Real-Time Monitoring of Temperature Rises of Energized Transformer Cores With Distributed Optical Fiber Sensors

Real-time temperature mapping that solves local overheating problems is important for obtaining an optimized thermal design for high-efficiency power transformers. Internal temperature monitoring of operating power transformers can also be leveraged for asset monitoring applications targeting at fault detection enabling condition-based maintenance. Transformers present a variety of challenging sensing environments such as high levels of electromagnetic interference and limited space for conventional sensors to operate. Immersion of power transformers in insulation oils for thermal management during operation and the presence of relatively large and time-varying electrical and occasional magnetic fields make sensing technologies requiring electrical wires or active power at sensing locations highly undesirable. In this work, we investigate thermal response of a standard telecom fiber instrumented on compact transformer cores by using an optical frequency-domain reflectometry scheme. Correlation between conventional temperature sensing methods and fiber-optic sensing results as well as tradeoffs between spatial resolution and temperature measurement accuracy is discussed and spatially resolved real-time monitoring of temperatures in energized transformers is experimentally demonstrated.