International Conference on Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (ICECOS) 2019

Modelling of Polymer Coated-based Optical Fiber

Sensor for Moisture Measurement in Transformer
Oil
G.L.G. Pavan Kumar, M.H. Ahmad and M.Y. Mohd Noor Z. Nawawi*, M. A.B. Sidik, and M.I.
M.A.M. Piah Department of Communication Jambak
Institute of High Voltage and High Engineering, School of Electrical Department of Electrical Engineering,
Current (IVAT) Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas
School of Electrical Engineerin, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Sriwijaya
Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Johor Bahru, Malaysia Palembang, Indonesia
Teknologi Malaysia yusofnor@utm.my *nawawi_z@yahoo.com
Johor Bahru, Malaysia
lgpavan209@gmail.com

Abstract—— Optical fiber based on the polymer coating is
one of the best options for water detection sensors in liquid
insulation. The water diffusion can be simulated through the
finite-element method (FEM) as it provides the finite element
analysis to determine the performance of the moisture sensor
based on optical fibers. In this work, a commercial COMSOL
Multiphysics software was used for the FEM simulation of the
coated optical fiber based moisture sensor. The response of the
sensor was estimated for different thickness to select the coating
thickness before the hardware design to opt for the best
sensitivity. The electric field propagation used the 2D model and
was estimated by using the boundary mode analysis and
frequency domain study. Transport dilute species uses 3D model
species to study the diffusion of water into the polymer by
varying the thickness and concentration of water (mol/m3). The
light propagation was simulated based on electromagnetic fields
and water diffusion using Fick's law. The modelling of the
sensor was done, and the response time required for the sensor
was estimated along with the effect of the electric field with
varying thickness of PVAc coating.
Keywords— PVAc, Fick’s Law, Power Transformer,
I. INTRODUCTION
Moisture monitoring is very important in areas of high
voltage insulation as the moisture may eventually lead to a
catastrophic failure. There are many sensors are available
based on a capacitive, mechanical, resistive and optical
method for moisture detection. The water content in the
transformer oil affects the properties of oil and leads to
chemical changes.
The water already exists inside the transformer
components pressboard, oil, paper and wood and when the
temperature rises inside the transformer it diffuses into oil and
form gas bubbles and increase gas concentration [1,2]. The
other chance of entering is through the seal and gaskets due to
improper maintenance. The water in cellulose at risen
temperature decays the mechanical strength of the cellulose
by depolymerization process [3]. When the desorption
happens, it decays insulation properties like dielectric
constant, breakdown strength, overload capacity and forms
gas bubbles in oil thereby leading to partial discharge and
future failure of the insulation.
The water quantity in the oil is measured by using Karl
Fischer titration, polarization and depolarization current,
return voltage method and frequency domain spectroscopy
which are offline methods. The offline methods only give spot
values where it misses the temperature dependency of the
moisture [4]. The moisture is considered uniformly distributed
in these methods, but it varies with load and time and the
uniform condition is not achieved by forced oil cooling [5].
Water activity probe is popular nowadays for online
measurement [6], but it is made of electronics which cannot
be used inside a power transformer. The water content in the
transformer oil is 10 ppm to 100 ppm for the temperature of 0
to 100 °C but at a normal temperature less than 10 ppm for
new oil [7]-[8].
Fiber optic sensors in the field of the power industry are
gaining a lot of interest [9]. Optical fibers are insensitive to
EMI and suitable for severe electrical environments. There are
several optical fiber sensors are available for moisture and
water detection using a different polymer-based coating.
Different types of Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) is coated with
polyimide, PMMA for moisture detection [10][12]. The other
methods used were by observing the changes in the
evanescent wave scattering and transmitted power in optical
fiber due to change in the water quantity in the coating [7]-[8].
The PVAC is a strong dielectric, inexpensive and high
thermal stable homopolymer material formed by
polymerization of vinyl acetate monomer. This PVAc used in
many applications for gas, moisture and humidity detection.
The PVAc is used in the application of capacitive and resistive
sensor for humidity measurement and it showed a good
response in detecting the humidity and resistive sensor shown
the linear response [13]-[15].
However, none of the previous work utilized PVAcbased
coating optical fiber sensor with varying coating thickness. In
this paper, the simulation is carried out on PVAc coated
optical fiber to investigate the performance by exposing the
sensing layer to the water of various concentrations and
thickness. Due to the above mentioned advantage of optics, it
is best to opt to use optical fiber inside the transformer for
incessant condition monitoring of liquid insulation.

