Exploring the Impact of Ageing and Temperature on Kraft Paper Insulation Used in Power Transformers: A Comprehensive Analysis Through Frequency Domain Spectroscopy and Artificial Neural Networks

Electrical power equipment's lifespan is directly connected to the condition of its insulation; therefore, the condition of the insulation is a reflection of said equipment and is represented by the change in the parameters of the insulator. In this study, samples of kraft paper used in power transformers were put under accelerated thermal ageing and analysed using frequency domain spectroscopy. The dielectric properties were extracted, discussed, and then fed to a feed-forward neural network designed for classification. Results revealed the effects of both ageing and frequency on the dielectric parameters. Such a relationship can be used to predict the lifespan of the dielectric and, therefore, the power equipment.