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CFD analyses and experiments of a winding with zig-zag cooling duct

for a power transformer

J. Y. LEE*, S. W. LEE, J. H. WOO AND I. S. HWANG

Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., Ltd.
KOREA

SUMMARY

The transformer windings can be classifed into two geometrical constructions, layer and disk type.
Recently, the disk type winding with zig-zag cooling duct arrangement is widely used in large power
transformers, but it is difficut to predict the hot spot temperature of winding due to complex oil fluid
paths. The present paper describes the fluid flow and heat transfer performance of the winding with
zig-zag cooling duct. For the concept cooling design of the zig-zag shaped winding in both OD (Oil-
Direct) and ON (Oil-Natural) transformer, thermal and fluid analyses have been conducted.
Particularly various geometries and parameters such as conductor length and width, horizontal and
vertical duct size, number of baffles, oil flow rate and heat density are considered to evaluate cooling
performance of the transformer. Based on the results of the analyses, heat transfer and pressure drop
correlations of the zig-zag winding are presented in terms of non-dimensional numbers. In order to
verify the proposed correlations, series of experiments for the zig-zag winding with the same variables
as numerical analyses have been carried out. The results show good agreement with the predicted
under OD and ON cooling conditions. From the comparisons between numerical and experimental
results, it is found that the obtained correlations can predict temperature rise of the winding and oil,
and pressure drop properly.

KEYWORDS

Power Transformer - Zig-zag Duct - CFD Analysis – Experiment - Forced Cooling - Natural Cooling,
- Correlation

jameslee@hhi.co.kr
1. INTRODUCTION

The large power transformer is one of the most important equipment of power transmission and
distribution grids. The reliability, lifetime, performance and design of transformers are affected by the
temperature of hot spot in the transformer windings. Accordingly, IEEE and IEC [1] require that the
hot spot temperature and its location must be determined by either measurement or calculation method
[3]. The transformer windings can be classifed into two gemetrical constructions, layer and disk type.
In recent, the disk type winding with zig-zag cooling duct arrangement is widely used in large power
transformers, but it is difficut to predict the hot spot temperature due to complex oil fluid paths in
winding. Rahimpour et al.[2] have utilized the pressure drop equation approach to develop the coupled
thermal network model and its validity and accuracy is verified with experimnetal mesured data. But
there is not enough the measured data for varification of the proposed thermal model. Zhang et al.[3]
have investigated oil and winding temperatures in ON transformer with various flow conditions, heat
generation rates and winding geometries. And two empirical heat transfer correlations which are valid
for Reynolds numbers rating from 7.5 to 75.9 in both-side heating ducts and from 1.5 to 218.4 in one-
side heating ducts are proposed.

In this paper, the main objective is to establish the heat transfer correlations for the cooling concept
design of the zig-zag shaped winding in both OD (Oil-Direct) and ON (Oil-Natural) transformer. Thus
thermal and fluid analyses have been conducted. Particularly various geometries and parameters such
as conductor length and width, horizontal and vertical duct size, number of baffles, oil flow rate and
heat density are considered to evaluate cooling performance of the transformer. In order to predict the
hot spot temperature of the disk winding, based on the results of the analyses, heat transfer and
pressure drop correlations of the zig-zag winding presented in terms of non-dimensional numbers.
Series of experiments for the zig-zag winding with the same variables as numerical analyses have been
carried out to verify the proposed correlations.

2. CFD ANALYSIS

In order to find out the temperature rise and pressure drop correlations at the disk-type winding part
with zig-zag cooling duct arrangement, the two-dimensional numerical analyses using a commercial
Computational Fluid Dynamic(CFD) code which is based on the Finite Volume Method(FVM) have
been conducted[4]. Standard model is proposed as Figure 1 to analyze the heat transfer for disk type
winding with zig-zag cooling duct. The flow and heat transfer analyses were carried out with various
horizontal and vertical duct sizes, number of baffles, geometry of conductor and heat densities under
natural and forced cooling conditions. The simulation parameters and values are presented in Table 1
for the CFD analysis. And the temperature and velocity contour by analysis are illustrated in Figure 2.

