Partial Discharge General Discussion Note: A niche of On-site diagnostics system design

Patrick Zhang Gauss Electronics Technology Chengdu China Abstract: The paper begins with definitions, background of partial discharge, discusses features and comparison of designing a portable or handheld devices for detecting four major types of partial discharges. After than the paper discusses challenges that face the application of partial discharge field test.

Part I: Introduction
Referred from Wikipedia:

In electrical engineering, partial discharge (PD) is a localised dielectric breakdown of a small portion of a solid or fluid electrical insulation system under high voltage stress, which does not bridge the space between two conductors. While a corona discharge is usually revealed by a relatively steady glow or brush discharge in air, partial discharges within solid insulation system are not visible. PD can occur in a gaseous, liquid or solid insulating medium. It often starts within gas voids, such as voids in solid epoxy insulation or bubbles in transformer oil. Protracted partial discharge can erode solid insulation and eventually lead to breakdown of insulation. For HV cables, Some examples of causes of Partial Discharge are: Incorrect usage & installation of cable termination kits Poor cutbacks on cable terminations & splices No stress control tubes or insufficient length installed Insufficient clearance between cores in a cross-core configuration Air voids created by inconsistent heat shrinkage of sleevings Air voids within cable insulation caused by manufacturing defects Sharp edges, or nicks left on conductors Insufficient clearance between conductors and surrounding insulation No angle boots installed to cover bare high voltage conductors in VT boxes Strong odor of Ozone, presence of whitish to bluish green powder due to formation of nitrous acid from ionization Colour fading and dark tracks on insulation near conductors, usually with a "treeing" pattern

Most of the instruments are focusing on technique of detecting partial discharge within solid insulations, such as high voltage bushing on power transformer. It is recommended by IEC and IEEE standards to take advantage of partial discharge measurement before its installation, or for devices that are running for a period of time, or for old devices that are susceptible to insulation defect but are not reaching breakdown. As there are detailed definition from IEC and IEEE, I am not focusing here on the basic usage and characteristics of partial discharge.

With the partial discharge measurement, the dielectric condition of high voltage equipment can be evaluated, and treeing in the insulation can be detected. So it is now widely accepted that onsite partial discharge diagnostic instruments are being used for HV equipments maintenance. Part II: Typical Onsite PD diagnostic instruments As the standard lab test usually required a high voltage supply, coupling capacitor and voltage divider, high voltage filter and partial discharge analyzer. Field test for partial discharge may not be convenient by standard lab or factory measurement. To carry out the tradition maintenance more efficient, portable or handheld instruments be introduced as a complement for lab or factory test. Onsite diagnostic usually takes use of the below methods: Transient Earth Voltages (TEVs): When PD activity occurs within high voltage switchgear insulation, it generates electromagnetic waves in the radio frequency range. The signal can travel through insulating materials or components, though the signal attenuation increases with each surface or medium that it traverses. Essentially, the majority of the electromagnetic pulses produced by these Partial Discharge sparks are conducted away by the surrounding metalwork, but a small proportion impinge onto the inner surface of the casing. These small charges (between 0.1mV to 1V each) escape through joints in the metalwork, or gaskets on gas insulated switches, and pass as a raised voltage across the outside surface of the switch to earth. These pulses of charge were first discovered at EA Technology in the 1970s by Dr John Reeves, who named them Transient Earth Voltages (TEVs). He established that these TEV signals are directly proportional to the condition of the insulation for all switchgear of the same type, measured at the same point. The discovery of TEVs produced a powerful technique for non-invasively checking the condition of switches of the same type and manufacture, in that TEV readings are measured in dBmV and the instruments are used comparatively. From a practical perspective, Partial Discharge activity may be detected non-intrusively by placing a probe on the outside of the switchgear whilst the switchgear is in service. ( PD & Transient Earth Voltage (TEV) emissions, What is PD?
http://www.pd-academy.com/whatispd).

