Partial discharge

About: Partial discharge is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 13997 publications have been published within this topic receiving 102058 citations. The topic is also known as: PD.

Electrical treeing and reverse tree growth in an epoxy resin

Abstract: An electrical treeing process is presented which consists of two types of electrical tree structures that coexist in the same epoxy resin: these have been termed as ‘filamentary trees’ and ‘reverse trees’. In samples with needle-plane electrode geometries, a filamentary tree that consists of fine tree channels propagates from the needle electrode to the plane ground electrode under an applied AC voltage. It is observed that once the filamentary tree has crossed the insulation, trees then grow from the planar electrode towards the needle electrode as reverse trees, eventually leading to dielectric breakdown. The characteristics of the treeing processes have been obtained for a range of samples through optical observations. In addition, partial discharge (PD) activity associated with the growth of a reverse tree is thoroughly characterized. The prior existence of a filamentary tree is a prerequisite for the development of a reverse tree. PD does not appear to be a driving force for the growth of the filamentary trees, whereas high levels of PD are associated with the growth of a reverse tree. This distinction shows that aging can occur undetected by PD, but asset management of the more aggressive treeing stages can use PD analytics.

Enhanced partial discharges due to temperature increase in the combined system of a solid-liquid dielectric

Abstract: Partial discharges which emanate from solid dielectrics immersed in insulating oil when high impulse voltages are applied under different environmental temperatures (20, 40 and 80 degrees C) are discussed. The solid dielectrics used for the measurements are phenol-impregnated pressboard and industrial bakelite. The samples are cut in wafers of 150 mm diameter and are 1 or 2 mm thick. The insulating oil is a typical transformer oil. The switching type of the impulse voltage used, 250/2500 mu s, corresponds to functional situations and is long enough to produce the effects that can be detected without the consideration of charge transfer phenomena due to fast rates of field changes. Experimental results show that the total charge transfer due to partial discharge is increased by temperature. A possible explanation of the undergoing physical process may be that in the low-field regime, temperature perturbation effects on the injected current are characterized by the conductivity changes in the volume of the dielectric, while as partial discharges start occurring, avalanche multiplication of conduction electrons appears to be the dominant phenomenon, characterizing the behavior of a metal/thick insulator/metal structure in the high-field regime. The circuits, measurement, and measuring procedures are discussed. >

Application of contact analysis on evaluation of breakdown strength and PD inception field strength of solid-solid interfaces

Abstract: Interfaces between solid insulating materials are generally weak regions in electrical insulation systems, particularly if the electrical stress is applied in parallel direction. This paper presents a theoretical mechanical model for estimating average size of air-filled voids at the interface as a function of surface roughness and contact pressure. It is argued that the interfacial breakdown strength (BDS) is governed by the discharge inception stress (Ev) of the void with the most likely estimated dimension. The estimated values of the breakdown strength and partial discharge inception electric field strength (PDIE) were compared with the results from measurements using XLPE specimens with interfaces energized in longitudinal direction. The measured ratio of increase of breakdown strength was found to be in good agreement with the estimated breakdown values of the most likely interface's void. Additionally, it was found out that the air pressure inside voids was not affected by applied contact pressure. The estimated PDIE values was found to be in agreement with the measured values, in the case of rough surfaces, but not for smooth surfaces. The results indicate that the mechanical contact approach using the motif description of surface roughness may improve the understanding of the factors influencing the PDIE of electrically stressed interfaces.

Recognition of single and multiple partial discharge sources in transformers based on ultra‐high frequency signals

Abstract: Partial discharge (PD) is a symptom of insulation defect or degradation in high-voltage equipment. Thus, PD detection is an important diagnostic tool. Furthermore in practical situations, the PD can be generated from a single or multiple sources. Being able to detect and classify such PD events will help to determine the necessary corrective action to prevent insulation breakdown. To demonstrate, three different simulated discharge conditions in transformers were investigated: void, floating metal and their combination. The PD signals were captured using an ultra-high frequency (UHF) sensor and denoised using wavelet transform method by application of Matlab wavelet multi-variate denoising tool. Two types of mother wavelet, that is, db and sym, were applied to decompose the signals and extract the signal features in terms of their skewness, kurtosis and energy. These features were then used as input to train a neural network to analyse and determine the PD source type. Results show this technique is able to classify and recognise single and multiple PD source types with a high degree of success.