Cellulose impregnated with mineral oil is the most used insulating material in medium, high or extra high voltage substations, due to its efficacy and low cost. This material is employed in power transformers and its bushings, reactors, capacitors and measurement voltage and current transformers. This paper discusses the methodologies traditionally used to assess the insulating state of impregnated paper and to diagnose faults through the dissipation factor and the concentration of gases dissolved in the oil, regarding some factors that may affect those variables. Uncertainties in measured parameters and analysis methods are also considered. Some results obtained with the application of traditional methodologies (standards) for incipient fault detection based on gas analysis are compared with results obtained from the application of a artificial neural network proposed for this task.
Insulating Oil; Insulated Paper; Dissipation Factor; Dissolved Gas Analysis; Fault Diagnosis
