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ANALYSIS ON THE DEGRADATION OF INSULATION PAPER

IN PALM OIL AND COCONUT OIL UNDER HIGH
TEMPERATURE AGEING

Article history
Received
2015
Received in revised form
2015
Accepted
2015

N. A. Mohamad1*, N. Azis1, J. Jasni1, M. Z. A. Ab Kadir1, R. Yunus1, M.

T. Ishak2, Z. Yaakub3
1Center

of Electromagnetic and Lightning Protection Research

(CELP), Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia.
2Department of Electrical and Electronic, Faculty of Engineering,
Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia, Malaysia.
3Hyrax Oil Sdn. Bhd., Malaysia.
Graphical abstract

*Corresponding author
qieylaqilah@gmail.com

Abstract
This paper presents an experimental study on the degradation of insulation paper in Palm
Oil (PO) and Coconut Oil (CO) under accelerated thermal ageing. The ageing experiment
was carried out at 130 C for 7, 14 and 28 days. All samples were measured for Tensile Index
(TI) where the degradation rates were analyzed by models proposed by Weidmann and
Ding & Wang. Based on the study, it was found that the retention percentage of TI for PO
and CO remain higher than 50% at the end of the ageing period. Further analysis based on
degradation models showed that, the degradation rates for PO and CO are comparable.
Furthermore, it was also found that the rates of degradation for PO and CO are much
lower than Mineral Oil (MO).

Tensile index of all samples aged

at 130 C

Keywords: Palm oil, coconut oil, tensile index and degradation model

Abstrak
Kertas ini menunjukkan hasil kajian pada penuaan kertas penebat dalam minyak sawit
(PO) dan minyak kelapa (CO) dibawah pengaruh penuaan haba. Kajian ini dilakukan
pada suhu 130 C selama 7, 14 dan 28 hari. Penuaan kertas penebat ini di kaji dari segi
peratusan ketegangan indeks (TI). Semua sampel TI di ukur dan di analisis melalui model
degradasi iaitu Weidmann model dan Ding & Wang model. Berdasarkan kajian, didapati
peratusan degradasi TI untuk PO dan CO 50 % tinggi selepas penuaan. Selain itu, didapati
bahawa model degradasi untuk PO dan CO adalah sama. Di samping itu, kadar
degradasi PO dan CO lebih rendah berbanding minyak mineral (MO).
Kata kunci: Minyak sawit, minyak kelapa, ketegangan indeks dan model degradasi
2015 Penerbit UTM Press. All rights reserved

1.0 INTRODUCTION
Oil and paper are among the basic insulation
materials in oil filled type transformers. Oil can acts as
an electrical insulation, cooling medium and
information carrier. Meanwhile paper is used to wrap

the winding conductors as well as to provide

electrical insulation.
As transformers get older, oil and paper are
subjected to ageing. Generally, the ageing of oil and
paper will produce by-products such as water and
acids through oxidation and hydrolysis processes [12]. These by-products will in turn accelerate the

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ageing process [1-3]. Normally, accelerated thermal

ageing studies are carried out to simulate in-service
condition in transformers as well as to understand the
ageing process of oil and paper since the
information could be crucial to determine
mechanisms that could lead to failure as well as the
assessment on the life expectancy.
There are many properties of oil and paper that
are commonly examined during accelerated
thermal ageing. Among them is the strength of
insulation paper. A number of studies were carried
out previously on the performance of paper aged in
mineral oil or vegetable oils [1-7]. The temperatures
used in these studies were from 90 C to 190 C [1-9].
Different measurements were used to characterize
the strength and degradation of the paper such as
Degree of Polymerization (DP) and Tensile Strength
(TS) [1, 2, 6-10].
In general, the rate of paper ageing can be
determined by several models which also can be
used to describe the reduction of DP or TS. Among
the earliest model proposed to describe the
relationship between DP/TS and ageing time was
proposed by researcher in Weidmann. This model has
advantages of requiring only a few data and can
provide with quick empirical solution for the data
[11]. Emsley and Heywood had proposed a
comprehensive model of DP/TS which was based on
the kinetics of cellulose degradation. This model
however requires quite number of data in order to
practically describe the degradation of paper
[12,13]. In recent years, Ding & Wang had proposed
a model which was based on a concept of degree
of degradation. This concept was used to describe
the reduction of DP/TS with ageing time [13]. These
models had been applied successfully in different set
up of ageing experiments which consist of either
mineral oil or vegetable oils [9,13]. At the moment,
there are not much studies on the performance of
insulation paper aged under RBDPO and CO as well
as the knowledge on its ageing rate.
In this paper, an examination on the degradation
of insulation paper of RBDPO and CO under
accelerated thermal ageing is carried out. TS of all
samples are measured and analyses through
degradation model for loss TI are carried out to
access its performance after subjected to thermal
ageing.

