Transformer eats itself

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Actually, the mistake made here is that late in the video just before the big explosion, water can been seen dousing the equipment and fire. Water is not a good choice for electrical fire....
 
bphgravity said:
Actually, the mistake made here is that late in the video just before the big explosion, water can been seen dousing the equipment and fire. Water is not a good choice for electrical fire....
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Someone on YouTube said it was the mineral oil in the transformer.

Here's an interesting one. I believe we have someone here with an avatar similar to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AElTfWVY74&NR
 
Someone sent that to me on an email a few years ago, tallgirl. It's supposedly a 500kV switch opened under load. Note the guy cowering behind the truck who jumps up and whoops, fists up, at the end of the arc.

I went to an arc flash seminar put on by Square D last spring, and the instructor showed that one.

Dan
 
That was the oil from the sudden pressure relief lifting due to heating/expansion of the oil. The fire and police department was standing by helpless during this failure. The arc was burning for about 15 minutes prior to the video you see online. The fault was caused by a thrown golf club landing on the secondary connections, either this unit did not have differential relaying or it failed.
 
Aren't the fluids in transformers generally non-flammable with noncombustible vapors and fumes? (Askarel for example)

It looks to me like they tried to cool the blaze with water which resulted in the eruption of the equipment...
 
Bryan,
Aren't the fluids in transformers generally non-flammable with noncombustible vapors and fumes?
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Almost all of the liquid cooling products that have been used for transformers have been combustible, some less so than others. The PCB oils were used because that made the liquid less combustible, but it would still burn and when it did, it released dioxon.
The video is does not show the use of water...it show a vapor cloud that ignites. Look at the color of the flame and smoke after ignition...very typical of flammable/combustible liquid fires. Almost no fire department will ever apply water to an energized substation, even though it can be done safey under some conditions.
Don
 
Almost all outdoor transformers use simple mineral (and sometimes vegetable) oil for cooling. Special high-temp/low flame fluids are normally only used in or near buildings.

On one version (from OSHA I think) of the transformer blast there is actually audio of the firefighters.

As far as the video of the switch, as I recall this is the intentional opening of a non-load break switch. The normal load break failed so they had to open the isolator instead. The worker is happy because the arc actually quit without taking out the entire distribution yard .
 
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