High Field DC Conduction Current and Spectroscopy of Aged Transformer Oil

This paper studies the experimental results of the quasi-state high field dc conduction current, and changes occuring in the molecular structure of aged transformer oil, sampled from EHV transformer operating for the last five years. Aged oil was compared with fresh transformer oil and liquid paraffin. It was found that aged oil exhibits higher conduction than both of the other oils through 600 seconds of field application. However, no molecular changes were detected using different techniques of spectroscopy such as GC; UV; IR and NMR. Metallic impurities were found to be of the same order but the acidity increased manifolds to that of fresh oil.