2.0 EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP

2.1 Test Samples
The fluids under test were 3 samples of PO and 1
sample of each CO and MO respectively. RBDPO
Olein was used in this study. Both RBDPO and CO
samples were obtained from readily available
cooking oil products in the market. Table 1 shows the
composition of fats and vitamin E/A of these oil.

Table 1 Fat, Vitamin E/A contents of all samples

Samples
RBDPOA
RBDPOB
RBDPOC
CO

S. fat
(g)
45.4
44.4
43.0
92.8

P-U.S.
fat (g)
11.6
12.2
14.0
3.6

M-U.S.
fat (g)
43.0
43.3
43.0
3.6

V. E
(mg)
4.4
50.0
75.0
-

V. A
(g)
264
-

* S. fat= Saturated fat, P-U.S. fat= Polyunsaturated fat, M-U.S. fat=

Monounsaturated fat, V. E= Vitamin E, V. A= Vitamin A

2.2 Pre-processing and Thermal Ageing

Procedure
All oil samples were first filtered 3 times through a
membrane filter with pore size of 0.2m. Next, all oil
samples were dried in vacuum oven for 2 days at 85
C. The insulation papers were first dried in a vacuum
oven at 105 C for 2 days and later impregnated with
oil samples. The ratio of oil and paper used in this
study was 20:1 (450 g oil and 22.5 g insulation paper).
All samples were filled with nitrogen in order to
reduce the contact with oxygen. Finally all samples
were sealed with the bottle cap enforced with PTFE
tape to minimize the contact with the environment.
The ageing temperature was set at 130 C and all
samples were aged for 7, 14, and 28 days.

2.3 Mechanical Properties of Insulation

paper
2.3.1 Tensile Index
The TI measurements were carried out by a 5
kN Universal Testing Machine according to BS EN4415
and IEC 1924 standards [14,15]. The insulation paper
used in this study has a dimension of 16 mm width
and 7 mm thickness. The crosshead speed and full
scale load range were set to 20 mm/min and 0.5 kN.
The gap distance used for the test was 180 mm 1
mm. Once the maximum load was obtained, TI can
be determined based on Equation 1.
TI = (L/w)/g
Where TI

(1)

= Tensile index (Nm/g)

= Maximum load (N)
= Width (m)
= Grammage (g/m2)

3.0 RESULT AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Tensile Index
The TI of paper aged in different types of oils at
130 C can be seen in Figure 1. There is a significant
reduction of TI of paper for all samples immediately
after ageing. After 7 days of ageing, the TI of paper

N. A. Mohamad et al. / Jurnal Teknologi (Sciences & Engineering) 72:1 (2015) 15

for RBDPOA and MO continue to further reduce. On

the other hand the TI of paper for RBDPOC and CO
slightly reduces while the TI of paper for RBDPOB
slightly increases. After 14 days of ageing, TI of paper
for RBDPOA, RBDPOB and MO continue to slightly
reduce while TI of paper for RBDPOC and CO
remains almost unchanged. After 7 days of ageing, TI
of paper aged in MO is the lowest among other
types of oils. After 28 days of ageing, the retention
percentage of TI of paper aged in MO is lower than
50% while TI of paper aged in RBDPO and CO are
well above 50%.

2. It can be seen that only TI of paper aged in

RBDPOA and MO can be fitted quite well by
Weidmann model with r2 of 0.814 and 0.798 as shown
in Table 2. The TI of paper aged in RBDPOB, RBDPOC
and CO could not be fitted quite well by the model
since r2 are 0.693, 0.424 and 0.497 respectively.

Figure 2 Fitting based on Weidmann model of all samples.

3.2.2 Ding & Wang Model

Figure 1 Tensile index of all samples.

