An advanced analysis of a root cause of a power transformer failure

The paper deals with the problem of forensic investigation of a transformer failure. A forensic engineer may determine the direct cause of the failure on the basis of an inspection. The root cause, however, may be difficult to discover or prove without advanced calculations. Often an analysis of thermal performance and electric and magnetic field (EMF) is sufficient to determine the root cause of the failure. One of the ways to achieve this is by using finite element method (FEM). The author presents an example of such analysis performed for a power transformer.