The July/August Issue of the Electrical Insulation Magazine has been released. Use the accordion headings below to explore this issue’s content, and visit the IEEE Xplore for full magazine access.
For a list of upcoming conferences, please visit the conference page or check out the events calendar.
Featured Articles
Featured Articles
A Day in the Life of an Oil Laboratory
Overhead Lines and Wildfires: Role of Outdoor Insulators: Prepared by a Task Force
of the IEEE DEIS Outdoor Insulation Technical Committee
Thermal Index Estimation of Thermally Upgraded Kraft Paper in Mineral Oil and
Natural Ester Insulating Liquids Under Accelerated Aging Conditions
Editorial
Greg Stone, Antonios Tzimas, and Peter Morshuis
Yoshimichi Ohki—The Longest Serving Contributor to IEEE Electrical Insulation Magazine and Still Active!
In January 1988 Prof. Yoshi Ohki wrote his first “News from Japan” column. Since then he has contributed a column to every issue of the magazine over the past 34 years! It is rare for a volunteer to have such a sustained effect on a publication, and both the past editors in chief and the current IEEE DEIS executive want to acknowledge Yoshi’s amazing commitment to the magazine.
Yoshi was encouraged to write the “News from Japan” article by Prof. John Tanaka of the University of Connecticut. John was the person who pushed for the creation of IEEE Electrical Insulation Magazine, when he was in various DEIS executive positions in the 1980s, leading to his presidency in 1986 and 1987. After John was president of the Society, he was asked by one of us to take on the volunteer role of magazine editor-in-chief. John did this with gusto and immediately decided that regular columns should be part of the magazine—one of which was the “News from Japan” column. In the first several years of the column, Prof. Ohki co-wrote this column with Prof. Sachio Yasufuku.
Prof. Ohki’s first column included information from a recent Symposium on Electrical Insulating Materials, which was sponsored by the Institute of Electrical Engineers in Japan (IEEJ). Arend van Roggen (a long-time editor in chief of the IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation), Keith Nelson, and the late Chat Cooke were invited speakers. His first report also discussed two new investigative committees of the IEEJ’s Electrical Insulation Materials: one to investigate the use of expert systems and the other on new insulation measurement methods. He also presented information from a recent seminar for young researchers working in our field. Since this was his first article, a photo of the young Prof. Ohki was in the article (shown below).
Since his first column, he has highlighted Japanese research and new products from Japanese companies, as well as reported on the significant outcomes of dozens of insulation-related conferences held in Japan. The breadth of the topics he has covered is amazing. A random sampling of old magazine issues shows reports on the following:
- The development of 12-kV thyristors (May 1990),
- Operation of the world’s first ±500- kV DC power cables (Jan. 1995),
- Opening of a 500-kV XLPE power cable plant (Sep. 1996),
- Insulating materials in cell phones (Nov. 1999),
- Cable fault location using GPS (Jan. 2001),
- High voltage circuit breakers (Nov. 2007),
- UHV transformer assembly technologies (Mar. 2010),
- 2-MW wind turbines (Jan. 2011), and
- Redox flow battery systems (Nov. 2014).
For most of this time Dr. Ohki was a professor at Waseda University in Tokyo. He is now professor emeritus there and continues to be involved in large projects at Waseda. He is endlessly enthusiastic about insulating materials, aging, and measurement technology. He has published over 475 refereed papers, of which 368 are in English. He is also the author of 7 Japanese textbooks and 2 books in English. Prof. Ohki has been an IEEE Fellow since 2000 and has given many lectures and received many awards from DEIS conferences.
Yoshimichi Ohki around 1987
In volunteer roles he has been, among others, president of the Japanese Electrotechnical Committee for standards, vice president of the IEEJ, senior fellow of the Japanese Science and Technology Agency, and member of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency. He has been a senior editor for the IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation, was chair of the 1991 IEEE DEIS ICPADM in Tokyo, and created the IEEJ and IEEE DEIS co-sponsored International Symposium on Electrical Insulating Materials (ISEIM), first held in Tokyo in 1995.
