A Thermal Equivalent Circuit for Thermal Analysis of Power Transformers under Harmonic Loads

The majority of the power transformers failures are caused by the thermal stresses under abnormal operating conditions, such as harmonic loads. Therefore, it is of great interest to determine the temperature distribution inside the power transformers. In this paper, a new thermal equivalent circuit is presented by which the temperature in different regions of the transformer is estimated under harmonic loads. Also, the three-dimensional Finite Element (FE) Model of the power transformer is developed to calculate the power losses in each part of the transformer that are considered as the heat sources in the proposed equivalent circuit. The computed hotspot and average oil temperatures are compared with those obtained from IEEE Std C57.91 method, thereby the accuracy of the proposed method for calculating the temperature rise due to harmonic loads, is investigated. Finally, derating of the power transformer is discussed under harmonic loads.