In today’s high-pressure production environment, every engineer is faced with the problem of equipment failure, which always seems to occur at the most inopportune time. Not only is this inconvenient, but costly in terms of lost production time.
Condition based monitoring techniques are already well established for many plant items such as pumps, motors, gearboxes, etc. But what about the units which supply power to your plant, the faithful, but often forgotten, transformer.
The discovery by Ron Rogers and the development of the Rogers Ratio Scheme using DGA (Dissolved Gas Analysis) to identify existing problems and predict impending failures in transformers has given the industry a means of protecting itself against unexpected transformer failures.
Transcheck has been developed specifically to apply to all types and sizes of transformer filled with mineral insulating oil. Using analytical results from a number of small oil samples, a computer program, interprets the results, identifies the type of fault and carries out a statistical analysis of 13 factors; Acetylene, Acidity, Carbon Monoxide, Carbon Dioxide, Dielectric Strength, Ethane, Ethylene, Hydrogen, Methane, Moisture, Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Solids Content.
The advantages to your company are
Protection against expensive in-service failures
Possible reduced insurance charges
Ability to schedule maintenance
Reduce maintenance costs
Oil Changes only when necessary
PCB analysis when required
Advice on transformer condition
The following is a brief summery of the significance of each of the gases
Oxygen/Nitrogen - Present due to air dissolved in the oil, normally through the breather and headspace above the oil. These constitute the majority of gases.
Hydrogen - Largely associated with partial discharges which is an electrical phenomena within the unit.
Hydrocarbon Gases (Methane, ethylene, ethane, acetylene) - associated with thermal problems within the unit and in some cases arching and sparking.
Methane and ethane - largely thermal problem indicators.
Ethylene - can be thermal or arching indicator.
Acetylene - Indicators of high temperature thermal faults and arching.