3.2 Modeling relationship between TI and

ageing duration
In this study, Weidmann and Ding & Wang models
were chosen as the model to represent the reduction
of TI with time.

3.2.1 Weidmann Model

Weidmann model is among the earliest model
proposed to represents the relationship between TI
and ageing time as shown in Equation 2 [12]. Among
the advantages of this model is it requires only a few
numbers of data and provides a quick empirical
solution to fit the measured TI data [11]. For
comparison purpose with Ding & Wang model, the
Weidmann model can be re-arranged to Equation 2
[13]. Based on this representation, a new parameter
named as degree of degradation, TI is introduced.
TI = TI0 exp CTIt
TI = 1 TI/TIo = I exp -CTIt

The latest model proposed to represent the

relationship between TI and ageing time is the Ding &
Wang model [13]. In this model, the degradation of
paper can be characterized by TI where TI = 0
represents a new paper with 100 % retention of TI
while TI (t = tf) = 1 corresponds to the failure of paper
where tf is the time to failure.
TI = TI*(1- exp CTIt)

(4)

Where TI* is the capacity of TI degradation

reservoir.
It can be seen in Figure 3 that Ding & Wang
model could represent most of the samples quite well
where r2 are higher than 0.9 as shown in Table 2. Only
TI of paper aged in RBDPOB could not be fitted quite
well by the model where the r2 is only 0.776.

(2)
(3)

Where TI is tensile index of paper at time t in Nm/g,

TI0 is the initial TI in Nm/g, CTI is the ageing rate in
days-1, t is time in days and TI is the percentage of TI
loss/degree of degradation.
The TI of paper for all samples aged were rearranged and fitted by Equation 3 as shown in Figure

Figure 3 Fitting based on Ding & Wang model of all samples.

N. A. Mohamad et al. / Jurnal Teknologi (Sciences & Engineering) 72:1 (2015) 15

3.2.3 Ageing rates of paper based on

Weidmann and Ding & Wang model
The ageing rates of paper aged obtained based
on Weidmann and Ding & Wang models are given in
Table 2. The ageing rate of paper aged in RBDPOC is
1.12 and 1.49 times higher than in RBDPOA and in
RBDPOB based on Weidmann model. However,
based on Ding & Wang model, paper aged in
RBDPOA has the highest ageing rate where it is 1.31
higher than in RBDPOB and 1.10 higher than in
RBDPOC. The ageing rate of paper aged in CO is
comparable with RBDPO. The ageing rate of paper
aged in MO is 1.58 times higher than in RBDPO and
1.33 higher than in CO based on Weidmann model
while based on Ding & Wang model it is between
1.22 and 1.60 times higher than in RBDPO and CO
samples.
Table 2 Ageing rates of paper based on Weidmann and
Ding & Wang model.
Samples
Weidmann
Ding & Wang
CTI (days-1)
r2
CTI (days-1)
r2
-2
-2
RBDPOA
2.50x10
0.814
44.3x10
0.980
RBDPOB
1.88x10-2
0.693
33.8x10-2
0.776
RBDPOC
2.81x10-2
0.424
40.2x10-2
0.999
CO
2.84x10-2
0.497
40.8x10-2
0.999
MO
3.78x10-2
0.798
54.1x10-2
0.994

Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank Ministry of Education
and Universiti Putra Malaysia for the funding under
FRGS scheme (03-02-13-1280FR), (03-02-13-1279FR),
PUTRA IPM and IPB schemes (GP-IPM/2013/9401500),
(GP-IPB/2014/9440801). Special thanks to Hyrax Oil
Sdn. Bhd and Malaysia Transformer Manufacturing
Sdn. Bhd. for the technical support.

References
[1]

[2]
[3]

[4]
[5]

[6]

[7]

4.0 CONCLUSION

[8]

The reduction of TI of paper aged in MO is more

apparent than RBDPO and CO at high temperature
e.g. 130 C. The performance of paper aged in CO is
comparable with RBDPO. Among the RBDPO
samples, there is no significant effect of vitamin E or A
on the ageing of paper. Based on the case study,
Ding & Wang model was found to be the suitable
model that can represents the reduction of TI with
ageing time. The ageing rate of paper aged in MO
can be up to1.6 higher than RBDPO and CO samples
based on Ding & Wang and Weidmann models.

[9]
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