Densified Transformer Laminated Wood Boards Malaysia

This case study details the successful application of densified laminated wood board as a high-performance structural insulation material to a leading transformer manufacturer in Southeast Asia. By employing a customized material solution—made from beech veneers impregnated with resin and hot-pressed—the client effectively solved common industry challenges in high-temperature and high-humidity environments, such as deformation of traditional insulation support materials, eddy current heating of metal components, and brittle fracture of composite materials. This significantly improved the mechanical stability, electrical reliability, and life-cycle value of the transformers.

Project Background

The client is a major power transformer manufacturer in Southeast Asia, with products widely used in the region's power grid infrastructure, industrial parks, and commercial complexes. Facing the growing market demand for high-reliability, long-life transformers, and increasingly stringent international energy efficiency and safety standards, the client is committed to a comprehensive material and technology upgrade of its products.

Industry Challenges

The project location has a typical tropical maritime climate, presenting unique challenges for power equipment:

• Severe Environmental Pressures: Continuous high temperature and humidity accelerate the aging process of organic insulation materials and place extremely high demands on their dimensional stability.

• Complex operating conditions: The large-scale integration of renewable energy sources leads to more frequent transformer load fluctuations, requiring internal structural components to possess excellent fatigue and creep resistance.

• Balancing cost and performance: While controlling manufacturing costs, it is necessary to seek advanced materials that can reduce overall losses, decrease maintenance requirements, and extend equipment life.

• Material limitations: Traditionally used steel components, ordinary laminated wood products, and certain synthetic materials have shortcomings in terms of eddy current losses, long-term retention of mechanical strength, and environmental adaptability.

Specific Problems Requiring Resolve

The customer's existing 110kV oil-immersed transformer products mainly suffer from the following problems:

1. Local Overheating Risk: Some non-magnetic steel components used for internal support generate eddy currents in the alternating magnetic field, leading to unnecessary temperature rise and energy loss.

2. Insufficient Reliability of Insulation Components: Traditional insulation materials are prone to creep, micro-cracks, or slight expansion under long-term hot oil immersion and mechanical stress, affecting the long-term stability of the coil clamping system.

3. Processing Efficiency and Material Waste: The yield rate of existing materials needs improvement when processing them into complex-shaped support bars and pads.

Solution: Customized Densified Laminated Boards

Our solution is a high-performance densified laminated board. This material uses carefully selected beech veneer as the base material, which is thoroughly impregnated with a high-temperature resistant resin system and then hot-pressed layer by layer under strict temperature and pressure control. This process achieves a density of over 1.25 g/cm³, forming a homogeneous composite material with excellent mechanical strength, stable electrical insulation, and superior environmental resistance.

Advantages of Transfomer Board Laminate:

1. High strength and high stiffness: Bending strength ≥250 MPa, compressive strength ≥120 MPa

2. Excellent electrical insulation: Breakdown strength ≥35 kV/mm, low and stable dielectric loss

3. Outstanding thermal stability: Long-term resistance to 105°C, extremely low oil absorption and thermal shrinkage (<1%)

4. Excellent environmental adaptability: The resin system provides the material with strong moisture resistance and anti-aging properties

Typical applications in transformers

• Structural support components: Coil pressure plates, end support blocks, pull plates, and clamp insulation.

• Insulation and positioning components: Support bars, pads, lead wire supports, etc., used for winding modeling.

• Integrated solution: Achieves insulation and load-bearing functions in one, simplifying structural design and reducing weight.

Our technical team, together with the client's design and process engineers, formed a joint working group to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the client's existing product design, material failure modes, and test data. Based on the analysis results, we customized a series of "Tropical Climate Enhanced" densified laminated wood panels for the client. The client conducted a full set of type tests on the first batch of samples, including thermal cycling and short-circuit withstand capability simulations, and the performance fully met the standards. Building on the success of the pilot project, the client systematically integrated the new material into its next-generation product platform and continuously optimized it based on actual production feedback.

Economic Benefits

1.Reduced Overall Costs: Although the unit price of materials increased, the overall cost per transformer was optimized due to a significant increase in processing yield, elimination of additional anti-eddy current treatment processes, and reduced failure risk during the warranty period.

2.Enhanced Market Competitiveness: With superior performance data, the product successfully entered the high-end application market with extremely high reliability requirements, securing orders from data centers, critical infrastructure, and other fields.

3.Enhanced Brand Value: Reliable product performance enhanced the client's brand reputation, laying a solid foundation for its expansion into international markets.

Client Feedback and Project Evaluation

The client highly praised the collaborative results, considering it not merely a successful material replacement, but a profound upgrade in product performance and a revolutionary change in design philosophy. The client specifically pointed out:

**Precision of the Solution:** The provided material solution directly addressed the design pain points of transformers in tropical climates, resulting in significant and quantifiable performance improvements.

**Professional Depth of Technical Support:** From initial joint analysis to subsequent process guidance, technical services were provided throughout the entire process, ensuring the maximization of material potential.

**Comprehensive Value:** The project's value is reflected in multiple dimensions, including product quality, production costs, and market competitiveness, with a clear and definite return on investment.

Conclusion and Outlook

This project successfully validated the crucial role of customized high-performance materials in solving engineering challenges under specific environmental and operating conditions. By combining innovation in materials science with a deep understanding of power equipment applications, we, together with our customers, achieved a significant leap forward in the reliability of transformer products.