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Owing to the corrosive sulphides in the mineral insulating oil such as dibenzyl disulphide (DBDS), copper windings in oil‐immersed transformers may suffer sulphur corrosion. This study investigates the influence of different contact conditions on the corrosion of copper conductors in transformers. Oil‐immersed accelerated corrosion experiment was conducted on copper conductors with various contact materials and different layers of insulating paper. The surface micromorphology, deposition component and the potentiodynamic polarization characteristics of copper conductors were explored. The results show that copper with different contact materials suffer sulphur corrosion; conversely, bare copper rarely does. It was also verified that the existence of a particular gap between copper and contact layer is a significant factor in sulphur corrosion by the formation of a concentration cell on the copper surface. The insulating paper wrapped around copper conductors does not increase the corrosion tendency of copper; however, it contributes to the formation of a region concentrated with DBDS, Cu2+, H+ by adsorption and impediment, which plays a key role in facilitating the sulphur corrosion of copper conductors. Moreover, sulphur corrosion can also occur on other metal parts in transformers when there is a particular gap on surfaces other than copper.

Hypothesis Due to the complex hydrodynamics of droplet impact on ridged superhydrophobic surfaces, quantitative droplet spreading characteristics are unrevealed, limiting the practical applications of ridged superhydrophobic surfaces. During droplet impacting, the size ratio (the ratio of the ridge diameter to the droplet diameter) is an important factor that affects droplet spreading dynamics. Experiments We fabricated ridged superhydrophobic surfaces with size ratios ranging from zero to one, and conduct water droplet impact experiments on these surfaces at varied Weber numbers. Aided by the numerical simulations and theoretical analysis, we illustrate the droplet spreading dynamics and reveal the law on the maximum axial spreading coefficient. Finds The results show that the droplet spreading and retraction dynamics on ridged superhydrophobic surfaces are significantly asymmetric in the axial and spanwise directions. Focusing on the maximum axial spreading coefficient, we find it decreases first and then increases with increasing size ratios, indicating the existence of the critical size ratio. The maximum axial spreading coefficient can be reduced by 25-40% at the critical size ratio compared with that on flat surfaces. To predict the maximum axial spreading coefficient, two theoretical models are proposed respectively for size ratios smaller and larger than the critical size ratio.

Sulfur corrosion has been proven to significantly decrease the insulation performance of oil-immersed transformer and the addition of benzotriazole passivator (BTA) to insulating oil has been widely used to control the sulfur corrosion. However, the relevant studies indicate that the addition of metal passivator to oil can cause abnormal generation of dissolved gases in oil. Thus, this study further explores the effects of metal passivator degradation on the dissolved gas characteristics of oil in oil-immersed transformers. Several accelerated aging experiments on oil-paper insulations with and without BTA are conducted. The results indicate that the addition of BTA lead to the generation of abnormal dissolved gases in the oil along with an increase of stray gases, especially the increase of H 2 , CO and CO 2 . Moreover, an abnormal production of the total hydrocarbon fraction is found, which may interfere with the DGA results. Finally, the degradation of BTA related to abnormal production of stray gases in the insulating oil was preliminarily analyzed and discussed.

This study extensively investigated the ageing characteristics and lifetime model of oil–paper insulation for oil‐immersed paper condenser bushing. The accelerated thermal and electrothermal ageing experiments of oil‐immersed paper condenser bushing were conducted respectively. The properties of oil–paper insulation during the ageing process were investigated. Results showed that descending speed of degree of polymerization of the innermost and the outermost layer paper was higher than that of middle layer paper, the difference in water content on different paper layers caused varying deterioration speeds. The aluminium foil contributed to a surge in aluminium dissolution in oil, further accelerating the ageing of insulation. Based on the obtained degree of polymerization data under thermal ageing at 90°C, 100°C and 130°C, the lifetime model of oil–paper insulation for condenser bushing model was established. In addition, the surface breakdown of the scale model of bushing occurred after 133 days ageing, the properties of bushing decreased gradually during the ageing process and sharply after the breakdown. Degree of polymerization deviation of different paper layers in bushing between calculated value according to the above lifetime model and actual value of bushing after the breakdown was less than 6%, further verifying the validity of lifetime model.

