Protection relay with active monitoring and intelligent power transformer monitoring and diagnosis system

• Grant number: 18/22260-8
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Innovative Research in Small Business - PIPE
• Duration: July 01, 2020 - March 31, 2021
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Electrical Engineering - Industrial Electronics, Electronic Systems and Controls
• Principal Investigator: José Mak
• Grantee: José Mak
• Host Company: J&F Engenharia, Comércio e Serviços Eletromecânicos Ltda. - ME
• CNAE: Manutenção e reparação de equipamentos e produtos não especificados anteriormente
• City: Campinas
• Associated scholarship(s): 20/12849-4 - Protection relay with active monitoring and intelligent power transformer monitoring and diagnosis system, BP.PIPE

Abstract

Power transformer failures have a high impact on power supply, result in high replacement cost, and affect quality indices. To assist in the prevention of catastrophic failures it is of great importance to monitor the operational state of the transformers by both measuring the volume of combustible gases present in the internal atmosphere and the oil level. Currently, "Buchholz" gas relays for the monitoring of imported oil released gases are available, but they are expensive and are not sensitive to small volumes of gases, which, despite the low concentration, are sufficient for failure catastrophic by explosion. On the other hand, the oil level measurement technology requires a technological update capable of increasing its sensitivity and avoiding a high index of undue signals due to the expansion of the oil due to the influence of temperature. These issues are expected to be addressed through the development of an innovative, intelligent system capable of analyzing reduced volumes of gas present and accurately measuring the volume of oil, providing readings to users through market-based protocols, in order to prevent transformers from reaching critical and high-risk operating conditions. Economic gains are expected with cost reduction for acquisition of monitoring devices; product royalties; improvement of productivity, reducing man / hour, time and frequency of the gas collection activities directly in the "Buchholz" relay and especially of transformer shutdown time, management of the transformer as active. From the scientific point of view, the research is state-of-the-art regarding the acquisition of data for the measurement of dissolved gases using an intelligent algorithm to correlate transformer failure with the evolution of these gases by indirect measures such as temperature, pressure and volume of the oil. Also, regarding the socio-environmental issue, we highlight the mitigation of risks of catastrophic accidents in power transformers involving employees and equipment and the mitigation of interruption of electricity supply. It is expected in the socioeconomic field, the generation of new specialized jobs with the implementation of new production lines, based on the use of embedded technology, which does not exist in the country. With regard to technological advances, it is expected to improve the company's laboratory infrastructure, including the adoption of intellectual property, with the possibility of filing a utility model patent and registering the software at INPI. This solution is still non-existent in the market due to the methodology of construction of the proposed system, using an integration interface for data acquisition of gas dissolution, volume and temperature, which allows to form a proprietary hardware and software platform in the control and predictive performance monitoring of power transformers. The development of the project guarantees the elaboration of a model that simulates the real operating conditions of trafos with integrated digital technology, to which will be developed software for online monitoring. Finally, the project aims to analyze the measured quantities and relate them to the risks of failure, to develop the diagnosis of predictive performance, making it available for operation and maintenance. (AU)