The Digital Revolution of Power Transformers is officially started
On july 29, Transformer 4.0, MIT Portugal flagship project, was official launched. The kick-off remote meeting was hosted by Efacec, Project’s Coordinator, with the contributions of INESCTEC, INEGI and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).
The meeting starts with a brief presentation of the consortium that will involve people from very specific fields with complementary research competencies: EFACEC, as manufacturer of power transformers INESCTEC (computer science, industry and innovation) INEGI (mechanical and industrial engineering) and the MIT, namely Sociotechnical Systems Research Centre, enabling a comprehensive and multidisciplinary research program. “We can create great synergies during the project” said Sérgio Tavares, responsible for the project at Efacec.
The power energy sector, and in particular transformer industry, has been a conservative innovator and late adopter of new technologies. The Transformer 4.0 (TRF40) project seeks to introduce the digital transformation in power transformers. Aiming this transformation, a comprehensive research plan focused on the Digital Twin (DT) concept will be implemented. “The main focus of the project is the Digital Twin (DT) and the development of the digital platform to support the DT”, says Sérgio Tavares.
The consortium will start the project by redefining the vision and the requirements of the project that will be fundamental for the success of the project by defining specific, measurable, achievable and high-level requirements and monitoring the best technologies to be incorporated in the project. “We will introduce different and innovative aspects that can disrupt some areas of the power transformers sector, in particular the power transformer product life-cycle”, highlighted Sérgio Tavares.
By applying new technologies and trends from Industry 4.0 to the design and manufacturing process of power transformers including approaches and techniques such as the Knowledge Based-Engineering Digital-Twin, Big Data Analytics and additive manufacturing they will improve the products’ design, manufacturability, performance, longevity and safety throughout their whole life cycle, while simultaneously preserving the knowledge acquired throughout production and operation and adding more value to the whole sector. The additive manufacturing integrated with the Digital Twin platform will allow disruptive approaches in the manufacturing and servicing of transformers.
INESC-TEC – contributes to the project with scientific knowledge and advanced skills required for the development of the digitalization of the power transformer product, in particular with novel data and information architectures, machine-learning and optimization algorithms and strategies and processes for the development of new product services systems.
INEGI – contributes to the project with the development of digital manufacturing techniques for the manufacturing of the new generation of Transformers.
MIT – will collaborate to perform research through literature survey, empirical research and potentially designed experiments., bringing its most recent expertise on the study of the implementation of the digital-twin concept and technologies in several products and industries.
Together, with the integration of these technologies, they will build the transformer of the future.