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The wavefront time T f of lightning impulse plays an important role in the detection of insulation defects in metal enclosed gas insulated switchgear (GIS). Usually, a rod-plane electrode system with different geometric parameters is adopted to simulate local field enhancements in GIS. But, for GIS, the defects may occur on the high-voltage electrode which can not be properly simulated by a rod-plane electrode. To research the influence of waveform parameters on actual defects in GIS, cylinder-plane, coaxial cylinder, and basin-type insulator with a conductive protrusion, were used in this study. A generating system of double-exponential impulses with wavefront times in the range of 0.08 to 15 μs and wave tail times of approximately 50 μs was used to simulate different impulse test waveforms based on a fully enclosed oil-immersed Marx generator. The results show that for the cylinder-plane gap with a protrusion, when the gap distance of the needle tip to the plane is constant, increasing the length of the needle decreases the 50% breakdown voltage. Comparing with the insulation characteristics of rod-plane gap, the U 50 %-T f curves of the cylinder-plane electrode with needle defects thereafter no longer show a U shape as the rod-plane electrode, but increase with an increase in the wavefront time. The difference can be explained by the shielding effect of the cylinder electrode on the defect, which changes the electric field distribution of the gap. The U 50 %-T f curves of GIS bus with different voltage levels and basin-type insulator with surface conductive defect also show the similar increase trend. For V-t characteristics of GIS bus with different voltage levels, we find that the higher the voltage level, the more obvious the trend of the V-t characteristic bathtub curve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gas-solid interface is generally considered to be the weakest part in gas-insulated systems. The flashover voltage of a gas-solid interface is difficult to predict because it involves an extremely complex physical process affected by multiple factors. In this paper, we employ the support vector regression (SVR) method based on mass data on the features of the electric field that are indicators of the flashover voltage. We cast 48 kinds of epoxy resin post insulators as samples, and 61 features are extracted to characterize the surface electric field distribution and the flashover voltage under standard lightning impulse voltage. Four indicators that may be useful in predicting the flashover voltage were obtained; the maximum electric field along the surface of the insulator (E max), the normal electric field components of E max (E n_Emax), the maximum gradient of the surface tangential electric field component (E t_gm), and the integral of the area in which the E value exceeds x% of E max along the insulator surface (V t60). We establish an SVR flashover voltage prediction model with these four features, whose average deviation is 7% in 10,000 predictions. It is expected that this study may provide a reference for the continued study of the gas-solid surface flashover mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

GIS (gas-insulated metal-enclosed switchgear) is one of the important components in modern electrical power systems. Compared with traditional open switching devices, GIS has many advantages such as compact structure, smaller occupied area, little influence from environment as well as safe and reliable operation [1–3]. Statistical data show that equipment failure rate of GIS is only 20%–40% of traditional open switching devices. However, as GIS is designed as a fully enclosed structure, once something goes wrong, the diagnosis process is much more complex and the time necessary for fault repair becomes much longer [4–5]. For instance, a severe short circuit fault occurred in Jiangsu Power Grid, China in 2014 due to the development of cracks on a disc insulator. In the same year, abnormal discharges occurred in GIS substations because of a disconnector fault that led to large economic loss and undesired social impacts. Much work had, therefore, been done on analyzing transient events in gas insulated installations in China and internationally [6–9]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prefire is the unexpected breakdown of gas switch at triggered mode and have to be limited at extremely low level in fast linear transformer driver (FLTD). In this paper, the dispersion of breakdown voltage as well as prefire characteristics of high pressure gas spark switches under typical working conditions of FLTD was investigated and reported. Tested switches included a three-electrode field-distortion gas switch (TFGS) and a six-stage multichannel gas switch (SMGS), which had compact structure and low inductance. The results showed that the self-breakdown voltage of both TFGS