The life of transformer oil-paper insulation is determined by the insulation property of transformer cellulosic insulation. Existing studies have shown that sulfur corrosion poses a serious threat to the properties of transformer oil-immersed cellulosic insulation due to the reaction of corrosive sulfur dissolved in oil with copper winding. This paper investigated the effect of sulfur corrosion on the characteristics of transformer cellulosic insulation, cellulosic insulation winding samples with different degrees of sulfur corrosion were obtained through an accelerated thermal aging experiment. Then, short-/long-term withstand voltage tests for the cellulosic insulation winding were conducted. Experimental results showed that the contamination of sulfur corrosion had a minimal effect on the power–frequency breakdown voltage of the cellulosic insulation winding but considerably decreased its long-term electrical life. Combined with the analysis of the electrical/physical and chemical parameters of oil-immersed cellulosic insulation, the failure mechanism of transformer oil-immersed cellulosic insulation induced by sulfur corrosion was synthetically discussed and analyzed.

The essential characteristic of the self-propelled jumping droplet is the jumping velocity, which determines its application value in heat transfer enhancement, antifrosting, self-cleaning, and so on. The jumping velocity is directly related to the energy conversion efficiency (i.e., the ratio of jumping kinetic energy surface energy released by coalescence to surface energy released by coalescence) and it is affected by the initial state of droplets but there is no unified theory to describe the relationship between the initial state of droplets and the energy conversion efficiency. In this paper, the projection of the initial chemical potential and the final chemical potential difference of droplets in the direction of jumping is defined as jumping potential by theoretical analysis of the chemical potential evolution. The effects of droplet number, distribution, and radius ratio on energy conversion efficiency can be synthetically characterized by jumping potential. The larger the jumping potential is, the higher the energy conversion efficiency is. Finally, the rationality and universality of the jumping potential are verified by numerical simulations and comparison with previous studies. The jumping potential can explain phenomena that cannot be explained in previous studies and can provide a synthesis critical value of droplet jumping.

As a corrosive sulfur, dibenzyl disulfide (DBDS) is an efficient antioxidant in oil-immersed insulation. This study explored the reaction mechanism of corrosive sulfur with copper through heating experiments stipulated by IEC 62535. Thermal aging experiments were further conducted at 130 °C under nitrogen to investigate the comprehensive effect of the oxidation resistance and corrosivity of DBDS on the properties of oil-paper insulation. Experimental results showed that DBDS can decompose into corrosive benzyl mercaptan at a high temperature. Dibenzyl sulfide cannot corrode copper to form copper sulfide at 150 °C. Furthermore, the oxidation resistance and corrosivity of DBDS depend on the dynamic change in DBDS concentrations. This study suggests that 25 mg/kg should be used as the maximum additive content of DBDS in oil. With this additive content, the oxidation resistance of oil can be improved, and the corrosion damage of insulation winding can be controlled to a certain extent.

This paper investigated the influence of paper-wrapped on the deposition of sulfur corrosion on the insulation winding (paper-wrapped copper conductor) in oil-immersed insulation containing dibenzyl disulfide (DBDS). The distribution of sulfur corrosion deposit on a 500-kV electric reactor was investigated and analyzed, and the properties of oil were analyzed. Aging experiments were also conducted for oil-paper insulation with 500-mg/kg DBDS under IEC 62535 corrosion test condition. The corrosion degree of insulation winding was evaluated, and the properties of oil were also discussed. Results showed that the enwinding pattern of the insulating paper on the copper conductor affected the deposition distribution of copper sulfide to be an alternate appearance of a non-corroded crevice and a strip-shaped corrosion deposit on the copper conductor according to the results of field and laboratory. Furthermore, for the insulation winding, the increased number of paper layers on the copper conductor led to the aggravation of sulfur corrosion, prevented the diffusion of copper ions in the oil, and accelerated the formation of acids, which co-affected the properties of the oil. The enwinding of insulating paper on the copper conductor led to the appearance of a tiny crevice on the insulation winding, which is an important occurrence precondition of crevice corrosion. Finally, the mechanism underlying crevice corrosion for insulation winding was theorized as electrochemical corrosion leading to copper sulfide formation.

