2013 International Conference on Electrical Machines and Systems, Oct.

26-29, 20l3, Busan, Korea

Optimal Design of Power Transformer Tank Based on an Accurate Tank

Mechanical Property Analysis Method

Zhen Zhang I, Zaiping Pan I *, Qiuyuan Xu 2, Xiaohong Pan I, Zhen Wang I

I. Faculty of Engineering, Zhejiang University, China
2. Sanbian Sci-tech Company, China
E-mail: panzaiping@zju.edu.cn

Abstract - This paper addresses the power transformer tank

design optimization problem and, proposes a tank mechanical
property analysis method with high calculation precision. The
main contributions of this research are: 1) introduction of a new
effective method to calculate transformer tank
property; 2) incorporation of Quantum behaved Particle Swarm
Optimization (QPSO) algorithm to solve the
optimization problem;
Keywords: power transformer; tank mechanical performance;
design optimization; finite element; QPSO;
I. INTRODUCTION
Transformer is one of the most expensive electrical
equipment. In transformer running period, failures such as oil
leakage, tank deformation and transformer explosion would
cause significant economic loss. It's essential for transformer
industry to design tank with both security and economy.
To optimize the transformer tank design, whether the
design meets industry standards must be validated. Both IEC
standards and industry standards of China indicate tank test is
type-test. Chinese national standards indicate that, transformer
tank should be tested under both positive pressure and
negative pressure, and no serious permanent deformation is
allowed within a testing time of 5 minutes[l]. FEM, with high
computation precision and low cost, is commonly used by
researchers to transformer tank design optimization. Batista[2]
researched the deformation of transformer tank covers, and
proposed an optimization technique for tank cover designing.
Zhang J H[3] also researched the deformation of oil-immersed
transformer tank using FEM. Muller and Brady[4-6] carried
out experimental tests which consisted in creating low
impedance faults in oil tilled transformer tanks. Then they
proposed a numerical model for transformer explosions, and
developed a fluid structure interaction numerical tool.
A well designed tank FEM model can simulate the tank
mechanical property with high computation precision. In this
paper, the 3D-springs model is used to simulate the
deformation of the bolts connecting upper tank and lower tank.
Experiments are carried out to measure the deformation of
tanks under both positive and negative air pressure. The
comparison of experimental results and simulation results
indicates that the introduction of this technique significantly
improved the computation precision.
QPSO algorithm, originally introduced by Jun Sun [7] in
2004, is an efficiency global optimization algorithm proved by
hundreds of papers. Aiming at the minimization of the total
mass of tank ribs, a tank design optimization method in
conjunction with QPSO is proposed in section III.
II. TANK MECHANICAL PROPERTY ANALYSIS METHOD
A. Tank model
mechanical
Transformer tank consists of upper tank and lower tank,
tank design
which are connected by the bolts along the tank brim. The
bolts would move under positive or negative pressure put on
tank walls. It's difficult to calculate its influence to the
displacement of the tank walls. In this paper, 3D-springs
model is proposed for calculating the displacement of the bolts.
Each direction of spring stiffness is fixed by experimental data.
There are features like chamfers, holes, ribs and corrugated
structure on the tank walls. To ensure the simulation reliability,
a simplified FE analysis model should be established under
proper boundary condition with some assumptions. 3D-FEM
software ANSYS is used for the numerical computation of
tank deformation and stress. Four-node shell element She1l181
is adopted for numerical calculation. The tank material is steel
Q235, assumed as perfectly plastic material. The modulus of
elasticity is 201GPa, the Poisson's ratio is 0.3. Geometric
structure parameters are selected according to specific
transformer tank. Tank models (shown in Fig. 1) are tested
under both positive and negative loads of 1.0Ie5N/m2. For
positive pressure (pressure from inside to outside), the
boundary condition is the constrains of the reinforce steels on
tank bottom. For negative pressure (vacuum condition), the
multi-points one-way fixed constrain also is taken account into
boundary condition.
According to the different types of covers, ribs and
chamfers, there are flat cover tank and arch cover tank, rib
tank and corrugated tank, chamfer tank and no-chamfer tank.
Fig. 1 shows the tank type with arch cover, ribs and chamfers.
The bolts connecting upper tank and lower tank are taken
account into the FE model so as to simulate the movement of
the tank brims. White triangles represent the bolts.

