Breakdown strength of transformer oil filled with carbon nanotubes under various gap distances

A new class of colloidal insulating transformer oil is formulated by dispersing CNT nanomaterials with mineral oil in purpose to enhance the breakdown strength performance of existing transformer oil. This paper represents the experimental studied dealing with the influence of CNT nanomaterials mix with transformer mineral oil in term of AC breakdown voltage at various gap distances. The concentrations of CNT nanomaterials were measured in range 0.01g/L to 0.2g/L. The impact of three gap distances (1.5mm, 2.5mm and 3.5mm) for mushroom-mushroom electrode configuration is studied in order to observe and compare the trend between conventional mineral oil and CNT nanofluids. To employ CNTs as effective reinforcement in mineral oil, proper dispersion methods need to be applied. Based on the investigations, it revealed that the breakdown voltages for CNT nanofluids gain better performance compare to reference mineral oil. However, as concentrations increased, the breakdown voltages tend to decreased. Looking into 1% probability of breakdown failure which were modelled by using Weibull distribution, it was figure out that CNT nanofluids have huge potential to enhance the performances of breakdown strength for transformer application.