In order to sustain transmission grid availability and reliability it is imperative that the
condition of vital and costly high voltage equipment is ascertained on a continuous or
regular basis. It is necessary to establish the effective diagnostic tools or surveillance
devices that can be used to assess equipment condition.
Emphasis has been placed on refining well-established and more novel but
developing condition assessment techniques. It is important to note that condition
assessment of equipment also allows the opportunity to predict failure. Based on a
complete and systematic assessment, the failure of defective equipment may be
evident or predicted in time, thus preventing a forced outage and loss of valuable
'system minutes'. It has also become necessary to extend the life of existing
equipment since most of them are reaching the end of their useful life. Replacement
strategies have proven to be ineffective due to financial and resource constraints
experienced by utilities.
Life extension is the work required to keep equipment operating economically beyond
its anticipated life, with optimum availability, efficiency and safety. One of its principal
components is condition assessment, with the possibility of predicting remnant life.
As a result, refurbishment projects are then raised. Refurbishment by replacement,
uprating, modifications or change of design of certain key components to extend the
life usually requires a substantial amount of capital to be invested. These projects
must be economically justified.
This thesis focuses on establishing condition assessment techniques for major power
equipment such as power transformers. Assessment techniques for instrument
transformers and circuit breakers are included, since these are commonly replaced
or modified under refurbishment projects.
An experimental investigation was carried out to determine the effectiveness of
integrating data of two diagnostic techniques i.e. dissolved gas analysis (on-line) and
acoustic detection of partial discharges. It was found that there is a correlation
between data obtained from an acoustic detection system and an on-line single gas
(Hydrogen) analyser. By integrating the data of both on-line monitoring systems, the
diagnostic process is further enhanced. In addition, the location of a fixed discharge
source was verified by using an acoustic detection system. Further, the sensitivity of
the acoustic technique to partial discharge inception voltage, relative to the
established electrical detection technique was determined for the experimental
arrangement used. The results obtained indicated that this is an effective technique
for the evaluation of activity within a transformer structure. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2004.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ukzn/oai:http://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za:10413/4334 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | Singh, Omchand. |
| Contributors | Hoch, Derek A. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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