Description:
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present an approach for continuous acoustic condition monitoring of transformers based on chromatic principles for abstracting information on individual acoustic events as well as secondary trends in the behaviour of the events. Design/methodology/approach – The potential benefits of condition monitoring of high-value transformer equipment are explored, and an approach based on chromatic information abstraction is illustrated and discussed. Findings – Tracking of large numbers of complex and variable individual acoustic events over time using a chromatic approach appears to offer a means for remote operators to evaluate mechanical transformer tap changer condition in a traceable manner. Originality/value – The condition monitoring is retrofittable and non-intrusive, and the approach may be applied generically for combining condition indicators for overall health-checking. A complex system behaviour may be operationally simplified without discarding the complexity.