45

Authorized licensed use limited to: University of Waterloo. Downloaded on May 30,2020 at 00:29:21 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 International Conference on Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (ICECOS) 2019
II. THEORY
The diffusion in the polymer is explained by Adolf Fick
using Fick’s law in 1855. The second law of the Fick’s is
derived by utilizing his Fick’s first law.
The first law of Fick’s [16] defined that the molar flux is
correlated to the concentration under the supposition of steady
state condition. It suggests that the diffusion of flux is from a
higher to lower concentration region, with amplitude is
proportional to ∇ . The common form of the Fick’s first law
is written as follows
= − ∇ (1)
The (∇) gradient operator in the equation specifies the first
derivative in two and above dimension space. For the species
i, Ni is the molar flux (mol/m3), Di is diffusion coefficient
[cm2/s] and Ci is the concentration(mol/m3).
Fick's second law [17]-[18] is an exceptional instance of
the convection-diffusion condition in which there is neither
the advective transition nor net volumetric source. The
Fick’s second law is written as follows
∇ (− ∇ ) =
( )= × (3)
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The light propagation in the fiber is elaborated in the A
section and water diffusion in the PVAc polymer in the B
section.
A. Simulation Results of Electromagnetic Waves in Optical
Fiber
In the 2D COMSOL Multiphysics, wave optics module is
used to simulate the electromagnetic waves inside coreless
optical fiber without and with PVAc coating. The coreless
fiber of cladding radius is 125μm. The front boundary of the
fiber is selected as port 1 which is excited, and the end
boundary is selected as port 2 which is unexcited over the
cladding radius. Firstly, across the ports 1 and 2 boundary
mode analysis were studied. The frequency mode in the wave
optics module is used to study the electric field distribution
between the ports. The simulation is done on 1.2 mm optical
fiber with 1 mm length PVAc coating. The electric field norm
in V/m is shown in Fig. 1.
(2)

Ri is the reaction rate. From these two laws, the absorption

of the water by the polymer is simulated.

III. METHODOLOGY
The simulation is carried out in 2 Dimensional and 3
Dimensional. The 2D is to study the boundary mode analysis
and frequency domain in fiber and 3D is used to study the
water diffusion characteristics in the polymer coated fiber. In
this study, the coreless optical fiber is utilized with water
sensitive PVAc polymer coated on the top of the coreless
fiber. The coreless fiber acts as a core with refractive index
1.444 and PVAc polymer coating acts as cladding. The water
sensitive polymer PVAc absorbs the water and it affects the
output power in the fiber. The response given by the sensor
depends on the thickness of the PVAc coating. The thickness
of the PVAc coat influences the time for the water to travel
from the outer layer to the boundary of coreless fiber and
PVAc. The properties of the PVAc is given in below Table I.

TABLE I. PROPERTIES OF PVAC [19]

Definition Value

Density 1.19 [g/cm^3] Fig. 1. Electric field (a)without coating and (b) with 10 μm PVAc coating

Refractive index 1.467

Diffusion coefficient water in

of 2.03x10-7 [cm2/min]
PVAc

The molar mass of the water is 18.00152 g/mol. Ci is

the concentration in (mol/m3) is converted to parts per million
(ppm) by multiplying Ci with the molar mass of the water
gives the concentration in ppm. The concentration in ppm is
given as follows

47

Authorized licensed use limited to: University of Waterloo. Downloaded on May 30,2020 at 00:29:21 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 International Conference on Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (ICECOS) 2019
Fig. 4 shows the same as the previous Figure 3 but in
planes view. From the results, it can be clearly seen that the
saturation of the water diffusion happens after a certain period.
Fig. 3 and Fig. 4 show the diffusion before and after the
saturation point.

Fig. 2. Average electric field in optical fiber for various PVAc coating
thickness

The average value of the electric filed norm is shown in

Fig. 2 as the thickness of the coating is increasing then the
average value of the electric field norm value is decreasing.