Sulfur corrosion induced by active sulfur has been proved to significantly decrease the insulation performance of oil-immersed equipment. In order to protect the oil-paper insulation from sulfur corrosion, active sulfur is cleared in the refining process of crude oil. Some inactive sulfur with high-efficiency antioxidant is still retained in the mineral oil to improve the oxidation stability of oil, such as thiophenic compounds. However, the corrosive effect of inactive sulfur on the oil-paper insulation has not yet clear. Therefore, thiophene that is the largest content of sulfide in the insulating oil was selected as the research object, a series of accelerated thermal ageing experiments of oil-paper without and with thiophene under the different high temperature were conducted, scanning electron microscope equipped with an energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometer (SEM/EDX) and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) were used to characterize the corrosion degree of oil-paper insulation. The results show that no corrosive deposit was observed on the surface of oilpaper insulation without thiophene even at very high temperature, while a few corrosive deposit was accumulated on the surface of oil-paper insulation with 500 mg/kg thiophene. The corrosion degree of oil-paper insulation with thiophene had an uptrend as the increase of temperature (130°C-180°C), preliminarily indicating that thiophene may be activated in the oil-paper system under the action of overheating fault of oil-immersed transformer and posed a corrosion threat to oil-paper insulation.

Insulation failures of oil-immersed power transformer induced by sulfur corrosion can be controlled by adding the metal passivator into insulating oil. However, it has been reported that the addition of benzotriazole and its derivative passivators into insulating oil would cause abnormal generation of dissolved gases in the oil during the operation of oil-immersed transformer. Therefore, this paper investigated on the effect of passivator on the characteristics of dissolved gas in the oil under the action of thermal field. Benzotriazole (BTA) that widely used in the oil-immersed transformer was selected as the research object, the thermogravimetric analysis of BTA was conducted, and a series of accelerate thermal ageing experiments of oil-paper insulation with and without BTA were also conducted, the composition and content of dissolved gases in oil were measured and analyzed. The results show that BTA was pyrolyzed continuously as the temperature increase. The addition of BTA in oil accelerated the contents of H2, CO and CO2 and decelerated the content of hydrocarbon gases, which lead to abnormal generation of dissolved gases in oil. All of these may interfere the operation condition evaluation of oil-immersed transformer based on DGA technology.

The accelerated thermal aging test is an effective method to simulate insulation material degradation in oil-immersed transformers. Traditionally, cellulose paper and mineral oil are heated up together at the same temperature when a thermal aging test is conducted. However, variation occurs between laboratory results and field conditions. Temperature gradients exist in real transformers, and each part of the winding is aged under various conditions. In order to rebuild temperature gradients and conduct a thermal aging test under this condition. First, 3D models with designed U-shape wingding which can guarantee different parts aged simultaneously under different temperatures are calculated for temperature field analysis. Then a thermal aging platform with a large current generator is proposed to construct temperature gradients in a thermal aging test. The large current generator helps to heat up the copper winding. Temperature sensors are installed in the aging tank to monitoring winding and oil temperature and control temperature. The aging temperature is selected according to the standard IEC 60076-7 for the over-load condition. The degree of polymerisation of the insulation paper is measured and properties of each layer of the insulation paper are analysed. Other aging products under both traditional test and method in this study are compared.

The failures of high-voltage transformers and reactors can result from the deposition of copper sulfide on the oil-impregnated paper insulation. This study explored the influence of electric fields on copper sulfide deposition and the properties of insulating oils as a result of the reaction of dibenzyl disulfide (DBDS) with copper in oil-immersed transformers. Accelerated aging experiments were conducted for pig-tail windings under two sets of conditions, namely, thermal aging only at 140 °C and AC/DC electrical and thermal aging at 5 kV/140 °C under low oxygen condition. This was combined with oil containing dibenzyl disulfide (DBDS) added to the non-corrosive oil to a concentration of 200 mg/kg. The corrosive sulfur deposits were examined by observing the surface morphology of the windings and measuring the copper and sulfur contents on the windings via inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry and a precipitation method. The properties of the insulating oils were measured and analyzed at intervals. The results indicate that electric fields increased the amount of deposited copper sulfide on the windings. The higher the electric field strength, the higher the amount of deposited copper sulfide on the insulating paper surface. Subjecting the oil-paper insulation to electric field and elevated temperature generates dissolved copper in the insulating oil. The electric field can promote the dissolution of copper in oil. The ageing oil under thermal and electrical stresses promote copper dissolution and increase corrosion rate.