FIGURE 1 Geometrical parameters of the zig-zag winding for analysis

2
 TABLE 1 Parameters for CFD analysis
Parameters Values
Horizontal Duct (dv) 4, 5, 6 [mm]
Vertical Duct (dh) 4, 5, 6, 7 [mm]
Number of Blocks (nb) 4, 6, 8, 10 [EA]
Geometry Number of Conductors (N) 120 [EA]
Winding Inner Diameter(Ø) 600~2,000 [mm]
Conductor Width (t) -
Conductor Length (W) -
Mass Flow Rate 1, 3, 5, 7, 11 [kg/sec]
Operating
Power Density of Winding 5,000~400,000 [W/m3]
Temperature 300 [K]
Ambient
Pressure 1 [bar]

(a) Temperature distribution

(b) Velocity distribution

FIGURE 2 Temperature and velocity contours by CFD analysis

2.1 Definition of non-dimensional parameters

To predict the temperature rise of winding by heat exchanging between winding and oil, correlation
with dimensionless parameters as Reynolds Number (Re) and Nusselt Number (Nu) are used. And oil
pressure drop is calculated from a direct correlation between Reynolds Number (Re) and friction factor
(f)[5][6]. In disk type winding, the zig-zag ducts are usually considered as parallel duct flow, and
Reynolds number correlation is employed to describe local oil velocity and is defined as
 u d m m m
Re= , in which u    (eq. 1)
   n  A   N  A   N   D  d
v
nb nb
wherein
ρ : oil density(kg/ m3), nb : number of blocks
u : oil velocity at duct inlet(m/s), dv : duct interval between windings
d : hydraulic diameter (m), D : winding inner diameter (m)
μ : oil viscocity (kg/m·s), A : duct inlet area (m2)
m : mass flow rate (kg/s),
 N : number of conductors
n : number of ducts,

Eq. (1) can be expressed with a function of mass flow rate as :

m d e nb m (d h  d v ) n
Re     b (eq. 2)
Ag  N   d h (d h  D ) N

wherein Ag is duct inlet area (m). Pressure loss is produced by zig-zag oil flow and it can be obtianed
thought the following equation :

3
 1 2
P  f u (eq. 3)
2
wherein f is friction loss, and is equal to :

Pd e 2P(d h  d v )  2 (d h ) 2 (d h  D) 2
f   (eq. 4)
0.5u 2 Le m 2W (nb b)
2  dh  2  dv
in which d e   d h  d v (Effective width of duct),
2
Le  W  nb (Effective length of duct)
Thus, friction factor correlation is taken from function of Re with oil velocity, as follows :

f  f c (Re) (eq. 5)

Gradient which means temperature difference between average temperature of winding and that of oil
can be calculated using a Nusselt number(Nu) through the following equations :
ht d e
Nu  (eq. 6)
k
q '' q '' d e
Tmean   (eq. 7)
ht Nu  k
And Nu can be presented a function of Re and Ra as follows :

Nu  f c (Re) for Forced Convection

Nu  f c (Ra) for Natural Convection (eq. 8)

Where, Ra is Rayleigh number[5].

2.2 Pressure drop correlation

After the analytical conditions, such as duct geometry, number of blocks and oil flow rate, are set up,
the pressure drop in the zig-zag winding stack is dependent on duct width within windings, number of
winding conductors and baffles. From the fluid analysis results, to predict the pressure drop according
to the oil flow rate in the zig-zag winding duct under forced cooling condition, the friction trends with
various Re as Figure 3 and draw the correlations are obtained as follows :

132.54 / Re  2.25
f  , for dv=4mm (eq. 9)
N 0.7
Thus, the pressure drop can be expressed as :

f  m 2 W (nb )
P  (eq. 10)
2(d h  d v )  2 (d h ) 2 (d h  D) 2

2.3 Heat transfer correlation

The thermal analysis is conducted to calculate the disk winding and oil temperature, temperature of
winding at steady state, as affected by heat generation rate in the conductors, oil flow rate across the
winding ducts, number of baffles and various zig-zag duct geometries. From the results, the heat
transfer correlations can be drawn as to effective cooling design. Figure 4 shows that the modified Nu
increases with Re and it can be explained that increasing oil flow rate causes the increase of heat

4
transfer coefficient.