A niche of design: 1) TEV Frequency range from 1MHz to 100Mz (typical 10-70Mz) is recommended, and the instruments may take advantage of a capacitor sensor or directional antenna sensing the TEV voltages. 2) dBmV readings are usually suitable for typical frequency, not a wide band of frequencies. So if you are calculating and analyze the amplitude of PD in dBmV, it is better to consider the frequency of the PD being detected. 3) Input capacitor: typical 150pF,M&B Systems Power Test Equipment 4) Acquiring data from real-world applications has never been easier, more accurate, or more reliable.( Melissa R. Weimer DATAQ Instruments, Inc.),but for TEV measurement,you do not need to do Analog to digital conversion for the radio frequency up to 100MHz, most of the devices at present on the market are only dBmV display,or just count the pulses within

certain time seconds, so to acquire the rectified DC signal is often adopted. One of another advantage for adopting rectified method is the hardware cost, one acquisition board with sampling rate over 20MHz (16-BIT) may reach 1k to 3k USD, but if the sampling rate, for example, goes down to 1MHz, the cost of a acquisition board (16-bit) may less than 400 USD.(contact Patrick@ieeetm.org or visit www.ieeetm.org if you have interests in buying an acquisition board). If you design your electronics from the beginning of purchasing chips and welding yourself, total cost using DC acquisition method may be estimated to be less than 0.5kUSD.

24-bit,2.5Msps, less than 400USD/piece In Reality, it is also unnecessary for you to make rectifier yourself by detector diode, there are more high quality chip function as a better alternative. The AD8307 a logarithmic amplifier with frequency up to 500MHz based on progressive compression (successive detection) technique. Or you could choose a rectifier board that finishes filtering and necessary test to guarantee quality and save time for an experiment or manufacturing.

Note: AD8307 outputs power other than magnitude, you have to convert it into comparable data if required. Disadvantage: While this method may be useful to detect some issues in switchgear and surface tracking on internal components, the sensitivity is not likely to be sufficient to detect issues within solid dielectric cable systems. (from WIKIPEDIA)

Ultrasonic: The frequency bandwidth for emissions tends to be centered on 40kHz but will stretch into the audible area for extremely bad discharges. There are two types of ultrasonic measurement instruments, one for fixed frequency sensor, usually has 40kHz central frequency and about 2kHz Bandwidth. Another is wideband ultrasonic, with frequency response range from 20kHz to 1MHz.

Typical frequency: 20k-100kHz,UK EA Technology 30-300kHz, OYA,DIMRUS,Russia, Netherland 20-600kHz, Germany 10k-200kHz, Omicron,Austria 20-1MHz, Physical Acoustic Corporation,USA Advantage of using Ultrasonic measurement: the capability of location a PD. with the Acoustic emission or ultrasonic method it is possible to diagnose from a power transformer which winding package is discharging or even locate which coil in the high-voltage winding is discharging. Niche of design: 1) Most of the high quality ultrasonic sensor has requirement on power supply with DC or AC voltage from several volts to about 20 volts. 2) Types of readings to be possible: RMS, Peak, Peak to average ratio, dBmV. 3) Not only could it be used for contact measurement, it could also serve as remote electric discharge receiver from power lines (insulators). 4) Wave form analysis seems to be a better choose for analyze both activity and severity of PD. 5) It is necessary at some time to set threshold noise level in order to count pulses at burst like emissions. Electro Magnetic Field: More sensitive measurement, particularly at higher voltages, can be achieved using in built UHF antennas or external antenna mounted on insulating spacers in the

surrounding metalwork. The widely accepted application is gas-insulated switchgear, where the usage of built-in antennas shows better performance than external antennas. Characteristics of UHF signals

corona

PD inside SF6 chamber

unknown inteference

Methods of acquiring partial discharge signal at UHF range. 1. The most widely adopted is oscilloscope, but as it needs more experience and technique to analyze through the waveforms on the oscilloscope. 2. Rectifier method. To compress the UHF range signal to peak sensitive mode, where the period of partial discharge, according to lab test, may reach around 0.05-0.1 mS (frequency at about 10-20MHz). 3. Frequency mix method. As a new signal source is generated as reference to subtract from the input signal, it usually takes longer time to finish the measurement. Typically for a frequency step of 2MHz, about 4 minutes will be taken to complete a measurement from 100-900MH. Other methods be used as complement 1. Phase resolved analysis. To add a test of system frequency at 50Hz or 60Hz (Some instruments also use 100Hz) and to compare the UHF signal in relation to phase angle.

