LTL Transformers (Pvt) Ltd

Field Visit Report

Name : S.P.M Sudasinghe
Index No. : 100523G
Field : EE
LTL TRANSFORMERS (PVT) LTD










LTL Holdings Ltd., better known in its old name, Lanka Transformers, is one of the very few
examples of a private-public partnership that has gone right in this country. The Ceylon Electricity
Board is the major shareholder of LTL which was established in 1982. The company was set up thirty
years ago to manufacture an annual transformer demand of just 700 for CEB and has now expanded to
supply more than 2000 transformers.
LTL Holdings Ltd., has expanded to power generation sector and initially they owned Lakdhanavi Ltd
and LTL Galvanizers. Mr.U.D Jayawardana became the General Manager/Chief Executive Officer of
the Company in the year 1988 and continues to be so during the past more than twenty years.
LTL transformers is the leading and only one transformer manufacturer in Sri Lanka whose factory is
located at Angulana and Mrs. Rukshika Pathberiya is the factory manager. LTL has technically
collaborated with ABB of Norway and they have improved their production level with highly
international standards to fulfil the entire Sri Lankan requirements while exporting about 50% of its
production. Some major buyers of LTL Transformers are Jordan, Kenya, Uganda, Botswana,
Mauritius, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Australia etc.
As a company they work their entire process with higher responsibility, because they want to fulfil
their customer satisfaction to great extent and also it affects the economy of the country not only due to
their 100% share in the local market but also LTL transformers is one of the very few companies that
government involved which earn profits .

MISSION
Delight the customers by providing Transformers & Switchgear panels on
time with excellent quality.
VISION
A Great Global Company through Technology &
People.
PRODUCTION PROCESS


































Figure 1: Manufacturing Process of a transformer
Low Voltage Winding
Assembling
High Voltage Winding
Assembling
Core Cutting
Assembling &
Clamping
Assemble Active Part
& insert top core
Connect windings and
Provide Tapings
Drying (Oven)
Tanking
Manufacturing the
Tank
Filling oil under
Vacuum
Seal the Tank
Testing
Installation

LTL transformers are produced to the designs of ABB Norway, a global electrical giant, through a
technology transfer agreement. For some orders they are designed by LTL engineers and the main
objectives of their designs are
Improvement of efficiency by reducing on load and no load losses.
Emphasis on lowering costs by economizing the use of materials and planning manufacturing
processes that would optimize labour inputs.
The complying designs are satisfactory with respect to dielectric strength, mechanical
endurance, dynamic and thermal withstand of winding in event of short circuits.
Use of materials economically in order to achieve lower cost, lower weight, and reduce size
and better operation performance.
Specified performance characteristics such as temperature rise, noise level, impedance etc.
Strong mechanical design, final finish and appropriate accessories.
Ability to withstand high impulsive voltage surges.
Overload capacity.
Elimination or reduction of stray losses, hot spots, electrical gradients, etc. by electrical and
magnetic field analysis.
Products are designed according to the requirements of customers and they have the ability to produce
up to 33kV and capacity up to ****
These products are designed to fully meet all the latest national and international standards, including IEC
(International Electrotechnical Commission), BS (British Standards), ANSI (American National Standards
Institute).

Production Process
1. Winding
Copper is normally used for any winding due to its higher conductivity. Some transformer windings
are wound with Aluminium. But due to its low conductivity large conductors are required for windings
and it causes the transformer to be bulky. But Aluminium winding transformers cost is somewhat
lower than Copper winding transformers even though higher losses of Aluminium are taken in to
consideration. But due to the difficulties in installation, maintenance and transportation of Aluminium
winding transformers, they are not much used. Aluminium is only used for windings if the customer
request it.

Copper Aluminium
Higher weight Light weight
Compact transformer Bulky transformer
High cost Low cost

Table 1: Comparison of winding materials

1.1 Low Voltage Winding
First step is to wound low voltage winding using Copper foils and DDP (Diamond Dotted Paper) as
insulation material between turns. Copper foils are used due to the higher currents in LV side.
Diamond dotted paper not only provide the insulation between turns but also it increase the strength of
winding to withstand the magnetic force exerted on it.

Diamond Dotted Paper







Diamond Dotted Paper is made of Kraft paper coated with heat curable epoxy resin. The epoxy
adhesive is applied to both sides of the paper in a diamond pattern consisting of 9.5mm x9.5mm
diamonds with 15.9mm center spacing. The epoxy resin, which cures during the heating process, forms
a high strength bond. This bond prevents the windings from moving during operation or under short
circuit stresses. The diamond pattern epoxy resin treatment improves the temperature resistance and
thermal performance of the kraft paper. The combination of high kraft paper strength and high epoxy
resin bond strength gives the greater strength and coil integrity throughout the life of the transformer.
It costs about 2$ per kilogram of DDP.

