POWER TRANSFORMERS CORE IMPROVEMENT BASIC AND TUTORIALS

POWER TRANSFORMERS CORE IMPROVEMENT BASIC INFORMATION
What Are The Transformer Core Improvements?


The major improvement in core materials was the introduction of silicon steel in 1932. Over the years, the performance of electrical steels has been improved by grain orientation (1933) and continued improvement in the steel chemistry and insulating properties of surface coatings.

The thinner and more effective the insulating coatings are, the more efficient a particular core material will be. The thinner the laminations of electrical steel, the lower the losses in the core due to circulating currents. Mass production of distribution transformers has made it feasible to replace stacked cores with wound cores.

C-cores were first used in distribution transformers around 1940. A C-core is made from a continuous strip of steel, wrapped and formed into a rectangular shape, then annealed and bonded together.

The core is then sawn in half to form two C-shaped sections that are machine-faced and reassembled around the coil.

In the mid 1950s, various manufacturers developed wound cores that were die-formed into a rectangular shape and then annealed to relieve their mechanical stresses. The cores of most distribution transformers made today are made with wound cores.

Typically, the individual layers are cut, with each turn slightly lapping over itself. This allows the core to be disassembled and put back together around the coil structures while allowing a minimum of energy loss in the completed core.

Electrical steel manufacturers now produce stock for wound cores that is from 0.35 to 0.18 mm thick in various grades.

In the early 1980s, rapid increases in the cost of energy prompted the introduction of amorphous core steel. Amorphous metal is cooled down from the liquid state so rapidly that there is no time to organize into a crystalline structure.

Thus it forms the metal equivalent of glass and is often referred to as metal glass or “met-glass.” Amorphous core steel is usually 0.025 mm thick and offers another choice in the marketplace for transformer users that have very high energy costs.