Bouyancy-Induced Convective Heat Transfer in Cylindrical Transformers Filled With Mineral Oil With Nano-Suspensions

Abstract

The heat transfer characteristics of a transformer using both standard mineral oil and nanodiamond oil was investigated numerically and compared to experimental measurements. The results of the model agree well with the standard oil measurements and with theoretical convective flows from the literature. However, the simulations could not predict the magnitude of the temperature variation in the nanodiamond oil, although the appropriate trend was observed. Because properties of the nanodiamond transformer oil are not well known, good agreement is not expected. Nevertheless, nanodiamond in transformer oil shows enhanced heat transfer performance over standard transformer oil.