and SMGS obeyed three parameter well-bull distribution and the dispersion of Ub at ±90 kV could reach 4% of TFGS and 14% of SMGS, respectively. The dispersion of Ub was remarkably influenced by the floating potential of middle electrode. By grounding the triggering electrode via a kilohm resistor, the dispersion of Ub decreased to 2% in TFGS and 6.5% in SMGS, respectively. When a voltage equalization method by cascade resistors was introduced, the dispersion of Ub in SMGS dramatically decreased to 4.4%. In repetitive operation at triggered mode, the prefire rate of TFGS reached 0.9% at $\gamma = 80{\%}$ working coefficient and decreases with the decrease of $\gamma $ , being 0.3% at $\gamma = 72{\%}$ and 0.2% at $\gamma = 65{\%}$ , respectively. The prefire rate of SMGS was much higher, reaching 1.7% at $\gamma = 72{\%}$ and 0.7% at $\gamma = 65{\%}$ , and decreased to 0.6% and 0.3%, respectively, after applying the equalizing resistors. Generally, the prefire rate of SMGS was somewhat higher than that of TFGS with the same working coefficient and the floating potential limiting was imperative for prefire inhibition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, SF6/N2 binary mixtures have been used as insulation in second generation gas-insulated metal-enclosed transmission lines mainly because of the greenhouse effect and diseconomy of SF6. Though the synergistic effect of SF6 is known in a uniform electric field, there is little understanding of the synergistic effect phenomenon with parameters in a non-uniform electric field under standard lightning impulse. A series of experiments were designed to increase our knowledge of this and the breakdown characteristics of SF6/N2 under multiple parameters show a negative synergistic effect. Our experimental results with negative lightning impulse demonstrated that the breakdown voltage of N2 increased greater than with both SF6 and its mixtures with increasing gas pressure. When the gas pressure exceeded 0.3MPa, the breakdown voltage of pure N2 was higher than SF6/N2 gas mixtures and even exceeded the value of SF6 at 0.5MPa. A normalization coefficient h was introduced in this research to evaluate the negative synergistic effect. Under negative lightning impulse the analytical results show that the negative synergistic effect increased with the augment of gas pressure. On the other hand, the synergistic effect was reduced with decreasing gas pressure under positive polarity impulse and it appeared to be a negative synergistic effect with the enhancement of field non-uniformity. The analysis of streamer discharge propagation indicates three reasons lead to the negative synergistic effect: similar streamer corona onset voltage, different space charge effect, and dissimilar discharge form of N2 and SF6/N2 gas mixtures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The standard lightning impulse (LI), defined as a smooth full lightning impulse voltage having a front time of 1.2 ?s and a time to half-value of 50 ?s, obtained from field observation, has remained unchanged from IEC Ed. 1 in 1962 through to Ed. 3 in 2010. LI test plays an important role in the equipment design and insulation defects detection. In order to evaluate the reasonability of the standard LI waveform from the point of insulation characteristics, breakdown characteristics of GIS under LI with different wavefront times Tt and wavetail times Tt were studied. Those experimental results show that the LI waveform parameters have little influence on the breakdown characteristics of a sound GIS equipment, but have great influence on the GIS equipment with defects. For a highly inhomogeneous electric field, with the wavefront time increasing, the 50% breakdown voltages U50% have remarkable change and the U50%?Tt curve tends to be U-shaped. The 50% breakdown voltages decrease significantly with the increase of impulse wavetail time, especially when wavetail time is in the range of 1.5 to 15 ?s, but the difference of the values decreases after 15 ?s. Ignoring the generating possibility in the field for the large series inductance and load capacitance, a LI with wavefront time in the range of 0.2 to 0.7 ?s is proposed in the field for it may increase the probability of detecting insulation defects. Finally, the polarity reversion phenomenon and critical radius phenomenon, observed from the breakdown characteristics, can be explained by the migration and diffusion of space charges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the application of SF6/N2 in power equipment such as GIS and GIL, the breakdown characteristics of SF6/N2 in varying electric field non-uniformity under standard lightning impulse were studied in this paper based on a lightning impulse experimental platform. The research indicates that the reversal of polarity effect appears in SF6/N2 gas mixtures. That is, when the pressure is relatively low, the 50% breakdown voltage under