A study of oil-impregnated paper insulation aged with thermal-electrical stress: PD characteristics and trap parameters

The oil-paper insulation in a transformer gradually ages due to the combined effects of thermal and electrical stress that occur during its operation. In this paper, for investigating the changes that occur within the oil-paper during the aging process with different aging stresses, partial discharge (PD) characteristics and trap parameters are measured. An internal discharge cavity model is designed for the electrical stress, and the thermal stress is generated by a baking oven simultaneously. The experiments are designed such that the dominant factor on the aging process is either thermal, electrical, or a unity of both stress factors. The phase resolved partial discharge (PRPD) spectrograms are recorded at different aging time, and the trap parameters are extracted by thermally stimulated depolarization current (TSDC) method. Additionally, the surface morphologies of these samples are observed by using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The results show that the trap energy presents a decreasing tendency when the electrical stress plays the dominant role, and the discharge energy becomes larger over the aging time until pre-breakdown. When the thermal stress dominates the aging process, the trap energy shows an increasing tendency over the aging time, and there exists a process of `material conditioning' that occurs at the initial stage of the aging process. The change of trap parameters in aged oil-paper will further affect PD characteristics. Correlation analysis of PD and trap characteristics can promote more accurate condition estimation of aged oil-paper.