B. Simulation Results of water diffusion in PVAc Fig. 4. 10 µm PVAc coated fiber in planes view.

The PVAc is coated over the optical fiber for a length of 1 The simulations are repeated for 10 µm to 25 µm thickness
mm. The moisture absorption by the polyvinyl acetate coating PVAc layer in a step increment of 5 µm thickness with a water
on optical fiber mechanism is modelled and simulated using concentration of 1,10 and 18 ppm as shown in Fig. 5. Fig. 5
COMSOL MULTIPHYSICS. In this model, the transport of shows saturation time for different thickness 10, 15, 20, 25 for
diluted species physics in chemical species module is used to the concentration of 1, 10 and 18 ppm. The time taken
simulate the water diffusion in PVAc polymer. The water approximately by the water to reach the interface of coating -
absorbed by the polymer is given by the Fick’s law based on cladding boundary is given in Table II below where 180 ppm
water diffusion coefficient which is time dependent. A 3D results are also included. Table II shows the saturation time
geometry was used to simulate the optical fiber with a for various PVAc thickness and concentration.
cladding diameter of 125 µm. The fiber is coating with
different thickness of PVAc. The outer layer of the coating is
considered with different concentrations c0.c (mol/m3) of the TABLE II. THE SATURATION TIME REQUIRED BY PVAC
water, i.e. 0.056 mol/m3 (1ppm), 0.56 mol/m3 (10 ppm) and 1 PVAc
mol/m3 (18 ppm) to show the amount of water outside the fiber thickness (µm)
1 ppm 10 ppm 18 ppm 180 ppm
surrounding. All the initial concentration, c of PVAc coating
is considered to zero. For each simulation, the outer 10 22 s 26 s 27 s 29 s
concentration is considered constant for all the time of the 15 50 s 58 s 60 s 66 s
simulation. The diffusion of the water starts from the outer
layer to inside of the PVAc to PVAC-cladding interface. The 20 88 s 103 s 106 s 116 s
water diffuses from the high concentration region to low 25 136 s 159 s 164 s 179 s
concentration. The Diffusion coefficient, Dc (cm2/s) is given
in the transport properties. The PVAc data used for the
simulation are given in Table I.
Fig. 3 (a) and (b) shows the water diffusion in the 10 µm
PVAc coated fiber after 10 sec and 30 sec in 10 ppm
concentration of water slice view in XY- XZ plane.

