrodes were used in both oil gap breakdown and PD tests. The needle was pre-processed by introducing several arcing to melt the sharp tip so that the radius of the tip could remain relatively stable when used in the tests. a) Oil gap breakdown test: Oil gap breakdowns were achieved by using the needle electrode connected to the HV source leaving an oil gap distance of 10mm above the grounded plate electrode. There was an over-current relay set at 3A limit on the low voltage side of the test transformer to control the energy during electric faults. The over-current relay normally operates in 20ms after the formation of an arc. b) PD test: It was found that a stable PD source was difficult to obtain from the needle to plate electrode configuration, because the PD in oil would always propagate and cause a flashover of the oil gap. Therefore, the following electrode arrangement was developed to produce a stable PD source as shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2 Electrode configuration for PD test

Upon the ground electrode, there was a 3mm thick pressboard with a cylindrical electrode of floating potential sitting above. The oil gap between the sharp needle and the floating object was remained as 0.5mm. When an electric spark happened within this small oil gap, it would automatically die out as the electric breakdown built a short circuit between the HV electrode and the floating object, which thereby caused a temporary equal potential connection and simultaneously cleared the spark in the oil gap. The duration of each discharge was so short that the current relay could react to function. In order to further reduce the current during PD tests, a 1.4 M water resistor was connected between the test vessel and the HV source.

0 1 10 Time (minute) 100

Fig.3 Response of HYDRAN after oil breakdown tests

As shown in Fig.3 and Table 2, the HYDRAN sensor started to have increasing readings immediately after the 3 breakdowns in mineral oil but a certain time delay was found in esters. Although the gas diffusion in a liquid is not dependent on the viscosity of liquid according to henrys law [9], this experiment indicates that HYDRAN tends to respond slower in high viscosity fluids. As the speed of the kinetic movement of a fluid is highly dependent on its viscosity and a

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Gas concentration (ppm)

relatively higher viscosity brings more resistance during the circulation, the oil circulation in a viscous fluid tends to be relatively slower, and the time for the dissolved gases in the high viscosity esters to be in contact with the membrane of HYDRAN is therefore increased.
Table 2. Performance of HYDRAN after breakdown tests Mineral Midel Fluid type FR3 oil 7131 Response delay (minute) 5 9 14 Time to reach maximum 40 53 74 reading (minute) Maximum reading (ppm) 207 129 208

and this trend was found in three types of fluids.

250 225 200 175 150 125 100 75 50 25 0 Mineral oil Midel7131 FR3

Calculated value HYDRAN reading

Consequently, there was a delay for the HYDRAN to pick up the ppm value of dissolved gases in Midel7131 and FR3. On the other hand the forced oil circulation can significantly accelerate the equilibrium of gases in the oil. The maximum readings from mineral oil and FR3 after the breakdown test were similar, while the gases dissolved in Midel7131 appeared about 50% less than the other two fluids as shown in table 2. DGA results Table 3 and Fig. 4 show the average concentrations of dissolved gases in two oil samples. The laboratory measurement error expected during the DGA measurements is 10% for the 50ml oil samples taken in these tests.
Table 3. DGA results from oil gap breakdown test Gases Mineral oil Midel 7131 (ppm) H2 96 49 CH4 22 6 C2H6 4 2 C2H4 32 18 C2H2 157 89 CO 5 31
200 180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0

Fig.5. HYDRAN readings versus calculated ppm values from laboratory DGA results for breakdown tests

HYDRAN is normally calibrated to illustrate the real concentration of the gases in the fluid so that the reading and the calculated value by (1) would be expected the same. The difference shown in Fig. 5 may be due to the different gas concentration between the side of the vessel where the HYDRAN sensor was mounted to the bottom where the oil samples were taken. The produced gas bubbles rise upwards and while travelling they dissolved into the oil in the upper part of oil body.

3.2 Partial discharge test

In order to produce a comparable energy level of partial discharge activity in three types of fluids, 15kV voltage was applied on the sharp electrode in each PD test for 5 minutes. Small sparks in the 0.5mm oil gap were constantly observed. The oscilloscope monitoring the voltage and discharge activities showed that there were one to four discharges in every power cycle. HYDRAN readings Tiny gas bubbles were stably and smoothly generated during the continuous partial discharges, which means the dissolved gases had a longer distance, i.e. 16 cm to reach the membrane of HYDRAN compared to the breakdown test. Fig. 5 shows the increased readings of HYDRAN with time after the PD test.
200 150 PPM value 100 50 Mineral oil Midel7131 FR3

FR3 105 9 2 39 175 33

Gas concentration (ppm)

Mineral oil Midel7131 FR3

H2

CO

CH4

C2H2

C2H4

C2H6

Fig. 4 Comparison of dissolved gas concentrations between different fluids after breakdown tests

0 1 10 100 1000 Time (minute)

Acetylene (C2H2) is the primary indicator for high energy discharges [5, 6] and it is supported by the DGA results that acetylene had the highest concentration for all three types of fluid. DGA of mineral oil and FR3 are in close agreement with each other, whereas Midel7131 has the lowest concentration of dissolved gases. Based on the sensitivities of the HYDRAN sensor to different gases, the expected readings from HYDRAN 201R could be calculated using the laboratory DGA results:- Expected HYDRAN reading = 100% H2 + 15% CO + 8% C2H2 +1% C2H4 (1). A comparison was made between the HYDRAN readings and the laboratory DGA results as shown in Fig. 5. The HYDRAN sensor readings are approximately two times higher than the expected values,