50

100 dv=6, data

dv=4
dv=5
40 dv=5
dv=4 dv=6
dv=6, fitting
dv=5
30

Error (%)
dv=4
f*N0.7

10
20

10

1 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Re Re

FIGURE 3 Correlations between Reynolds number and friction loss under forced convection condition
50
3.0

Equation: y=P1*x^P2
2.5 40
P1 0.18197
Nu*(dv/dh)*(nb/N)0.5

P2 0.7173
2.0
30
Error (%)

1.5

20
1.0

Analysis data
0.5
Fitted equation 10

0.0
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50
Re Re

FIGURE 4 Correlations between Reynolds number and modified Nusselt number under forced
convection condition

In this study, the functional form given in (eq. 8) is adopted to describe the heat transfer correlation for
the winding with zig-zag cooling duct under forced cooling condition, as follows :

0 .5
n 
Nu  b   N 0.4  1.87 Re 0.72 (eq. 11)
N

And we can calculate the gradient (average temperature difference between winding and oil) of the
transfer using a (eq. 7).

In case of natural circulation of oil (ON), oil flow is produced by buoyancy according to heat
generation of the winding. It is closely related the heat generation, but also the horizontal duct size and
number of baffles are very important parameters for natural cooling from the CFD analysis results. Oil
flow rate can be calculated by considering the geometric parameters of the zig-zag duct as follows :

Re  Ag   N Re    d h (d h  D) N
m     (eq. 12)
de nb (d h  d v ) nb

5
Figure 5 shows the heat transfer trend as correlations between modified and Nusselt number with
various vertical cooling ducts under natural cooling condition. The natural heat transfer correlation is
equal to :

0.3 0.37
n 
0.5
d    n 1.5 
Nu b    v   0.018 Ra b   (eq. 13)
N  dh   N 
 
2.0 25

1.8
dh=7 Data: Nutotal_Nu
Nu*(nb/N)0.5*(dv/dh)0.3

1.6 dh=6 Equation: y=P1*x^P2 20

P1 0.01798
dh=5 P2 0.37274
1.4 dh=4
1.2 fitting
15

Error (%)
1.0

0.8 10

0.6

0.4 5

0.2

0.0 0
1000 10000 100000 1000 10000 100000
1.5 1.5
Ra*(nb/N) Ra*(nb/N)

FIGURE 5 Correlations between modified Rayleigh and Nusselt number with various vertical cooling
ducts under natural cooling condition

3. EXPERIMENT

For the verification of the proposed correlations which were from the analyses results, series of
experiments for the zig-zag winding parts with the same variables as numerical analyses have been
carried out. It is conducted to investigate the disk winding temperature with oil flow and temperature
distribution in the windings at steady state, as affected by heat generation rate in the conductors, oil
flow rate across the winding ducts and various winding duct geometries. The experimental results are
employed to reduce the uncertainty associated with the heat transfer coefficient, and to confirm the
proposed correlations in accuracy and reliability.

3.1 Experimental Set-up

The experiment has been conducted to verify the proposed heat transfer correlations with a test
chamber including winding conductor stack. Figure 6 shows a lay-out of the experimental model for
zig-zag winding. Experimental apparatuses consist of a test chamber, chiller, oil pump, flow meter,
flow control valve, oil reservoir, data logger, thermocouple and a power supply. The heater block
which represents winding conductor stack produces constant heat power in a test chamber. The heater
block is built up with a 3-phase 380V power supply (maximum 30kW) which consists of a parallel
circuit to provide constant heat flux. The winding conductor model was built up with 70 composite
disks, which were separated by rectangular spacers to replicate actual zig-zag shaped winding
construction. The test chamber consists of inner and outer case. The test chamber inner case is
produced to consider for various conditions with a baffle interval and a distance. It is designed with an
acryl frame which maintains constant interval between heater blocks and the vertical cooling duct can
be changed from 3mm to 6mm. Three different chambers were prepared to analyze the thermal
influences of the cooling duct size 2mm, 4mm and 6mm, respectively.

6
 FIGURE 6 Experimental test set-up

In order to insulate form the ambient air and to distribute an internal pressure under OD and ON
cooling conditions, the test chamber outer case is produced with an acryl frame to conduct the
visualizations. The temperature is measured directly using the thermocouple, and the experimental
data is obtained with Hybrid Recorder and Data Acquisition System. The experiment performed for
various conditions to investigate the heat transfer characteristics under OD and ON cooling conditions.

