Evaluation of breakdown characteristics of oil-immersed transformers under non-standard lightning impulse - insulation characteristics for non-standard lightning impulse waveforms with oscillations

Abstract

To lower the insulation specifications (specifically, the lightning impulse withstand voltage) of oil-immersed transformers and thus reduce equipment cost while maintaining high insulation reliability, it is important to identify the insulation characteristics under non-standard lightning impulse waveforms that are associated with actual surge waveforms in the field besides the standard lightning impulse waveform and quantitatively compare them with the characteristics under the standard lightning impulse waveform. In a preceding paper, field overvoltages in the lightning surge time region were analyzed, and four typical non-standard lightning impulse waveforms were identified. Two of these including pulses were used to measure the breakdown voltages and the partial discharge inception voltages while changing the parameters, on three models of the winding insulation elements of oil-immersed transformers. This paper investigates the insulating properties of the other two types: "damped-oscillation waveform" and "rising-oscillation waveform", and evaluates the resultant average breakdown voltages in terms of the overvoltage duration, permitting their formulation in a unified way. In the examined range, the dielectric breakdown values under non-standard lightning impulse waveforms were up to 50% higher than those under standard lightning impulse waveforms in all cases. Further investigations will be expected for the reduction in insulation specifications.