Fig. 5 Response of HYDRAN after PD tests Table 4. Performance of HYDRAN after PD tests Mineral Midel Fluid type FR3 oil 7131 Response delay (minute) 5 14 30 Time to reach maximum 30 126 420 reading (minute) Maximum reading (ppm) 147 71 72

Table 4 shows that the HYDRAN sensor responds considerably slower for esters, especially for FR3, as compared to mineral oil. A longer delay of response by HYDRAN reading in the PD test than in

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the breakdown test may be caused by the longer distance for the oil with dissolved gas to circulate. The low energy discharge has little mechanical impact to push gas bubbles horizontally closer to the HYDRAN membrane. DGA results Table 5 and Fig. 6 show the dissolved gas concentrations in the oil samples tested by the laboratory DGA.
Table 5. DGA results for partial discharge tests Gases Mineral oil MIDEL 7131 FR3 (ppm) H2 88 28 70 CH4 15 4 7 C2H6 1 1 1 C2H4 15 7 15 C2H2 75 20 60 CO 7 24 22
100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 H2 CO CH4 C2H2

reading to reach the maximum in FR3 and this long waiting time allows the dissolved gases in FR3 to reach a better equilibrium in the body of oil and a relatively higher gas concentration was achieved in the bottom area.

4 Conclusions
Esters have similar DGA characteristics to mineral oil for electric faults, and the DGA diagnosis continues to act as a feasible means to indicate the health of ester oil filled transformer, since key gases were found in mineral oil as well as ester oils after electric faults through the laboratory based DGA. The dissolved gas concentrations in FR3 after breakdown and partial discharges was found similar to mineral oil, while Midel7131 having lower gas concentrations for both tests. Although HYDRAN successfully read the dissolved gases, the quantitative comparison between the HYDRAN reading and the DGA results show the difference and this difference could be caused by the different sampling positions. A time delay of HYDRANs reading was observed with esters due to the high viscosity of ester and the limited oil circulation in the experiment setup. In real situation, ester filled transformers operate under a relatively higher temperature with load, which helps to reduce the viscosity of ester and achieve a better oil circulation through either natural or forced oil flow. Nevertheless further study on the HYDRANs sensitivities to dissolved gases in esters is required.

Gas concentration (ppm)

Mineral oil Midel7131 FR3

Acknowledgement
C2H4 C2H6

Fig. 6 Comparison of dissolved gas concentrations between different fluids after PD tests

Because the partial discharges generated in the experimental setup were not the cold corona type discharge, a large amount of acetylene was still produced. However, different from the breakdown tests, this type of low energy discharge generates relatively more hydrogen in proportion to acetylene. In the PD test, Midel7131 was found with much lower dissolved gas concentrations, and FR3 showed comparable results to mineral oil.
160 Gas concentration (ppm) 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 Mineral oil Midel7131 FR3 Calculated value HYDRAN reading

The authors wish to thank AREVA T & D, EdF Energy, M & I Materials, National Grid, Scottish Power, TJ|H2b analytical services and United Utilities for their financial support to form the research consortium on Alternative fluids for large power transformers at The University of Manchester. The authors are grateful to the help given by Michael Webb from MW Test Equipment for supplying the HYDRAN 201R.

Reference
[1] T.V Oommen, C. C. Claiborne, C.T. Mullen, Biodegradable electrical insulation fluids, Electrical Insulation Conference Proceedings, Illinois, USA, pp 465 468, IEEE, 1997. [2] T.V.Oommen, C.C.Claiborne and E.J.Walsh. A new vegetable oil based transformer fluid:Development and verification Conference on IEEE Electrical Insulation and Dielectric phenomena 2000, pp 308-312. [3] D.Martin, I Khan, J.Dai, Z.D.Wang, An Overview of the Suitability of Vegetable Oil Dielectrics for use in Large Power Transformers, Eurotech conference 2005, November 2005, Chester, UK [4] Duval, M., Dissolved gas analysis: It can save your transformer, Electrical Insulation Magazine, IEEE Volume 5, Issue 6, Nov.-Dec. 1989 Page(s):22 27, Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/57.44605 [5] IEEE.Std.C57.104-1991, "IEEE Guide for the Interpretation of Gases Generated in Oil-Immersed Transformers, June/July 1991. [6] I. Khan, Z.D Wang, I. Cotton, S. Northcote, Dissolved Gas Analysis (DGA) of Alternative Fluids for Power Transformers, submitted to IEEE Electrical Insulation Magazine in 2007. [7] Envirotemp FR3 Fluid Dissolved Gas Guid, Section R900-20-19, August, 2006 [8] BS EN60567 Oil-filled electrical equipment Sampling of gases and of oil for analysis of free and dissolved gases Guidance pp 19-39 December 2005. [9] Moore, J.H.; Spencer, N.D, Encyclopedia of Chemical Physics and Physical Chemistry, Volumes 1-3. Institute of Physics, 2001 [10] Instruction manual for HYDRAN 201R, version 3.0

Fig.7 HYDRAN readings versus calculated values from laboratory DGA results for PD tests

The comparison between the maximum HYDRAN readings and the expected values calculated from the laboratory DGA results by (1) for the three types of fluid was shown in Fig. 7. For mineral oil and Midel7131, the maximum readings obtained from the HYDRAN sensor were about two times higher than the expected values, which was similar to the situation of breakdown tests. However the maximum reading from HYDRAN in FR3 is in the similar range as the calculated value. It took 7 hours for the HYDRAN

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