1.2 High Voltage Winding
After completing the Low Voltage winding High voltage winding is wound on top of that. Insulation between
LV and HV windings are accomplished by using oil. At this stage about 19 mm air gap is made on top of LV
winding using spacers and HV winding is wound on top of that. Oil is filled to these spaces after filling oil to
the tank which also acts as a cooling medium. After completing the HV winding, the gap between two windings
will be about 16 mm. Wood is also used as spacer material.








Figure 2: Diamond Dotted Paper
Figure 3: Spacer material

HV winding is wound with enamelled insulated round (or rectangular) conductors. Conductor diameter
is decided depending on the required capacity (Power) of the transformer. Diamond dotted paper
insulation is used between two HV layers.

Both of these two windings are wound as circular windings. The nature of the leakage flux is such that it is
mostly in the axial direction (except in the ends of the windings) and hence the maximum radial force
occurs around the mid-height of the coils. Radial forces act outward on the outer winding (HV
winding) and inward on the inner winding (LV winding) (Fig 4a). In circular coils any radial forces
tend to be distributed uniformly along the circumference of the coil. In circular windings the radial
forces are resisted by the strength of the winding conductors, and in some cases the low-voltage
winding tubes. Under radial forces the rectangular windings tend to become circular (Fig 4b,c). This
results in substantial change in geometry and the impedance. There is also a vertical force (axial)
exerted on windings and they are resisted by the stiffness of the radial spacers and the beam strength of
the conductors.










All of these wounding processes are done by humans with the aid of winding machines. Each worker
is specialized for their work and for the machine they use and it improves the productivity and also the
quality of the output








(b) Circular winding
remains circular
(c) Rectangular winding
tends to become circular
(a)Forces on Windings
Figure 4
Figure 5: Winding section of LTL transformers


Tapings are taken out from HV winding to minimize the current handling requirements of the contacts.
Usually (for CEB orders) they provide 5 tap positions including nominal voltage, 2.5% of nominal
voltage.

2. Core
CRGO (Cold Rolled Grain Oriented) Steel is used as the core material. Size of CRGO Steel grains are
about 2mm 5mm that is much larger than the size of regular steel where regular steel is about
0.5mm. This size difference helps to reduce hysteresis loss. Also the Chemical composition of CRGO
steel has a higher percentage of silicon which in turn increases the resistance compared to regular steel
which reduces eddy currents.
Standard of LTL transformers is to maintain flux level 1.7 Wb/m
2
. Typically the core loss of their
transformer is about 1W/kg of core material. Typical transformer consumes about 1000kg of CRGO
steel to its core. Current market price of CRGO steel is about 2-3$/kg.
Core laminations are cut from latest GEORG cutting line. There are some holes to provide cooling to
the core.







Core laminations are cut and joint in step lap manner to reduce core loss further. For non-step lap core
there is higher flux densities occurring at edges and it causes higher core loss. That effect is reduced in
step lap core due to its flux path as shown in figure 7. This reduces the core loss about 15% for 15000
kVA transformer.






Figure 6: Core lamination
(a) Flux path in non-step lap core (b) Flux paths in step lap core
Figure 7



Core is designed so that the core efficiently fills the opening in the coil, leaving a minimum of unused
space. They use different sizes of laminations as shown in figure 8 to increase the effective cross
section of the core by using minimum amount of core material.






3. Assembling Active Part
First the core structure is clamped with laminated wood or pre-fabricated steel clamps to prevent
movement of the core structure so as to improve sound level characteristics and mechanical strength to
withstand short circuit forces. Then the wound coils are inserted in to legs and press board insulations
are used as phase barriers between the high voltage windings as well as between core and low voltage
windings. Then the top core is fitted and clamped.
Then phase windings are connected in star or delta manner internally. But in some designs all
connections are brought out to externally connect the phase windings. Tapings brought out from HV
winding are then connected to tap changer. Most usually there are 5 tapings per phase including
nominal taping, 2 taping above and another 2 tapings below the nominal voltage.
All the high voltage and low voltage winding leads are supported rigidly so that there will be no
dangerous movements during severe faulty conditions and also to withstand mechanical vibrations.
At this stage construction of active part of the transformer is finished, and it consists of the magnetic
core, windings and other accessories such as tap selectors and bushings. Then they are stored until the
drying process.




Figure 8: Method used to increase effective cross section of core
Figure 9: Active parts ready to be drying

4. Drying
Active part of the transformer is drying in transformer core oven. Drying is done at 120
0
C for about 20
hours.
This drying is done for
Curing of epoxy coated insulation and strengthen windings
Remove moisture within the active part assembly
After the drying is done the active part is tanked and oil filling is done within 30 40 minutes.