positive polarity is lower than which under negative polarity. When gas pressure reaches the critical pressure, the situation would be opposite. The augment of SF6 mixing ratio or decrease of electric field non-uniformity would both result in the decline of the critical pressure. Meanwhile the change of polarity effect with SF6/N2 is later than that with pure gas with the increase of electric field non-uniformity. In addition, the phenomenon of critical radius of SF6/N2 gas mixtures was found. The critical radius reduces with the increase of gas pressure and is smaller under positive lightning impulse than negative. And the phenomenon of critical radius with pure gas is more obvious than that with gas mixtures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a dual-electrode gas switch triggered by ejected plasma is proposed to ensure the switch to be triggered reliably under extremely low switching coefficient. The switch has the configuration of dual electrodes, in one of which a microincentive chamber is embedded to develop ejected plasma into the switch gap, leading to the breakdown of the switch. Both the features of ejected plasma and the triggering discharge characteristics of the switch are studied with different types of gas, gas pressures, voltage polarities, gap distances, triggering pulse energies, and so on. The results show that the switch can be triggered reliably in a much wide working voltage range, as the minimum switching coefficient is low to 9% with the delay time of about 10 \mu \texts . With the decrease of gas pressure and the increase of triggering pulse energy, the height of ejected plasma increases while the delay time of the switch reduces. The polarities of charging voltage and triggering voltage both have obvious influence on the delay time of the switch, and the effect of the former is greater. Under the same gas pressure and triggering pulse energy, the delay time in SF6 is much bigger than that in N2. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To pre-discover the insulating defects and avoid possible insulation failures, DC withstand voltage test with partial discharge (PD) measurements are routinely conducted before the operation of a convertor transformer. However, a ?downward trend? of PDs under DC voltage studied in this paper indicates the limitation of the current test. According to the study, under DC voltage both PD magnitude and PD repetition rate decrease with voltage applying time. At Updiv=29 kV, the average charge is 105 pC in the first 10 min and 33 pC in the last 10 min. Whereas for 3Updiv=87 kV, the value are 2700 pC and 1561 pC separately. On the other hand, at Updiv, PD numbers decrease from 12 times in the first 10 min to 5 times in the last 10 min. At 3Updiv, the numbers are 102 times and 83 times. When PD magnitude is higher than 1400 pC, a whitish area appears at the surface of the pressboard, accompanied by the decrease of DC withstand voltage after 2 hours' PD exposure. The results raise the question that the current test measures PDs over 2000 pC in the last 30 minutes but may introduce PDs of higher magnitude at the early stage, which will damage the dielectrics. Based on further analysis, an improved test procedure is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Discharges in liquid obey time effect, pressure effect and scale effect. Traditional formulas are usually applied in a narrow range to keep the formula form consistent with Martin?s formula. In this paper, we have developed a new empirical formula for the electric strength of transformer oil depending on pulse duration, hydrostatic pressure and gap geometry in form Εbr = κe at-beff Ρ/,sub>spl gamma/ A>sub>-Β d-ϵ to be applied in a wider range. In this formula, the time dependent pressure effect is represented by constant γ, which can be expressed as γ=ape -bpt-c>peff . Time effect, area effect and distance effect are represented by e at-beff, Β and ϵ, respectively. For transformer oil, κ=0.42, a=0.53, b=0.23, ap=0.14, bp=0.93, cp=0.41, Β=0.1 and ?=0.25?0.06, with Ebr, teff, P, A and d in MV/cm, μs, MPa, cm2 and cm, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Follow Phenomenon, defined as a series of continuous breakdowns or withstands without sufficient time lag of successive applied voltages, is observed during the research of SF6 discharge characteristics under lightning impulse. Follow Phenomenon of SF6 gas plays a decisive role for the insulation recovery time between continuous discharges, but little relevant research has been reported before. In this work, Follow Phenomenon as a function of gas pressure, time lag of applied voltages in quasiuniform and non-uniform field, under positive and negative lightning impulse is studied. It is found that, when the time lag t=1 min, Follow Phenomenon is more obvious under positive lightning than that under negative lightning, and it becomes more pronounced under larger pressure; as