Numerous failures of high-voltage transformers and reactors are caused by copper sulfide formation in oil-immersed insulations. This study explored the effect of electrical fields on copper sulfide formation. Accelerated aging experiments were conducted for mineral oil that contains dibenzyl disulfide, which was aged along with insulation windings under different conditions, including single thermal aging and electrical–thermal aging. The corrosive sulfur deposits were quantified using SEM/EDX and ICP-AES. The properties of the insulation oils were also measured and analyzed. Corrosion mechanisms for electrical fields leading to the acceleration of copper sulfide deposition on the oil-immersed insulation were proposed.

Coalescence-induced droplet jumping on superhydrophobic surfaces has good application potential in the fields of heat transfer enhancement, self-cleaning, water collection, and microfluidics. However, the direction of droplets jumping on the plane is uncontrollable and the energy conversion rate is low, which limits the application of droplets jumping. In this work, we report a flexible approach to efficiently regulate the direction and velocity of droplet jumping on superhydrophobic surfaces using superhydrophobic string. By changing the inclination angle of the string, the jumping direction of the coalescent droplet shows a maximum deviation of 68.1° from the surface normal. The maximum energy conversion rate is 32.1%, which is about 5.4 times higher than that of jumping on the plane. We analyzed the mechanism of the efficient regulation and found that the string affected the hydrodynamic characteristics of the jumping process, thus changing the jumping direction and the speed of the coalescent droplet.

This paper investigated the influence of 2, 6-di-tert-butyl-p-cresol (DBPC) on the long-term ageing characteristics of oil–paper insulation and the deposition and migration of copper sulphide induced by the reaction of copper and dibenzyl disulphide (DBDS) in oil-immersed transformers. A thermal ageing experiment at 130°C were designed and conducted by adding different concentrations of DBPC to the naphthenic mineral oil and after the experiments a set of characteristic parameters were tested. The result indicates that the excessive concentration (≥0.6%) of DBPC will slightly increase the ageing of insulating oil and increase the carboxyl group in the mineral oil, affecting the reaction of DBDS and copper, and the insulating paper wrapped on the copper strip was also aged seriously accordingly. Meanwhile, the deposition of copper sulphide on the insulating paper is found to be slightly increased with the increase of the concentration of DBPC. When insulating oil contains DBPC and DBDS, due to migration of DBDS–Cu and DBPC–Cu in oil, the copper ions in the oil would be fluctuating at a certain period of time. Although the addition of a small concentration of DBPC can improve the antioxygenic property of the insulting oil to some extent, the transformers that contain excessive concentration of DBPC may be more harmful than beneficial.

This study investigated the inhibitory effects of adsorption treatment on the degradation of oil–paper insulation and corrosive sulphur in oil. A thermal ageing experiment at 130°C was conducted using five different adsorbents to adsorb some impurities in oil on the 15th day of a 30 day ageing test, the related characteristics of oil–paper insulation before and after the adsorption treatment were measured and analysed. Meanwhile, a thermal ageing experiment at 150°C was also conducted before using five different adsorbents to adsorb dibenzyl disulphide (DBDS) in oil, energy dispersive X-ray was used to evaluate the degree of the corrosion of windings. The result indicates that adsorption treatment is an effective method to inhibit the degradation of oil–paper insulation. A molecular sieve, silica gel and activated alumina can effectively improve the performance of oil–paper insulation. By contrast, the antioxidant (2, 6-di-tert-butyl-p-cresol) can be also adsorbed by adsorbents, which accelerate the ageing degradation of the insulating oil. On the other hand, the adsorbents can adsorb DBDS in oil, but cannot remove all DBDS. The effect achieved from silica gel is especially significant, which not only effectively improves the performance of oil–paper insulation but also adsorbs DBDS in oil.

As, a kind of sulfur antioxidant, dibenzyl disulfide (DBDS) generally exist in the mineral insulating oil, which can improve the oxidation stability of oil. However, DBDS can also lead to corrosion problems of transformer oil. To investigate the effect of the corrosive action and the antioxidant action of DBDS on the oil-paper insulation, oil samples with different DBDS concentration (0–200mg/kg) were made and conducted to perform thermal aging experiments together with insulation windings at 130Ό under the condition of nitrogen. After the aging experiment, the copper strip and insulating paper surface were observed, the properties of insulating oil were also measured and analyzed. Experimental results showed that when the insulating oil contained less than 25mg/kg DBDS, the antioxidant effect of DBDS would be dominant, the oxidation stability of insulating oil was improved, the performance of oil was better than that of excluding DBDS samples. When the insulating oil contained more than 25mg/kg DBDS, the corrosive effect of DBDS will be greater than its antioxidant effect, copper ions and acid will be accelerated, it will lead to more serious of aging oil.

