2016 International Conference on Condition Monitoring and Diagnosis - Xi'an - China

Investigating the Influence of Temperature and

DC Electric Field on the Electric Conduction

of Oil Impregnated Paper Insulation

Ma BO, Daomin Min, Jiasheng Ru, Shaoming Pan, Huang Yin, Yuanwei Zhu, Shengtao Li*
State Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation and Power Equipment
School of Electrical Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University
Xi'an, Shaanxi 710049, China
Email: sli@mail.xjtu.edu.cn

Abstract-Electric conduction of oil impregnated paper under obtained the relative dielectric constant Cr through the
different temperatures and different DC electric fields has comparison of the test data and the simulation data. Reference
significant influences on the insulation structure design of [5] studied the influence of the temperature and electric
converter transformer. This paper focuses on the influence of conduction on the conductivity through voltammetry.
temperature and DC Electric Field on the electric Conduction of
oil impregnated paper insulation, as well as conduction The study of the electric conduction of oil impregnated
mechanism of oil impregnated paper through the high-field paper has made some progress, but in some respects it is
conduction experiments. It is concluded that a raise in regrettable that there is no unified models and unified methods
temperature and DC electric field leads to the higher to explore the electric conduction of oil impregnated paper.
conductivity of the oil impregnated paper sample. The activation This paper is an attempt to investigate the electric conduction
energy representing conduction barrier height was obtained. of oil impregnated paper under different temperatures and DC
Moreover, the mechanism of electric conduction in oil electric fields, as well as exploring the conduction mechanism
impregnated paper was analyzed, which confirms the hopping of oil impregnated paper through the electric conduction at
conduction model instead of space charge limited current theory. high fields.
Based on the upper statement, the parameters like the electronic
hopping distance () and the parameter jO were obtained and we II. SAMPLES AND EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
explored the conductivity (J changing along with the electric field
under different temperatures. A. Experimental materials and preparation
The insulating oil used in experiment was the 25# Karamay
Keywords-Oil impregnated paper; Hopping conduction; high­ transformer oil, and the insulting paper was provided by the
field conduction; Activation energy Xi'an transformer factory, of which the thickness was 0.07mm.
The pre-treatment of insulating oil including dehydration,
I. INTRODUCTION
degassing and filtration of impurities was conducted in a two­
It is widely acknowledged that the converter transformer is stage vacuum oil purifier. After the pretreatment, the moisture
one of the key equipments in high voltage direct current content in insulating oil was :s 5 ppm, the gas content was
(HYDC) power system. Oil impregnated paper is the main :s 0.1%, the impurity size was :S 3 /lm. The insulating paper
insulation material in converter transformers, which acts as one was firstly cut into 60 mm diameter wafer, then placed into
of the influencing factors for the safe operation of power grid. vacuum oven at 100 °C, 0.5 Pa for 96 hours. The moisture
The electric conduction of oil impregnated paper under content in insulating paper was:S 0.2%.
different temperatures and different DC electric fields has a
significant effect on the insulation structure design of converter After the pretreatment, the insulating paper was placed into
transformer. the vacuum oiling device, heated to 115°C for 4 hours and then
evacuated to 100 Pa for 16 hours. After that the insulating oil
The most common method for testing the electric was injected, and the temperature was set to 90°C for 2 hours,
conduction of insulation materials is voltammetry [1] which and fmally cooled down to room temperature and kept for 24
means getting the conductivity through testing the current hours to fmish the oil-paper preparation.
when applying the DC voltage on the sample. The conduction
mechanism of insulation materials contains space charge B. The electric conduction testing process
limited current (SCLC), hopping conduction model and band The electric conduction measurement system is described
transport model, Poole-Frenkel mechanism and so on [2]. below, as shown in Fig. 1. The diameters of the measuring
Reference [3] discussed the conduction mechanism of fibrous electrode, the guard electrode and the high voltage electrode
solid and the factors affecting the electric conduction. are 10 mm, 15 mm and 25 mm, respectively. The three­
Reference [4] researched the electric conduction at high electrode measurement equipment is placed in the temperature
electric field and obtained the equation which indicates the control chamber to avoid the interference from external
relation between the conductivity and the temperature and the environment and the three-electrode device should link the
electric field. Moreover, Reference [4] analysed the influence protective resistance R 30 MQ and the protective capacitance
=

of the temperature and the electric field on the conductivity and C 0.6 /IF to ensure the safety and stability of the experiment.
=

