The assessment of moisture content in pressboard impregnated with transformer oil on the base of DC conductivity measurements

W pracy przedstawiono wyniki badań zależności stałoprądowej konduktywności zawilgoconego impregnowanego olejem izolacyjnym preszpanu elektrotechnicznego od stopnia zawilgocenia i temperatury próbek. Ustalono, że przewodność odbywa się na drodze tunelowania elektronów pomiędzy studniami potencjału wytworzonymi przez molekuły wody umieszczone w strukturze celulozy. Opracowano nowy sposób określenia zawartości wilgoci w impregnowanym olejem izolacyjnym preszpanie elektrotechnicznym na podstawie pomiarów konduktywności stałoprądowej i temperatury izolacji.The paper presents measurements of time dependencies of current intensity in pressboard impregnated with transformer oil at various moisture content. The measurements were taken at the electric field intensity equal to 10 V/m. Values of the DC conductivity for various moisture content at the measurement temperature 297 K and 318 K were estimated on the base of the current intensity values after longer periods of the current flow. Analysis of the dependency of the DC conductivity on the distance between water molecules, related to moisture content, led to the conclusion that the conductivity of moist pressboard impregnated with insulating oil was based on electrons tunneling between the closest water molecules – the so called hopping conductivity. On the base of the hopping conductivity formula, obtained from approximation of the experimental results, there was calculated a nomogram containing dependencies of the DC conductivity on the moisture content for the temperatures from 278 K to 348 K, with a 5 K step, which is the range of power transformer operation temperatures. The nomogram is the base of the new way of assessing the moisture content in electrotechnical pressboard impregnated with insulating oil, which allows estimation of moisture contents with measurements of DC conductivity and insulation temperature