978-1-4799-1447-0/13/$31.00 ©2013 IEEE

2229
 Fig. 1. 3D model of transformer tank
B. 3D-springs model
Generally, the height of upper tank is much bigger than
lower tank's. There would be obvious displacement between
upper brim and lower brim, so it can't be considered as rigid
connection. The 3D-springs model is used to simulate the
behavior of the connecting bolts; the coordinate system is
shown in Fig.l. The stiffness of the springs is fixed by the
experimental data.
Main geometric parameters of tanks for experiment
Structure Parameter
The nwnber and the location of springs are set according to
the distribution of the bolts. The stiffness of the springs along
the long edge and the short edge tank wall is denoted as
KI�K6 sequentially. Considering the symmetry structure,
K2=K5. When the tank is working in negative pressure
condition, there is contacting constrain along the Y direction.
Then set K2 a huge value (le12 in this paper) to simulate the
contacting constrain.
Table III
Tank A 1m Tank B 1m Tank C 1m

Thickness of experimental cover 0. 01 0. 01 0. 01

Length of tank 7. 64 7. 97 7. 86
Upper and lower tank
Width of tank 2. 57 2. 68 2. 64
(Upper/Lower tank)
Height of tank (Upper/Lower) 2. 62 I 0. 577 2. 72 I 0. 577 2. 75/0.577

Thickness of tank (Upper/Lower) 0. 01 1 0. 016 0. 01 / 0. 016 0. 01 / 0. 016

Width of brim section 0. 185 0.185 0. 185

Upper and lower brim
Thickness of brim 0. 03 0. 03 0. 03

Width of rib sections 0. 7 0. 7 0. 7

Ribs of upper tank Height of rib sections 0. 09 0.086 0.086

(Long edgelShort edge) Thickness of ribs 0. 01 0. 01 0. 01

Number of ribs 9/2 9/2 9/2

Ribs thickness 0. 02510. 3 0. 025/0. 3 0. 025/0. 3

Ribs of lower tank
Ribs interval 0. 45/0.46 0.45/0.46 0. 4510.46
(Long edgelShort edge)
Number of ribs 1214 14/4 11/4

Cover steel thickness 0. 016 0. 016 0. 016

Cover and bottom steel
Bottom steel thickness 0. 01 0. 01 0. 01

Table IV
Comparisons of experimental displacement and calculation displacement (Experimental value / Computational value)
Model C: Model C:
Model A: Model A: Model B: Model B:
Test points Negative Positive
Negative pressure/mm Positive pressure/mm Negative pressure/mm Positive pressure/mm
pressure/mm pressure/mm
3/1. 0 3/1. 0 211. 4 2/1. 3 2/1. 4 2/1. 3