time lag t increases, the increasing speed of Follow Phenomenon with pressure becomes lower. When time lag t=5 min, the measure uncertainty influenced by Following Phenomenon could be avoided when P⩽0.2 MPa in quasi-uniform field and P⩽0.3 MPa in non-uniform field. As pressure rises, a longer time lag is needed to eliminate the influence of Follow Phenomenon. At the end, analysis is made which shows that Follow Phenomenon is caused by the detachment of negative ion formed at previous discharge processes and by ?the Sweeping effect? of effective initial electrons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new method was introduced to evaluate and analyze synergistic effect including negative synergistic effect of SF₆/N₂ gas mixtures breakdown voltage. This method provides an intuitional comparison among different degree of synergistic effect through a simple equation of the normalization coefficient h. The disadvantages of traditional method, which fails to evaluate negative synergistic effect and would be inaccurate when breakdown voltages of the two gas compositions are close, are overcome via the method. In this paper, a typical example of the above is shown to analyze synergistic effect and abnormal negative synergistic effect of SF₆/N₂ gas mixtures in non-uniform electric field under lightning impulse. Meanwhile the validity of the normalization coefficient h with the synergistic effect of SF₆/N₂ gas mixtures under various voltage conditions and electrodes in references was verified. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Electrode erosion is a notable issue influencing the performance and restricting the lifetime of gas switches. In the erosion process, electrode materials heated by spark channel will melt or evaporate and be driven to depart from electrode surface, contaminating the gas switch insulator, and potentially inducing flashover accidents. In this paper, sputtering spots are observed near the erosion crater in a two-electrode gas switch, which indicates the existence of molten droplet ejection. In addition, a set of polymethyl methacrylate rings are inserted in the gas switch to detect the ejection of molten droplet as well as to simulate the switch insulator for investigating the degradation of surface insulation strength. The results show that the ejection of molten droplet is along the tangent surface of electrode with a small divergent angle. After repeated discharges, the insulator surface is bombarded by the droplet ejection and forms dense cracks and embedded metal particles in a narrow band. The spatial varied droplet ejection causes a decrease in both flashover electric field and surface resistance. It also leads to different surface resistances in different regions, which can result in an uneven electric field distribution. Thus, droplet ejection increases the probability of surface flashover accidents in gas switches. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We described the fabrication and testing of a multi-plasma-jet triggered gas switch(MPJTGS). The MPTJGS consists of two high-voltage electrodes and a trigger electrode, in which a novel six-channel annular microplasma gun is embedded to generate multichannel plasma jets as seed electron sources when a nanosecond trigger pulse arrives. The multiple discharge channels were induced by the multichannel plasma jets. We investigated the multichannel discharge performance of the MPJTGS in two working modes with charging voltage of ±25 kV, trigger voltage of +40 kV (25-ns rise time), and trigger energy of 2, 32, and 240 J at different working coefficients. Results showed that the average number of discharge channels increased as the trigger energy increased, and decreased as the working coefficient decreased. The MPJTGS operated in Mode II had better multichannel discharge characteristics than in Mode I at the same condition. At trigger energy of 240 J and working coefficient of 87.1%, the average number of discharge channels could reach 7 in Mode II. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Field distortion gas switches are extensively used in pulsed power systems. Switch performance typically degrades because of electrode erosion, which directly influences the output parameters, stability, and reliability of pulsed power systems. With the same value of $pd$ , different pressure and gap lengths in gas switches can affect electrode erosion property and thus, the subsequent performance degradation, but few results have been published. In this paper, repetitive discharges have been undertaken in a three-electrode field distortion gas switch with fixed pd$ to study the influence of pressure and gap length on electrode erosion and switch performance. The morphology of electrode surface and time histories of both trigger jitter and the probability of prefire have been investigated during the whole life cycle of the gas switch. The results show that when pd$ is