Physics-informed neural networks for modelling power transformer’s dynamic thermal behaviour

Abstract

This paper focuses on the thermal modelling of power transformers using physics-informed neural networks (PINNs). PINNs are neural networks trained to consider the physical laws provided by the general nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs). The PDE considered for the study of power transformer’s thermal behaviour is the heat diffusion equation provided with boundary conditions given by the ambient temperature at the bottom and the top-oil temperature at the top. The model is one dimensional along the transformer height. The top-oil temperature and the transformer’s temperature distribution are estimated using field measurements of ambient temperature, top-oil temperature and the load factor. The measurements from a real transformer provide more realistic solution, but also an additional challenge. The Finite Volume Method (FVM) is used to calculate the solution of the equation and further to benchmark the predictions obtained by PINNs. The results obtained by PINNs for estimating the top-oil temperature and the transformer’s thermal distribution show high accuracy and almost exactly mimic FVM solution.