Abstract
The recent interest in the development of nanomaterials has led researchers to the study of their electrical properties and the applications that they may have as insulating materials. One of these applications is the use of nanofluids as electrical insulation of power transformers. It has been reported that the dielectric properties of insulating liquids in which small amounts of nanoparticles have been dispersed are, in some cases, superior to those of the base fluids. Although these materials are promising, and their application could lead to advantages for the transformer design and reliability in the future, more research is necessary to evaluate different combination of materials under a wider range of experimental conditions. In this paper, a research on the lightning impulse breakdown voltage of mineral oil and several Fe3O4-based nanofluids is presented. Fluids prepared with different concentrations of nanoparticles were subjected to impulse lightning voltages considering both positive and negative polarities. As shown in this work the positive impulse breakdown voltage of the liquids showed improvements of up to 50%; in the case of the negative impulses not significant improvements were obtained.
Highlights
Mineral oil (MO) and ester-based liquids are widely used nowadays as transformer liquid insulation
The impulse breakdown voltage (BDV) and the time to breakdown of the ten ruptures, plotted in increasing order
A clear improvement in the BDV of positive impulses is observed when NP are added to the MO
Summary
Mineral oil (MO) and ester-based liquids are widely used nowadays as transformer liquid insulation. The addition of Nanoparticles (NP) to transformer insulating liquids has been proposed as an attempt to improve the electrical and thermal properties of conventional insulating liquids [1,2]. Several authors have demonstrated that the addition of small concentrations of NP can significantly improve the dielectric [3,4,5] and thermal [6] properties of the oils. The results are strongly dependent on the used materials (base fluid, NP type), the manufacturing methods and the testing procedures, and more tests are required to evaluate the properties of these new liquids making possible their safe application in the future [3,4,11]
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