2 112. 8 2/2. 2 9/10. 2 3/8. 7 8/9. 1 3/7. 5

3 5/7. 2 5/6. 0 8/12. 0 7110. 1 10/11. 6 9/9. 4

4 8/8. 5 717. 1 10/13. 5 lIIl1. 2 12/14. 4 9111. 3

5 9/9. 6 717. 8 13115. 0 12112. 0 11115. 0 12/11. 5

6 lIIlO. 8 8/8. 5 11115. 7 12/11. 9 14/15. 0 lIIll. l

7 10/11. 0 7/8. 4 16116. 8 13/12. 7 15/15. 9 11111. 7

8 13/11. 3 9/8. 6 14/17. 1 14113. 1 17/16. 4 10/12. 0

9 12/11. 5 918. 8 14116. 9 15/13. 3 16/16. 7 13112. 1

10 14/11. 8 10/9. 0 13117. 4 13113. 7 15/16. 9 lII12. 4

11 10/11. 8 919. 0 13117. 5 15/13. 7 15/16. 7 9112. 4

12 12/10. 3 8/9. 9 12113. 2 11112. 4 12/11. 8 9/10. 9

13 12/10. 4 7110. 0 11/13. 5 9/12. 5 13/11. 9 7111. 0

14 110. 9 0/0. 9 2/1. 5 0/1. 5 111. 2 0/1. 3

15 7/6. 4 4/6. 2 8/9. 6 5/8. 9 10/8. 6 5/7. 9

16 15/12. 8 5110. 0 13/17. 0 11112. 9 15/16. 2 lIIl1. 4

17 16/11. 9 719. 0 15116. 7 8/12. 6 10/16. 9 11112. 2

18 13/13. 3 9112. 7 13/12. 9 17116. 9 11112. 3 17/14. 6

19 13110. 7 11112. 3 10/8. 2 15114. 2 5/8. 9 16/12. 3

2230
C. Experiment and method validation Pij =rp·Pij+(1-rp)·qi'rp=rand(O,l) (3)
Experiments are carried out to get the deformation data of
three 220kV oil-immersed tanks under both positive pressure X
Ij -
= pIj.. +a·1 Mbest.} - x
Ij
I·ln(l/ u) (4)
and negative pressure. For each tank, 19 displacement sensors where Mbes! is the mean best position among the particles, <p is
are fixed to the points shown in Fig. 1. a random number distributed uniformly on [0,1], a is a
Two sets of experimental data are used to fix the spring parameter of QPSO called Contraction-Expansion Coefficient.
stiffness. Adjust the spring stiffness to minimize the mean The algorithm would be convergence if a<1.781[8]. Xi , Pi
square error (as formula 1) between computation displacement and Pbest denote the position of the particles, the history best
and experimental displacement. The best set of calculated position of each particle and the best position of all particles.
stiffness is shown in table I. T

19 XI =[X/PXI2"",XiD] ,i=1,2,...N (5)

f �)(ai -by /19] (1)
P; = [PIP Pi2' ..., PiD r
=

i=! (6)
Table I
SPRINGS' STIFFNESS �esl =[QpQ2,·..,QDf (7)
The tank ribs optimization routine is described as follows:
5.30e6 6.40e7 5.91e8 9.37e8 3.12e9
(1) Each particle represents a solution of tank rib design.
To validate the spring stiffness, the third experimental set of
Initialize an array of particles with random position inside the
data is used to be compared with the computation results of the
problem space. Initialize the mean best position, population
3D-FEM mechanical property analysis routine with the fixed
size, particle dimension and the stop criterion (iteration times).
springs' stiffness. The comparisons show that, the mean square
(2) Based on the FEM routine developed in this paper,
error of 19 points' displacement between calculation results
calculate the displacement under the load of air pressure, and
and experimental results are less than 2.7mm. The tanks'
keep the information of displacement and Mise stress;
structure parameters are shown in table II. The experimental
(3) Evaluate the fitness of each particle, update the
data and computerized data are shown in table III. The three
matrixes X, P and Pbest, generate the new particle generation;
tanks are denoted as tank A, B and C.
(4) Loop until the stop criterion is met and output the
The tank mechanical property analysis software (TMA)
solution Pbes!' Usually the stop criterion could be a sufficiently
developed by the proposed method is already applied in a
good fitness or a maximum number of iterations, the latter is
transformer manufacturing factory. It is also used to optimize
adopted in this paper.
the tank design presented in section III.
A certain type of tank used in a transformer factory is
optimized with the proposed optimization technique. The
III. POWER TRANSFORMER TANK DESIGN OPTIMIZATION
comparisons of the original rib design and the optimized rib
In this paper, the aim of transformer tank design design is shown in table II. Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 shows the
optimization is to fmd the lowest cost solution of structural displacement and Mises stress of the tank under positive
parameters of ribs, constrained to tank industrial standards. pressure of 1.01e5 Pa. There is a 31.7 % reduction of ribs
Since different structure parameters of tanks, labor costs mass, while the displacement and Mises stress meet the
remain almost the same. So objective function can be the mechanical constraints of industrial standards.
minimization of ribs material cost, denoted as j{x t , Xb ..., xn). Table II
Variables consist of structure parameters of rib number, COMPARISONS OF ORIGINAL RIBS AND OPTIMIZED RIBS
thickness, height, Structure Parameters Original value Optimized value
Constrains consist of displacement constrain and strength Width 200mm 220mm
constrain under the load of 1.01e5Pa: the maximum Ribs Height 125mm II0mm
displacement d(x\, Xb ..., xu) and the Mises stress o(x\, Xb ... , (Long edge 1 Thickness 8mm 8mm
xu) must be less than the value defmed by industrial standards. short edge ) Interval 480 / 510 mm 600 / 660 mm