5. Tanking and Oil filling
Transformer tank is usually manufactured at LTL Galvanizers, Sapugaskanda which is another steel
fabrication company of LTL Holdings. Sometimes tanks are manufactured at Angulana factory itself.
They use both sealed type and conservatory type tank designs to their transformers.
The Sealed type Transformer tanks are made of high quality pre formed corrugated fin walls made out
of cold rolled steel. Corrugated fin walls helps to cooling faster. Vertical bending machine helps to
form the corrugated tanks only with one welded seam. It is ensured that finished tanks meet over
pressure requirements & permanent deformation limits specified by international standards. All welds
are tested, ensuring 100% leak proof seams and mechanical strength
In conservator type design, the main tank is completely filled with oil with a smaller oil reservoir
mounted above the tank. High quality steel sheets are used for tank fabrication. For cooling pre-
fabricated detachable radiator panels are used.










After tanking the unit oil is filled in to the tank under vacuum. Vacuum chamber is used for this
process. Oil in the transformer acts as insulation medium as well as cooling medium. After the oil
filling is done the tank is sealed and the production process is finished with that.
(a) Sealed tank transformer (b) Conservator tank transformer
Figure 10

6. Testing
Each transformer is subjected to some tests after the production process is completed. All of these tests
are conducted according to the IEC (International Electromechanical Commission) standard IEC
60076.
Routine Test
Each transformer is subjected to the following tests in the lab
Pressure test
Insulation resistance test
Voltage ratio test
DC resistance test
Oil dielectric strength test
Separate source voltage withstand test
Induce overvoltage withstand test
No load test
Full load test
Vector group test

Type test
These tests are done only on the request of the customer or as a part of a verification of new design.
Impulse voltage withstand test
Sound level measurement test
Temperature rise test
Three phase symmetrical short circuit test
Three phase symmetrical short circuit test is done usually in India. Some other type tests also done in
India according the requirement of the customer. Impulse voltage withstand test is performed at
University of Peradeniya and other test are done within the factory. Sound level measurement test is
very difficult and costly test because it can only be done at non-working day in the factory.










Testing procedure can be changed due to the requirements of customers. Sometimes LTL has to do all
of these tests completely from outside the company if customer request to do so.If any transformer
fails under any test then it should be reassembled or should try to fix the error. Reassembling the
defected transformer is very difficult task and sometimes it is economical to construct new transformer
to replace that defected one and some materials from defected transformer can reuse.
LTL transformers provide transportation and installation facilities if it is requested by the customers.
Also LTL transformers produce package substations for customer orders. Package substations are
compact arrangement that simplifies conventional substation designs. It includes high voltage
compartment, transformer compartment and low voltage compartment. They are designed according to
IEC 62271-202 and customer specified other standards.

Cost
Manufacturing of typical distribution transformer costs about 700,000 LKR including all material and
labour costs. About 30% of the cost is for winding copper because market price of copper is about
6$/kg. Aluminium is cheaper than copper but it causes the transformer to be very bulky. Another
major source of cost of the transformer is for core steel. It is about 10% of the total cost. CRGO steel
price is about 3$/kg. Typical transformer needs about 1000kg of CRGO steel. Transformer oil is
another major cost factor which contributes about 40% of the total cost of the transformer.

Resent Improvements in Production Process
They use new winding technique for high voltage winding to reduce the amount of copper
required for windings.
Core laminations are cut from new machine GEORG cutting line.








Figure 11: Testing Department of LTL Transformers


CONCLUSIONS

As a Sri Lankan company I noticed many positive things in LTL transformers. Management of the
company is totally independent from the government and all of the workers and the management has a
goal for success of the company. LTL has the 100% share of the local market including CEB. But they
also go beyond that and arrive to the global market and face to the huge competition in the global
market well. 50% of their production is exported.
The great thing is that they design their products according to the customer requirements and also the
testing procedures also conducted according to customer requirements. It helps to increase the demand
for their products.
Most of the tests were done within the factory of LTL. But impulse voltage withstand test and three
phase symmetrical short circuit test cannot be done within factory. It is better if they can improve the
facilities to do these two tests within factory and it will reduce the testing cost for specially tests done
at India.
LTL has export their products to many countries such as Jordan, Kenya, Uganda, Botswana, Mauritius,
Tanzania, Ethiopia and Australia. In month of June, 30 container loads of transformers will be shipped
to Jordan and Ethiopia. Ethiopias state owned power utility EEPCO early this year signed up LTL for
supply of two electrification projects funded by the World Bank and African Development Bank.
These orders are for more than 1,800 transformers in less than six months of production time. This
order alone accounts for sale of Rs. 1,100 million and sales to CEB now accounts for less than 50% of
its turnover. It is better if they can enter to the European market also.
LTL has technical collaboration with ABB Company. It is a good opportunity to share the technical
knowledge with a giant company in the global industry. It is better to increase their own designs and
experiments to increase the efficiency of their products. There should be compromise between
efficiency and cost of the product.
There are no more or no less amount of employees than the required amount. They can easily increase
their production rate if they can find new market.