Retrofilling of Railroad Transformers

Details

• Creators:
  Foss, Stephen ; Higgins, John ; Johnston, Donald ; McQuade, James
• Corporate Creators:
  General Electric Company
• Corporate Contributors:
  United States. Federal Railroad Administration ; John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (U.S.)
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Coolants
  • Electric locomotives
  • Testing
  • Toxicity
  • Transformers
• Publication/ Report Number:
  DOT-TSC-FRA-78-17 ; FRA/ORD-78/51
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Corporate Publisher:
  United States. Federal Railroad Administration
• NTL Classification:
  NTL-RAIL TRANSPORTATION-RAIL TRANSPORTATION ; NTL-RAIL TRANSPORTATION-Rail Safety ; NTL-SAFETY AND SECURITY-Rail Safety ; NTL-SAFETY AND SECURITY-SAFETY AND SECURITY
• Description:
  The objective of this program was to assess the effectiveness of retrofilling an askarel transformer supplied by the United States Department of Transportation with a 50 centistokes silicone fluid. The work tasks included an assessment of the electrical and thermal characteristics of the transformer bedofr and after retrofilling as well as an indepth evaluation of the retrofill concept.
  
  As a result of this work it has been shown that:
  
  1) The retrofilled transformer did not show any ill effects from the limited electrical testing.
  
  2) Thermal tests revealed that the retrofilled unit ran 9.7°C hotter.
  
  3)All but 107 libs. of the original 2113 lbs. of askarel were removed from the transformer after 288 hours of flushing with 90°C silicone.
  
  4) To reach the program objective of 58 lbs. of retained askarel and additional 3 monts of flushing would have been required.
  
  5) The mathematical model developed by General Electric in earlier studies as a predictive tool for estimating times to reach predetermined levels of PCB has been validated as a result of this study.
• Format:
  PDF
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/11214/dot_11214_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 2.67 MB]
• Collection(s):
  Volpe Center
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:7f08da1fa496b002d52e178cce7c338fc1267d2ca25aab03f649bfc365090e47