3.2 Data analysis and result

Figure 7 shows the comparison of the heat transfer performance between analysis and experiment
results when the vertical cooling duct size is 4mm and 6mm respectively. The experimental results
quantitatively agree with analysis results, and a verification of the cooling design correlation proposed
at the chapter 2 is conducted based on the experimental results. The heat transfer experiments are
performed under a variation of the flow rate at the following experimental conditions, and compared
with the proposed correlations (eq.11).

Distance between heat blocks (dv) : 4 m, Vertical cooling duct size (dh) : 4 mm, 6mm
Number of heat blocks : 70 , Number of baffles : 6
35
20

30

15
25

10
20

15

10 Analysis
Analysis Experiment
Experiment

0 5
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Reynodls Number Reynodls Number

(a) dh= 4mm (b) dh= 6mm

FIGURE 7 Comparison of the heat transfer performance between analysis and experimental results

The heat transfer experiments are performed at a different distance between heat blocks (horizontal
cooling duct width: dv, vertical cooling duct width: dh), and power density of heat blocks under the ON
cooling condition. The experimental results are compared with the (eq. 12) and (eq. 13) to verify the
proposed correlations same as the OD cooling condition.
Figure 8(a) shows the comparison of the oil mass flow rate between analysis and experiment under
natural convection condition. In this figure, even though the difference is observed at low winding loss
density, the experimental results are in good agreements at high winding loss density. It is because that
the proposed correlation under the ON cooling condition is deduced from the high winding loss

7
density over 50,000 W/m3 mainly designed. Figure 8(b) shows comparison of the gradient,
temperature difference of the winding and the oil, between analysis and experiments under natural
convection model. The geometrical winding construction is dv = 4mm, dh = 6mm, and the number of
baffles is six. At 51,104 W/m3 winding loss density, the error between analysis and experiment is
about 1.5 , and it is predicted that the difference becomes smaller when the loss density becomes
larger. Therefore it is expected that the proposed correlations can predict the temperature within about
10% error bounds.
16 0.7

14
0.6

12
0.5

10
0.4

0.3
6

0.2 Analysis
4 Experiment

Analysis 0.1
2
Experiment

0 0
4 4 4 4 5 5 4 4 4 4 5 5
0 2 10 4 10 6 10 8 10 1 10 1.2 10 0 2 10 4 10 6 10 8 10 1 10 1.2 10

3 3
Winding Loss Density, W/m Winding Loss Density, W/m

(a) (b)
FIGURE 8 Comparisons between analysis and experiment under natural cooling condition

4. CONCLUSION

The numerical and experimental study have been conducted to develop the heat transfer correlation for
the concept cooling design of the zig-zag shaped winding in both OD (Oil-Direct) and ON (Oil-
Natural) transformers. As results, it is found that the important cooling factors are the number of
baffles for the OD and the vertical and horizontal duct size for the ON. The pressure drop and heat
transfer correlations as a function of non-dimensional numbers such as friction factor, Re, Nu and Ra
for the OD and the ON transformers with zig-zag winding from the CFD analysis results are obtained.

The experiments were done with the same variables as the numerical analyses conditions. From the
comparisons between numerical and experimental results, it is concluded that the obtained correlations
can predict temperature rise of the zig-zag winding and oil, and pressure drop properly within about
10% error bounds. The developed correlations will be useful for the design with thermal performance
prediction of the winding with zig-zag cooling duct for a power transformer.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

[1] IEC-354, Loading Guide for Oil Immersed Transformers, IEC Standard, Publication 354,
second ed., 1991.
[2] E. Rahimpour, M. Barati and M. Schafer “An investigation of parameters affecting the
temperature rise in windings with zigzag cooling flow path” (Applied Thermal Engineering,
2007, Vol.27, pages 1923-1930).
[3] Jiahui Zhang, Zianguo Li and Michael Vanve “Experiments and modeling of heat transfer in oil
transformer winding with zigzag cooling ducts” (Applied Thermal Engineering, 2008, Vol.28,
pages 36-48).
[4] Fluent User’s Guide (ANSYS Inc., 2006).
[5] J. P. Holman, “Heat transfer” (McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1986).
[6] W. M. Kays and M. E. Crawford , “Convective Heat and Mass Transfer” (McGraw-Hill, Inc.,
1995).