978-1-5090-3396-6/16/$3l.00 ©2016 IEEE 514

The Keithley 6517B electrometer with high sensitivity is used which the transition is the threshold electric field. It is found
to measure the weak current. that the threshold electric field is 35.71 kV·mm-1 which keeps
unchanged at three different temperatures. It is acknowledged
protective resistance that the current density can be described as follows,
� ������������
§ I
Iii ">i
§! � (")
0 j=aE=- (1)
� g + <
S
" 0

g i
Wherej is current density in A·m-2• (1 is conductivity in S/m.
0

[ �.
<1>

�
:s
� � E is electric field in V1m. I is current in A. S is electrode area in
m2.From the Arrhenius equation [6] we can get the changing
Guard Mea<;uring 8
a: electrode electrode
�mD�mm*=���� rule between the conductivity and temperature at the constant
applied electric field, as described by the following formula,
6517B electrometer

Fig. 1.
�------�pAr-------�

Schematic of the electric conduction measurement system

(J = (J
00
exp - ( Ea) kT
(2)

Using the measurement system shown in Fig. 1 we can (3)

change the temperature and the electric field during the kT
experiment. In order to get rid of the influence brought by the
measurement system, we should record the initial current Where (100 is a constant in S/m. Eo is activation energy in eV.
without electric field under each temperature which should be k is Boltzmann constant. T is temperature in K. From the
taking into account when dealing with the experimental data. equation above we know if the electric field and electrode area
are unchanged, In! has a linear relation with TI. We can get the
In the experiment, test steps are as follows: firstly, put the lnI�TI curve based on the experimental data as shown in Fig.3.
sample into three-electrode measurement equipment and close
the temperature control chamber. Secondly, set the temperature • Expcrimcntaldata
-Linearfittin
inside the chamber. Thirdly, when the temperature reaches the
setting value, record the initial current without electric field. At
'
last, change the applied voltage and record the current through e

the 6517B electrometer when the current is stable.

III. EXPERMENTAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSION e

"

A. Preliminary analysis of Experimental result and

3.1x10� 3.2x10' 3.3x10'
Calculation ofActivation Energy
r'/K'

We use the measurement system shown in Fig. 1 to study

Fig. 3. Experimental data and the linear fitting
the conductivity of oil impregnated paper under different
temperatures and electric fields. The temperature is 25°C, 37.5 Since the slope of lnI�TI curve IS -EJkT, we get get
°c and 50°C respectively while the applied voltage is from 0 to Eo=0.9geV through the linear fitting.
8 kV in the experiment,. We can get the double logarithmic
graph as shown in Fig. 2. B. The conduction mechanism analysis

5 �25 C
° Lots of researchers [7-9] found that the electric conduction
10 -+-37.50C
of insulation materials conformed to SCLC theory, According
'
to which the complete electrical current property curve IgI�lgU
10
of solid dielectric ideal curve is shown in FigA.

'
10

/
' /
Ig I /
10
/
/
/
' ' /
JO 10 /
IgEIkV.nun" 1/
/

/
Fig. 2. Double logarithmic graph of volt-ampere characteristic curve
IgE

We can see that at the same temperature the current

Fig. 4. The complete Ig/-lgU curve according to SCLC theory
increases as the electric field increases while under the same
electric field the current increases as the temperature increases. There are four different regions in Fig. 4, of which the
Besides the 19I�lgE curve is divided into two linear parts at of introduction is shown in Table I.

515
 TABLE I. THE INTRODUCTION OF FOUR REGIONS OF LGI-LGE CURVE Where t:5 is the average hopping distance in m. v is the
ACCORDING TO SCLC THEORY
frequency of the electronic thermal vibration in Hz.)o is given
Region Description Equation Slope of Ig/-lgE curve bY)0=Nt:5vq/3 in A'm,2, in which N is electron density in Cm,3;
e is the elementary charge in C.
I Ohm area jrx.U I

2 Trap function area jrx.U' 2 From equation (2) it is found that the conductivity (J
increases with the temperature T increasing. When temperature
Trap filled area
3
T is infinity, the index item exp(-E,/kT) tends to be 1 and (J;::;
00

