An experimental study of winding vibration of a single-phase power transformer using a laser Doppler vibrometer

Transformer tank vibration has been used for the condition monitoring and fault diagnosis of power transformers, as well as for the evaluation of radiated sound power from such power transformers. In both applications, seeking a correlation between transformer tank vibration and the vibration of the transformer windings and core becomes a challenge for fault identification and noise control at the sources of vibration and noise. The purpose of this paper is to experimentally investigate the winding vibration of an electrically live power transformer and characterize the changes in the spatial and frequency features of the vibration as various mechanical faults are introduced to the transformer winding. To avoid the effects of transducer loading and electromagnetic fields on the measurement results, a laser Doppler vibrometer was used to make non-contact measurements of the winding vibration. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.