Enhancement of Critical Characteristics of Transformer Oil Using Nanomaterials

Maintaining continuous power supply is the major anxiety of power engineers throughout the world. Power transformer is one of the critical equipment which requires high level condition monitoring to sustain uninterrupted power supply. Insulation provided within the transformer is solid and liquid dielectrics, which plays a major role in determining the life time. Transformer oil (TOL) is a liquid dielectric which acts as an insulating medium as well as coolant. In this paper, an effort has been made to enhance the critical characteristics of transformer oil using nanoparticles. Nanofluids are prepared by mixing the nanoparticles (aluminium oxide, aluminium, copper oxide, and copper) for various volume concentrations with TOL as base fluid by sonication process. Various critical parameters like viscosity, breakdown voltage (BDV), Flash point, Fire point, pH value and Spectral response characteristics of nanofluids are analyzed.