A saturable reactor of HVDC converter valve has large heat and uneven electric field distribution during operation period

which is the safety hazard of the valve hall. For improving temperature rise effect of saturable reactor

the saturable reactor of real ±500 kV DC converter valve is used as the study

object in this paper. The coupling model of the improved fluid field and temperature filed is set up

which considers comprehensively such actual factors as heat transfer by fluid

air convection heat dissipation

winding Joule heat loss and eddy current heat loss so to simulate and calculate the temperature field distribution and its affecting factor of each component of reactor. The site verification shows that the calculation result by the model is more close to the actual operating condition. Moreover

the electrostatic field simulation model is also set up so to simulate and calculate electric field distortion. The results of temperature field show temperature of core of the saturable reactor is the highest

followed by the temperature of epoxy resin

and the temperature of cooling water pipe is the lowest. The highest temperature of the iron core can reach up to 342 K. Increasing the cooling water inlet flow rate is an effective way to reduce the temperature of the saturable reactor. The best cooling effect can be achieved when the inflow rate of the cooling system is set to 1 m/s. The maximum temperature of epoxy resin

iron core and cooling water pipe increases linearly with the inflow temperature of cooling water. In actual operation

the temperature of inflow cooling water should be as low as possible. The electric field result shows that the electric field distortion is considerable at the interface between epoxy resin and iron core

and the maximum electric field strength can reach up to 1.26×10

5

V/m. Voltage equalization measures shall be taken here to prevent excessive local temperature due to electric field distortion. The conclusions obtained in this paper can provide reference for the design of saturable reactor for DC converter valves.