2.

Use dual channel or multi-channel and further analysis relationship between different channels( from different location).

ElectroMagnetic Current Pulse Measurement

Partial discharge activity in solid high voltage insulation induces small high frequency currents in the earth conductor of the electrical system. These impulses travel along the equipment earth to the substation earth. Using a high frequency current transformer they can be detected as they pass through the CT. HFCT is portable, cost effective and non-intruding type of sensor.

Typical frequency range: 0.5M-20MHz You may make HFCT yourself: HFCT with low internal impedance will have better wide band frequency response. Low resistance: can be achieved using thick gauge wires. Low inductance: can be achieved by biflar winding layout with magnetic core of high permeability.

Why not use Rogowski winding: low sensitivity

Disadvantage of using HFCT: not easy to distinguish PD from the noise, as unstable system noise in the earth loop which may not feasible to set a threshold value. Techniques to use pattern recognition or accumulation of experienced graph may be required.

Reference
1.IEC 60270:2000/BS EN 60270:2001 "High-Voltage Test Techniques - Partial Discharge Measurements" 2.IEEE 400-2001 "IEEE Guide for Field Testing and Evaluation of the Insulation of Shielded Power Cable Systems" 3.IEEE 1434-2000 "IEEE Trial-Use Guide to the Measurement of Partial Discharges in Rotating Machinery" 4.Greg LINTON,ULTRASONIC OR TEV? HV Diagnostics Services Ltd, http://www.hvds.co.nz/files/docs/article%20ultrasonic%20or%20tev.pdf 5.Possible Defects which may be detected from Partial Discharge Testing, http://www.lceng.com/pdu.html 6.S. Birlasekaran, Senior Member, IEEE, and Weng Hoe Leong,Comparison of Known PD Signals With the Developed and Commercial HFCT Sensors, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 22, NO. 3, JULY 2007 7. Melissa R. Weimer, Electromyogram Waveform Analysis Using Advanced CODAS, An application of the integral function for waveform area-under-the-curve determinations. DATAQ Instruments, Inc. http://www.dataq.com/m/applicat/articles/an15.htm 8. Wes Hayward, W7ZOI, and Bob Larkin, W7PUA,Simple RF-Power Measurement, http://rfplus.jonwright.org/data/qst200106.pdf 9.Ching-Chau Su, Cheng-Chi Tai, Chien-Yi Chen, Ju-Chu Hsieh,Partial Discharge Precise Source Location Using Acoustic Emission Method for a Waveguide Functional High-Voltage Cast-Resin Dry-Type Transformer, International Journal of Applied Science and Engineering 2009. 6, 3: 229-237 http://www.cyut.edu.tw/~ijase/2009/015025-5.pdf

SOLUTIONS WITH COMPETITIVE PRICES &HIGH PRODUCTIVITY

You may be our customers You may not know embedded programming and circuits design, but you may think of looking for partial discharge hardware with open protocol so that you could write code with advanced programming language such as Visual basic,Visual C++, Python, Java, etc. then you could do analysis and experiment your patterns of partial discharge analysis, environment analysis or monitoring project. You may need a power source as test signal generator with magnitude and frequency to be adjustable, and the impedance of the load to be obtained by just using advanced programming languages. You may think of some demo code for you realize the basic function. You may also think the total cost to be economical.

Feel free to Contact Gauss Electronics Technology. GAUSS ELECTRONICS supply full package of your special interested experiment kit, including: Acquisition board Analog signal filter and amplifier (before acquisition board) Cable for the test Signal generator with load capability Impedance test board Wireless partial discharge module Wireless impedance test module Sensors(temperature, HFCT/RFCT,ultrasonic,UHF) Embedded design to fit your requirement Software exploration for test&measurement

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