Fig. 3. 10 µm PVAc coated fiber in slice view

48

Authorized licensed use limited to: University of Waterloo. Downloaded on May 30,2020 at 00:29:21 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 International Conference on Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (ICECOS) 2019
Fig. 5. Water diffusion in the PVAc vs Time for various concentration.
The diffusion reaches saturation point when the water
reach from the outer boundary surface to PVAc-cladding
boundary and the time taken for it to reach saturation is
considered as saturation time. From the Table 2 at a particular
thickness, the saturation time is varying with the concentration
but if we look into the Figure 5 it can be clearly seen that to
reach approximately 90-99% of concentration it almost took
equal saturation time. In this case, it is more dependent on the
thickness of the coating. The average value of the saturation
time for 10,15,20 and 25 µm is approximately 26,58,103 and
159 sec. As the thickness increases, it prolongs the time taken
to reach the saturation point as shown in Fig. 6.
49
Authorized licensed use limited to: University of Waterloo. Downloaded on May 30,2020 at 00:29:21 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
Fig. 6. Time response with varying the PVAc coating thickness at 180 ppm
concentration
The 15 µm thick PVAc coated optical fiber is suggested to
be suitable in the insulation oil. As the thickness is less its
response is faster but if the thickness is about to less than the
degradation of the polymer due to harsh environments, in the
long run, it would change the sensitivity of the sensor. This
study is not only for the selection of moisture sensor in
insulation oil it can be applied to the other applications like in
agriculture field for water content in the soil, in atmosphere
humidity detection and food processing industry, chemical
industry etc.
V. CONCLUSION
The simulation work has been carried out on the PVAc
coated optical fiber and its response was studied by varying its
thickness and concentration of water in the surrounding
medium. The electric field distribution in the fiber has been
also simulated with and without PVAc coating with varying
thickness. The time required by the sensor to sense the
response was calculated for a range of 10 to 25 µm thickness
with step increment of 5 µm. The optimized coating thickness
was also suggested. Further study is essential on the polymer
coating deformation and degradation in the harsh environment
inside a power transformer.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to acknowledge Universiti
Teknologi Malaysia, and Universitas Sriwijaya for providing
research grants under vote numbers 16J61, 07G05, 04G81,
4B340, 4B341, 4B342, 4B383 and 4B377.
.
REFERENCES
[1] T. V. Oommen and S. R. Lindgren, "Bubble evolution from
transformer overload," IEEE Transmission and Distribution Conf.
Exposition, PES, pp. 137-142, vol. 1, 2001.
[2] C. Y. Perkasa, N. Lelekakis, T. Czaszejko, J. Wijaya, and D. Martin,
"A comparison of the formation of bubbles and water droplets in
vegetable and mineral oil impregnated transformer paper," IEEE
Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation, vol. 21, no. 5, pp.
2111-2118, 2014.
[3] P. Przybylek, "Water saturation limit of insulating liquids and
hygroscopicity of cellulose in aspect of moisture determination in
 International Conference on Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (ICECOS) 2019
oilpaper insulation," IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical
Insulation, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 1886-1893, 2016.
[4] I. Atanasova-Höhlein, M. Končan-Gradnik, T. Gradnik, B. Čuček, P.
Przybylek, K, Siodla, K.B. Liland, S. Leivo, and Q. Liu. "Experience
with capacitive on-line sensors for moisture evaluation in transformer
insulation," IEEE Electrical Insulation Magazine, 35, no. 2, pp. 18-26,
2019.
[5] A. F. Howe, “Diffusion of moisture through power-transformer
insulation,” Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng., vol. 125, no. 10, pp. 978–986, Oct.
1978.
[6] D. Martin, T. Saha, and O. Krause, "Developing models to improve the
online measurement of water in a vegetable oil filled power
transformer," In 2016 IEEE Innovative Smart Grid Technologies-Asia
(ISGT-Asia), pp. 1049-1053. IEEE, 2016.
[7] Yusoff, S. F. Az Zahra, M. H. Mezher, I.S. Amiri, N. Ayyanar, D.
Vigneswaran, H. Ahmad, and R. Zakaria. "Detection of moisture
content in transformer oil using platinum coated on D-shaped optical
fiber," Optical Fiber Technology 45, pp. 115-121, 2018.
[8] J.H. Rodriguez-Rodriguez, F. Martinez-Pinon, J. A. Alvarez-Chavez,
and D. Jaramillo-Vigueras. "Polymer optical fiber moisture sensor
based on evanescent-wave scattering to measure humidity in oil-paper
insulation in electrical apparatus," SENSORS, 2008 IEEE, pp. 1052-
1055. IEEE, 2008.
[9] K. Bohnert, P. Gabus, J. Kostovic, and H. Brändle. "Optical fiber
sensors for the electric power industry," Optics and Lasers in
Engineering 43, no. 3-5, pp. 511-526, 2005.
[10] D. Webb and K. Kalli, "Polymer fiber Bragg gratings," Fiber Bragg
Grating Sensors: Recent Advancements, Industrial Applications and
Market Exploitation, pp. 292-312, 2011.
[11] W. Zhang, and D. J. Webb, "PMMA based optical fiber Bragg grating
for measuring moisture in transformer oil," IEEE Photonics
Technology Letters, vol. 28, no. 21, pp. 2427-2430, 2016.
50
Authorized licensed use limited to: University of Waterloo. Downloaded on May 30,2020 at 00:29:21 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
[12] M. Ansari and D. Martin., "Preliminary assessment of using optical
fibre sensors to measure moisture in transformers," in 2017
Australasian Universities Power Engineering Conference (AUPEC),
pp. 1-5. IEEE, 2017.
[13] J. Berring, C. Sielmann, B. Stoeber, and K. Walus. "VOC detection
using an all polymer flexural plate wave sensor." In 2013 Transducers
& Eurosensors XXVII: The 17th International Conference on Solid-
State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems (TRANSDUCERS &
EUROSENSORS XXVII), pp. 274-277. IEEE, 2013.
[14] S. Chatzandroulis, E. Tegou, D. Goustouridis, S. Polymenakos, and D.
Tsoukalas, "Capacitive-type chemical sensors using thin
silicon/polymer bimorph membranes," Sensors and Actuators B:
Chemical, vol. 103, no. 1-2, pp. 392-396, 2004.
[15] R.L. Gunter, W. D. Delinger, T. L. Porter, R. Stewart, and J. Reed,
“Hydration level monitoring using embedded piezoresistive
microcantilever sensors," Medical engineering & physics 27, no. 3, pp.
215-220, 2005.
[16] N. Dahan, A. Vanhoestenberghe, and N. Donaldson., "Moisture ingress
into packages with walls of varying thickness and/or properties: A
simple calculation method,." IEEE Transactions on Components,
Packaging and Manufacturing Technology 2, no. 11, pp. 1796-1801,
2012.
[17] L.J. Zhou, G. N. Wu, and J. Liu, "Modeling of transient moisture
equilibrium in oil-paper insulation," IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics
and Electrical Insulation 15, no. 3, pp. 872-878, 2008.
[18] M. Mukherjee, and S. Chakravorti. "Assessment of moisture diffusion
distance in pressboard insulation within transformer using Fick's law."
In 2014 Eighteenth National Power Systems Conference (NPSC), pp.
1-4. IEEE, 2014.
[19] A.P. Mathew, G. Gong, N. Bjorngrim, D. Wixe, and K.Oksman.
"Moisture absorption behavior and its impact on the mechanical
properties of cellulose whiskers based polyvinylacetate
nanocomposites," Polymer Engineering & Science 51, no. 11, pp.
2136-2142, 2011.