Water icing is a natural phase change phenomenon which happens frequently in nature and industry and has negative effects on a variety of applications. Deicing is essential for iced surfaces, but even for a nanoengineered superhydrophobic surface, deicing may be incomplete with many adherent unmelted ice droplets which have potential for reicing. Here, we focused on the reicing characteristics of droplets on a solid superhydrophobic surface, which has lacked attention in previous studies. Our results show that the nucleation and ice crystal growth characteristics of a reicing droplet are quite different from those of a first-time icing droplet. During reicing, secondary nucleation due to fluid shear always occurs first on the edges of unmelted ice, accompanied by fast-growing ice crystals that can trigger heterogeneous nucleation when in contact with the solid surface. The reicing takes place under very small supercooling (less than 0.5 °C), and the superhydrophobic surface does not play a key role, meaning that any current icephobic surfaces lose their features, which poses great challenges for anti-icing. In addition, because of the small supercooling, no recalescence phenomenon appears during reicing and the droplet remains transparent instead of clouding. Owing to the unmelted ice floating on the top of the droplet, the droplet shape after reicing is also distinguishing from that after normal icing, but the pointy tip formation during reicing and normal icing shows a uniformity. These results shall deepen the understanding of the anti-icing and deicing physics.

The coalescence-induced droplet jumping on superhydrophobic surfaces has attracted considerable attention over the past several years. Most of the studies on droplet jumping mainly focus the droplet jumping on almost flat surfaces or ignore the effect of the microstructure. However, the microstructure often exists on superhydrophobic surfaces, and this effect remains little noticed and poorly understood. In this work, a simulation is carried out to investigate the effect of microstructure on droplet jumping. The microstructure with a similar scale to the jumping droplet on superhydrophobic will affect the jumping direction. The microstructure will improve the jumping velocity and change the jumping direction of the droplet. This work will provide effective guidelines for the design of functional SHSs with controlled and enhanced droplet jumping for a wide range of industrial applications.

Droplets on the superhydrophobic surface can fall off the surface spontaneously, which greatly promote dropwise condensation. This study considers a continuous droplet condensation process including droplet growth and droplet jumping. A droplet growth model considered NCG is developed and droplet jumping is simulated using VOF (Volume Of Fluid) model. Al–based superhydrophobic surfaces are prepared using chemical deposition and etching method. The Al-based superhydrophobic surface has a contact angle of 157°±1° and a rolling angle of 2°±1°. An observation experiment is designed to observe droplet jumping on superhydrophobic surface using a high– speed camera system. The result of droplet growth model shows a good match with experimental data in mid-term of droplet growth. Fordroplet jumping, simulation and experiment results show that droplet jumping of different diameter hasa universality in a non–dimensional form. The jumping process can be divided into 3 stages and droplet vibration is observed.

Many failures of high-voltage transformers and reactors occurred because of copper sulfide formation and deposition, this study aims to explore the influence of the insulating paper and atmosphere on the deposition of copper sulfide on the insulating windings as a result of the reaction of dibenzyl disulfide (DBDS) with copper in oil-immersed insulation. The accelerated thermal aging experiments under atmosphere (Nitrogen and air) conditions at 130°C were conducted by adding 1000mg/L dibenzyl disulfide (DBDS) and the insulation windings which half of copper strip were wrapped insulating paper to the mineral insulation oil. The deposition of copper sulfide were studied by observing the surface morphology of windings and analyzing the surface components of the windings by EDX. The results indicate that copper sulfide is prone to deposition on the copper strip surface which is wrapped by the insulating paper. Few copper sulfide is deposited on the bare copper strip under nitrogen, but copper sulfide is deposited on the copper strip under air. Meanwhile, the sediments of copper sulfide deposition on the copper strip under air are much higher than that under nitrogen, and more sediments of copper sulfide are deposited on the insulating paper under air than on the insulating paper under nitrogen. Moreover, the effect of wrapped paper and atmosphere on the mechanism of copper sulfide deposition will be discussed.