IEEE Electrical Insulation Magazine has been proud that he has shared his time and leadership abilities with us. We hope that he will keep shedding light on the advances in Japanese research and development for many years to come.
Greg Stone, Antonios Tzimas, and Peter Morshuis, on behalf of the DEIS president and all emeritus editors in chief of IEEE Electrical Insulation Magazine
From The Editor
Antonios Tzimas
Editor in Chief
Antonios.Tzimas@aei.com
In the past few months there has already been a couple of DEIS conferences in Europe and the United States, with the ICDL taking place in Seville, Spain, and combined EIC and IPMHVC taking place in Knoxville, Tennessee. In the following issues of the magazine, conference reporting will be back to find out more about in-person participation and perhaps feedback from online participation with the latest online presence tools. In the next issue, the magazine will be introducing distinguished DEIS members who will share their life experiences with a personal touch and perhaps limited insulation clearances!
This issue is launched with a special editorial that acknowledges Professor Yoshimichi Ohki, the longest serving contributor to IEEE Electrical Insulation Magazine, contributing the column “News from Japan,” which in this issue introduces development of high voltage and high power for inverters in vehicles. There is also another Stories from China column on development and application of a UHV AC gas-insulated metal enclosed transmission line in a recent river-crossing power transmission project. Within the Bulletin Board section, details on the DEIS call for nominations for 2022 can be found for those interested in joining the DEIS Administrative Committee, and there is a call for two new editorial board members, if you would like to join this magazine’s team!
This issue of the magazine starts with an article about oil laboratories that is the first in a series about “a day in the life of a _____ laboratory.” Then, an article by the DEIS Outdoor Insulation Technical Committee discusses the role of outdoor insulators in wildfires. The third article introduces the estimation of the thermal index of thermally upgraded Kraft paper with different insulating liquids.
The first article in this issue, “A Day in the Life of an Oil Laboratory,” is authored by Melissa Carmine-Zajac, from Doble Engineering Company. In this article, the function and requirements an oil laboratory are introduced as the author describes the various oil testing techniques and processes followed. The author elaborates on the entire process from sampling to reporting, including specialized personnel skills required to perform administrative, technical, and management tasks that require advanced analytical equipment and testing techniques, software, and data analysis.
The second article, authored by R. A. Ghunem, A. H. El-Hag, M. Marzinotto, M. T. Nazir, K. L. Wong, and S. H. Jayaram, is titled “Overhead Lines and Wildfires: Role of Outdoor Insulators.” In this article the authors present a state-of-the-art review on outdoor insulators and their vulnerability to wildfire flash-over by understanding the root cause and relevant surface insulation properties. In addition, the wildfire effects on outdoor insulators are explored and relevant risk-mitigation techniques available to utilities are discussed. The authors then focus on the best practices that can be implemented by utilities located in areas with high wildfire risks depending on surface contamination and surrounding environment.
The third article is titled “Thermal Index Estimation of Thermally Upgraded Kraft Paper in Mineral Oil and Natural Ester Insulating Liquids Under Accelerated Aging Conditions,” authored by Ed Casserly, Juan Acosta, and Andy Holden from Ergon Refining Inc. and Brad Greaves and Tom Prevost from Weidmann Electrical Technology Inc. from the United States. The focus of this article is on an experimental comparison of the thermal aging of thermally upgraded Kraft paper under a series of five mineral insulating liquids and two natural esters using IEEE Standard C57.100 Annex A.4.2 compared with the values in IEEE Standard C57.91. The article introduces the results obtained from the two standards and discusses their discrepancies as well as parameters responsible for the discrepancies. The authors introduce the testing procedures followed and the tensile data obtained. The authors then discuss the interpretation of the results and present the thermal index calculations.
News from Japan
Stories from China
Book Reviews