Within the highly competitive electricity market, companies often reduce costs by using aging equipment and by overloading their transformers. These conditions substantially increase the risk of transformer explosions. These incidents are caused by electrical arcs occurring within oil filled transformers. The arc, within milliseconds, vaporizes the surrounding oil and the generated gas is pressurized because the liquid inertia prevents its expansion. The pressure difference between the gas bubble and the surrounding liquid oil generates a dynamic pressure peak, which interacts with the transformer. The reflections generate pressure waves that lead to transformer rupture since transformers are not designed to withstand these pressures. This results in dangerous explosions, expensive damages and possible environmental pollution. Despite all these risks, and contrary to usual pressure vessels, no specific standard has been set to protect sealed transformer tanks subjected to large dynamic overpressures. In order to study transformer rupture and its prevention, experiments have been performed on transformers. However, safely carrying out live tests is difficult and expensive. In order to limit the costs, to reduce the risks and to gain insight on these phenomena numerical simulation tools are necessary. First a computational fluid dynamics solver was developed; it is based on an unsteady compressible two-phase flow model, the equations parameterizing the system are solved using a 3D finite volume method. Previous papers showed the ability of the hydrodynamic tool to study in detail (1) dynamic pressure wave propagation inside transformer oil that leads to transformer rupture and (2) depressurization induced by efficient protection means. Later, the hydrodynamic numerical tool has been one-way coupled with Code_ASTER, a dynamic structural analysis package, to create a fluid structure interaction (FSI). Preliminary results were shown and this strategy has been applied to the study of more complex electrical equipment. The present paper’s goal is to illustrate the development and application of a two-way coupling for the aforementioned fluid structure interaction strategy. The methodology for the enhanced coupling is explained and the simulation results about the structural behavior caused by these dynamic pressures are presented.
This study provides a methodology that can be used to evaluate the dynamic performance of fast depressurization devices used in liquid-filled oil transformers. Liquid-filled transformers are susceptible to explosions due to internal arcing if the dielectric insulation fails. The internal arc vaporizes a portion of the liquid and generates a sudden pressure wave. The first peak of the pressure wave has been measured to be as high as 13 bars, with time durations on the order of milliseconds [1]. Transformer tanks have a typical static withstand limit of approximately 1 bar gauge [2]. It is thus imperative that the tank be depressurized before the static pressure reaches such a threshold. One industry-accepted Fast Depressurization System [3] used to depressurize transformers after an internal arc is based on a patented rupture disk design [4]. This study compares the dynamic performance of this disk to results from a successful test campaign using a rupture disk as the depressurization device. Limiting loading rate values from the test campaign are then used to comment on the effectiveness of the design. The evaluation methodology is based on Pressure-Impulse (P-I) curves. The P-I curve was generated by running a series of Implicit Dynamic analysis using Code_Aster [5]. This iterative process first required establishing a failure mode that is consistent with actual observed failure in the field and observable in the Finite Element Analysis (FEA) model. The criteria were then used in interpreting the response of the Rupture Disk to a series of different half-sine wave pulse loading of varying amplitudes and time-periods. The generated P-I curve was then compared to loading rates observed in the test campaign [1] as well as three other higher loading rates (1.28 times, 2 times, 3.8 times, and 10.25 times the reported experimental rate) to qualitatively assess the effectiveness of the design. Results indicated that disk functions extremely effectively as a Fast Depressurization System as also corroborated by the test campaign. Although this methodology is used for the rupture disk, it is expected that this methodology can be extended to compare the dynamic performance of other depressurization devices.
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