Prototyping a Ferrofluid-Cooled Transformer

This paper presents the work conducted on prototyping a step-up/step-down, single-phased, low-power, and medium-voltage electrical transformer cooled by a fluid with colloidal magnetic nanoparticles. The magnetic and fluid dynamic properties and the heat capacities of the ferrofluid (magnetic nanofluid) and that of the regular coolant (UTR-40 transformer oil) were experimentally determined and comparatively evaluated. Mathematical models for the electromagnetic field and the heat transfer were defined and numerically solved to assess the capacity of the transformer to sustain the working conditions. The simulation results were utilized to improve the design of a prototype, where the UTR-40 regular coolant is replaced by ferrofluid. The numerical simulation results and the experiments evidence the superior performance of the prototype.