Studying the influence of steel arrangements on magnetic flux density distributions in core blocks of the shunt reactors via a finite element method

Abstract

The shunt reactor is used to absorb excess reactive powers generated by capacitive powers on the lines for no-load or low-load operations, balance of reactive powers in electrical systems, avoiding the overvoltage at the line end and maintaining the voltage stability at the specified level.  The shunt reactor is designed with air gaps in the iron core  to increase reluctances, more energy is stored in the air gaps. However, the fringing flux always appears and exist arround air gaps. This component orients from this core block to another that is suitable to the direction of laminations with different angles, making influence to the shunt reactor parameters, where appearing the fringing flux around the iron core blocks, leading to uneven distribution of the mangetic flux in the iron cores. In this paper, a finite element method is applied to investigate different types of lamination matching, cutting the bevel around the iron cores to avoid saturation of the magnetic circuit existing in the edge corner of the steel sheets. Through the obtained results, the paper proposes a suitable coupling type for the core blocks of shunt reactors applied in high and supper-high voltage systems in Vietnam.