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The electrical strength of insulator in vacuum is much lower than either the insulator itself or the vacuum gap in the same dimension, and one of the considerable factors that could affect the electric field or even the surface flashover is the surface charge accumulation. In order to capture the surface charge characteristics and its impacting mechanism on electric field of ceramic insulator under nanosecond voltage in vacuum, this paper employed electrostatic capacitive probe to develop a surface charge measurement system. The accumulating and dissipating characteristics of surface charge on four Al2O3 ceramic insulators with different manufacturing conditions were captured, indicating that, (1) the surface charge mainly accumulates near the anode, but there presents various distribution patterns of different samples; (2) the charge density of different samples also shows different increasing trend with the voltage application counts increasing, and the maximum difference could reach 78.07%; (3) within 1 h after the voltage cutting off, the maximum density of dissipated surface charge on all samples is less than 7.0%, ensuring the reliability and effectiveness of experimental results. The surface micro-morphology and surface traps characteristic take the joint actions to make the explanations for the surface charge accumulation and migration mechanisms. Finally, based on surface charge measurement results and field simulation results, the quantitative impact of surface charge on surface electric field were proposed in this paper, aiming at providing meaningful references for the insulation design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The flashover phenomenon of the insulator is the main cause for insulating failure of GIS/GIL, and one of the most critical impacting factors is the accumulation of surface charge. The common methods to restrain the surface charge accumulation are reviewed in this paper. Through the reasonable comparison and analysis of these methods, nano-coatings for the insulator were selected as a way to restrain the surface charge accumulation. Based on this, six nano-coated epoxy resin samples with different concentrations of P25-TiO2 nanoparticles were produced. A high precision 3D surface charge measurement system was developed in this paper with a spatial resolution of 4.0 mm2 and a charge resolution of 0.01 µC (m2 · mV)−1. The experimental results for the epoxy resin sample showed that with the concentration of nanoparticles of the coating material increasing, the surface charge density tended to first decrease and then increase. In the sample coated with 0.5% concentration of nanoparticles, the suppression effect is the optimum, leading to a 63.8% reduction of charge density under DC voltage. The application test for actual nano-coated GIS/GIL basin insulator indicated that the maximum suppression degree for the charge density under DC voltage could reach 48.3%, while it could reach 22.2% for switching impulse voltage and 12.5% for AC context. The control mechanism of nano-coatings on charge accumulation was proposed based on the analysis for surface morphology features and traps characteristics; the shallow traps dominate in the migration of charges while the deep traps operate on the charge accumulation. With the concentration of nanoparticles in nano-coating material mounting up, the density of shallow traps continuously increases, while for deep traps, it first decreases and then increases. For the sample with 0.5% concentration of nanoparticles coated, the competition between shallow traps and deep traps comes to the most balanced state, producing the most significant suppression impact on surface charge accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surface charge accumulation can incur changes in electric field distribution, involved in the electron propagation process, and result in a significant decrease in the surface flashover voltage. The existing 2D surface charge measurement fails to meet the actual needs in real engineering applications that usually adopt the 45° conical frustum insulators. The present research developed a novel 3D measurement platform to capture surface charge distribution on solid insulation under nanosecond pulse in a vacuum. The results indicate that all surface charges are positive under a positive pulse and negative under a negative pulse. Surface charges tend to accumulate more near the upper electrode. Surface charge density increases significantly with the increase in pulse counts and amplitudes. Accumulation of surface charge results in a certain decrease of flashover voltage. Taking consideration of the secondary electron emission for the surface charge accumulation, four materials were obtained to demonstrate the effects on surface charge. Combining the effect incurred by secondary electron emission and the weighty action taken by surface charge accumulation on the flashover phenomena, the discharge mechanism along the insulator surface under nanosecond pulse voltage was proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]