In 2004, Sun et a1. Introduced quantum theory into PSO and Number 9/3 7/2

propose a quantum-behaved PSO (QPSO) algorithm, which

can be guaranteed theoretically to find the optimal solution in IV. CONCLUSION
search space[7]. Quantum-behaved particle swarm In this paper, a power transformer tank design optimization
optimization (QPSO) algorithm is proved to be a global method is proposed, based on an accurate tank mechanical
convergence guaranteed algorithm. The parameter number of property analysis method. The calculation precision of the tank
QPSO is less than PSO while the search ability of QPSO is mechanical property analysis method is presented by the
much better. The only control parameter of QPSO is the comparison of the calculated results and experimental results.
Contraction Expansion Coefficient a . The efficiency of the tank design optimization method is

(
In QPSO, the particles move according to the following presented by the calculation cases. Some suggestions are

)
control equation: provided for tank manufacturing factories. The technique
1 N 1 N 1 N (2) proposed can be used to any kinds of transformer tank.
Mbes, - LP;,,- LP;2""'- LP;D
N N N
=

i�1 I�I I�I

2231
 J>NSYS 11. OSP1
APR 17 2013
13:01:29
I?lDr 1'0. 1
N:nZ\L samICN
S'IEP-1
SUB -1

(A\\:;)
TI!&1
USU1
RSYS-O
Pao.IerGrapucs
EFACE"l'-l
AVRES-Mat
CMX -.015692
SMX -.015692
0
_
_
.001744

Cl :���m
.006974
.008718
.010462
.012205

- :m�J

Fig. 2 Displacement distribution of the optimized tank under

positive pressure
J>NSYS 11. OSP1
APR 17 2013
13:01:29
I?lDr 1'0. 1
N:nZ\L samICN
S'IEP-1
SUB -1

(A\\:;)
TI/o£-l
SFX1J
�rafhics
EFACE"l'-l
AVRES-Mat
CMX -.015692
5M>l -160274
SMX - .188E+09
160274
_
_
.21DE+08

Cl :mlj:�
.836E+08
.10SE+09
.lZSE+09
.146E+09

- :i�lj:g§

Fig. 3 Stress distribution of the optimized tank under positive

pressure

V.REFERENCES:

[1]National Srandards Committee of China, "Technique Parameters and

Requirements of Three-phase Oil-immersed Transformer,". China,2008.
[2]F. Batista, H. Mendes and E. Almeida, "Structural Optimization of Power
Transformer Tank Covers," in 3rd international Conference on integrity,
Reliability and Failure, Porto/Portugal, 2009,p. 22.
[3]1. H. Zhang, L. Y. Sun, X. J. Zhang, and 1. P. Li, "Study on the
Deformation of the Oil-Immersed Transformer Tank by FEA," Advanced
Materials Research, vol. 422,pp. 51-54,2012.
[4]S. Muller, R. Brady, G. De Bressy, P. Magnier, and G. Perigaud,
"Prevention of Transformer Tank Explosion: Part I-Experimental Tests on
Large Transformers," in ASME PVP08 Conference, 2008.
[5]R. Brady, S. Muller, G. de Bressy, P. Magnier, and G. Perigaud,
"Prevention of Transformer Tank Explosion: Part 2 - Development and
Application of a Numerical Simulation Tool," in ASME PVP08 Conference,
2008.
[6]B. Landis, S. Muller, M. Petrovan-Boiarciuc, R. Brady, and G. Perigaud,
"Prevention of Transformer Tank Explosion: Part 4-Development of a Fluid
Structure Interaction Numerical Tool," in ASME PVP08 Conference, 2009.
[7]1. Sun,W. Xu and B. Feng, "A global search strategy of quantum-behaved
particle swarm optimization," in Cybernetics and intelligent Systems, 2004
iEEE Conference on, 2004,pp. 111-116.
[8]1. Sun, W. Xu and 1. Liu, "Parameter selection of quantum-behaved
particle swarm optimization," Advances in Natural Computation, p. 436-436,
2005.

2232