Insulation breakdown characteristics of UHV-class oil-immersed transformer for lightning impulse withstand voltage test waveform - K-factor value and front time related characteristics

The lightning impulse withstand voltage test waveform for electrical power equipment is specified in IEC 60060-1 "High-voltage test techniques". Now that ultrahigh voltage-class (UHV-class) electrical power equipment is being introduced and increasingly used, the electrical capacitance of equipment to be tested has increased, which has eventually hampered the test using the waveform that conforms to the previous standard. To address this issue, the IEC revised the IEC 60060-1 standard in 2010 and now is studying the standard for UHV-class electrical equipment. In this revision, an evaluation method using the k-factor function (test voltage function) was introduced, whereby the overshoot waveform was converted to a test voltage waveform. To date, concerning these k-factor values, measurement results based on experiments have been reported, but most were for small-scale insulation models with breakdown voltage levels mainly around 100 kV. This paper reports the experimental result of insulation breakdown characteristics for lightning impulse withstand voltage test waveforms in the model with the largest oil gap possible assuming an actual UHV-class oil-immersed transformer. Breakdown voltages and breakdown times were measured with the superimposed oscillation frequency, overshoot rate and front time as parameters. Consequently, it was indicated that, as the overshoot rate increased, the 50% breakdown voltage was inclined to increase. Subsequently, the evaluation using the k-factor function is considered to be useful for UHV-class oil immersed transformer. The result of evaluation of the k-factor value based on the experimental result was almost identical to the result of the European Project, which is the basic data of the existing k-factor function. As a result, it emerged that the existing k-factor function itself was most likely to be applicable to UHV-class oil-immersed transformers. Furthermore, since the extension of the front time up to about 3.6 μs caused only a small change in insulation breakdown characteristics, the extension of the front time up to about 3.6 μs might possibly be allowed in the standard that assumes a UHV-class transformer.