A finite element model for the analysis of steady state heat transfer in disc coil transformer winding

A general formulation for the analysis of the steady state heat transfer was developed and implemented in MATLAB, to become part of a coupled thermal-hydraulic model for solving the temperature and fluid flow distributions in a disc coil transformer winding. It uses Finite Element Method and computes temperature distributions in the solid part of the disc coil, i.e. in conductors and insulating paper. The model takes non-uniform heat generation rate and convective boundary conditions for solving the heat conduction problem. Axisymmetry of the coil geometry is used to reduce the problem to two-dimensions. The FEM code developed was validated by comparing computation results with those obtained from COMSOL Multiphysics software. As demonstrated, the results were in very good agreement with one another.