4 No trap area jrx.U' 2 (Joo. So the physical meaning of (Joo is the conductivity when the

temperature Tis infmity. From equation (5) it is concluded that

According to the experiment results in Fig. 2, we can get
the slope of each linear part, as shown in Table II.
TABLE II. THE INTRODUCTION OF Two REGIONS OF LGI-LGE CURVE IN
EXPERIMENT
" Slope of first
Temperature/ C
section
25 1.15
3 7.5 1.19
50 1.23
Comparing the data from Table 1 and Table 2, we fmd that
the slope of IgI�lgE curve of oil impregnated paper is not 2
which shows that it is not reasonable to use SCLC theory to
study the electric conduction of oil impregnated paper.
Considering that oil impregnated paper is composed of
amorphous and crystalline phase, the atomic distribution has
the regularity in small local area, and lose its regularity in a
larger area. Therefore, the energy band formed by the atomic
periodic distribution can only be dispersed in each local area
and in the irregular atomic distribution area. The electron can't
move freely and the electron migration from a small
conduction band to another small conduction band need to
overcome the barrier height fJo. This is the hopping conduction
model, as shown in Fig. 4.
the conductivity (J increases with the electric field E increasing.
when the temperature T is infmity and the electric field E is
infmitesimal, the exponential term exp(-EJkT) tends to be 1
and the hyperbolic function item sinh(t:5eEI2kT) tends to be
t:5qEI2kT, So the physical meaning of)o is that t:5qjo/2kT is the
Slope of second conductivity when the temperature Tis infmity and the electric
section field E is infmitesimaL
3.12
C. MATLAB Simulation
2.90
Based on the analysis above, we can write a MA TLAB
2.71 simulation program according to equation (5) using the
hopping conduction model to study the electric conduction of
oil impregnated paper. During the MATLAB simulation the
temperature sets as 25°C, 37.5°c and 50°C respectively while
the voltage set as from 0 to 8 kV and the calculation step of
voltage is 100 V. From equation (5) we know the condition that
if we went to get the current, we must know the value of
activation energy Ea, hopping distance t:5 and the parameter)0.
We have gotten Ea = 0.99 eV, so we just need constantly adjust
the values of t:5 and)o in the process of simulation until the
MATLAB simulation curve and experimental curve have the
best coincidence. The analysis above is the principle of the
MATLBA simulation. Eventually we get the simulation and
experimental curves as shown in Fig.6.
[.6:-.:[0.
8
9
....... ExpcrimctalcUJ','c ....... Experm
i elalcurye
1.6xIO·
�lIIAlLABsimulationcum:

'
4.0,.10

0.0

0.0 ' ' ' 1 1 1

3 0,.10 6 0,.10 9.0xlO L2xIO" 0.0 3.0x10 6.0x10 9.0x10 I.2xl0
8
EIV·m" EIV·m'!

Fig. 5. The hopping conduction model (a) 25°C (b)37.5°C

....... Experimcw[cul'\'c

The thermal vibration of electron will not contribute to the ....... MAllABsimulationcum

8
9.0;.;10-
conduction without electric field, but when the electric field is
applied, the barrier height which the electron should overcome
along with the electric field direction will increase f..u, while 6.0xI0-8

the barrier height will decrease f..u along with the opposite
8
direction. Based on the mobility for electron and the current 3.0xI0-

can be generally written [10] as follows:

v 1
bve
-�
kT
sinh
( )
beE
(4)
0.0 10xl01
ENm'
!
6.0x101 9.0x101 I.2xl08

E 3E 2kT
= =
f.1.
(c)50°C
E E Fig. 6. The Experimental and MATLAB simulation curves under different
) (JE )o exp(- a ) sinh (& ) (5) temperatures
kT 2kT
= =

516
 From the Fig. 6 it is found that the MATLAB simulation
curve and experiment curve have the good coincidence. So we
think that it is reasonable for using the hopping conduction
model to investigate the electric conduction of oil impregnated
paper. What's more, we can get the simulation parameters as
shown in the Table III.
TABLE III. THE PARAMETERS EXTRACTED BY MATLAB SIMULA nON
Temperature/oC
25
37. 5
50
From table III we can get that with the increasing of the
temperature the hopping distance () nearly remains unchanged,
of which the value keeps about 1.81�1.89x 10-9m while the
parameter jo increases. But the value of r3qjol2kT remains about
107 A'm-1'V-1 at three different temperatures which is the
conductivity when the temperature T is infinity and the electric
field E is infinitesimal.
We still use the MA TLBA simulation and the parameters
shown in table III to explore the conductivity (J changes along
with the electric field at 25°C, 37.5 °c and 50°C. The results
are shown in Fig.7.
-COI1ductv
i l),
i CUIve
3.0;.;10,14
E 'E
�
IV. CONCLUSION
By testing the electric conduction at high fields, it is
concluded that a raise in temperature and electric field strength
leads to the higher electrical conductivity of the oil
impregnated paper sample. The activation energy E(J=0.9geV
representing conduction barrier height was obtained. Besides,
the mechanism of electric conduction of oil impregnated paper
is analyzed, which confirms to the model of hopping
Parameters conduction instead of SCLC theory. Based on the upper
statement, the parameters like the hopping distance r3 and the
OIm j,/A'm']
parameter jo are obtained, as well as the curve of conductivity
1.89x10.9 8.85x 109 as electric field changes under three different temperatures
1.86x 10.9 2.09x10'0
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1.81x10.9 4.77xI01O
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b2.O;.;IO'14 1.8xlO·1J
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E
'i'
tl
I.4:dO·ll

0.0 4.0;.;[07 8.0x107

'
EJV.m·

Fig. 7. The Experimental and MATLAB simulation curves under different

temperatures

From the simulation curves shown as in Fig 7. it is found

that under the same temperature, with the increasing of electric
field, the conductivity of paper insulation increases obviously
from 1O-15�1O-14 Sim to 101 3�1O-12 S/m.

517