fixed, high pressure and a short gap make for low trigger jitter at the start of the switch life cycle but lead to more severe electrode erosion, expediting the degradation of performance in field-distortion gas switches. Meanwhile, the probability of prefire increases rapidly with the increase of pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, an experimental investigation of pseudospark discharge behaviors was conducted under nanosecond pulsed voltages using a flexible discharge chamber. The breakdown voltages of the pseudospark discharge gap were measured for a wide range of gas pressures, anode-cathode gap distances, and cathode aperture diameters to find the match of gap distance and cathode aperture diameter at a certain gas pressure with the nanosecond pulsed voltage. According to the experimental results, an empirical relationship was obtained. The roles of the parameters in the empirical relationship during the discharge were analyzed. The breakdown characteristics were also consistent with the Paschen’s law in the pseudospark under nanosecond pulsed voltages, when the gap distance was replaced by the effective gap distance. In the end, a possible reason was put forward to explain the difference between the empirical relationships obtained under dc voltages and nanosecond pulsed voltages. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Reducing the working coefficient of gas switch can effectively lower the prefires probability. This paper discusses in detail the discharge characteristics of a three-electrode plasma-jet triggered gas switch (PJTGS), especially at low working coefficients. The triggered discharge process of the PJTGS is analyzed. Plasma jets are observed and discussed with respect to trigger voltage, trigger energy, and gas pressure. In addition, the switch jitters at different conditions are investigated, including ground resistor, charging voltage, trigger energy, trigger voltage, and working coefficient. The results indicate that the height of the plasma jet increases with the increase of trigger voltage and energy, and decreases with the increase of gas pressure. At working coefficients higher than 75%, trigger voltage of +80 kV, and ground resistor of 100 \(\Omega \) , reliable subnanosecond jitters can be obtained with the charging voltages of ±25, ±30, ±40, and ±50 kV. When the working coefficients are between 50% and 28.1%, the switch jitters range from 1.6 to 3.5 ns. Even at the working coefficient of 28.1%, the PJTGS can still be triggered reliably with a switch jitter of 3.5 ns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pulsed power technology is one of the technological foundations in high and new technology research, which has extremely broad development and application prospect. Gas switch is one of the key elements in pulsed power devices, and electrode erosion is a key restrictive factor in high-power gas switch development and application. According to the 1-D equation of heat conduction and thermal equilibrium equation near the electrode surface, this paper researches the electrode heat conduction mechanism, establishes the electrode erosion calculation model, calculates electrode erosion heat fluxes and their peak powers caused under different discharge conditions, and proceeds to calculate the depth of electrode etch pit. Calculation results indicate that arc joule heat is the main reason for electrode erosion when discharge current is not too high. In the light of different discharge parameters, that is, peak current, electric quantity, and current waveform, as well as single discharge electrode erosion experiments, the calculation formula of etch pit depth is fitted. The results indicate that model and fitted calculation results are relatively approximate to the experiment results. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The triggering discharge behavior of the rail gap influences the jitter of discharge delay and inductance of the spark switch due to the formation of multiple spark channels in the rail-gap switch, which is related with the development of avalanche in the discharge process under the nanosecond triggering pulses. In this paper, the PIC/MCC method is used to investigate the avalanche development under a triggering pulse. A model of intershielding is proposed in the PIC/MCC method considering the effect of the space charges. From the simulation and experimental results, it has been clarified that the avalanche process can be controlled by the statistical delay time of the effective primary electrons. The intershielding model can also explain the effect of the rise time of a triggering pulse on the avalanche development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The nanosecond single-pulse voltage was employed here to generate a large-volume discharge between the wire-plane electrodes in nitrogen. In order to find out the effect of pulse polarity on the propagation of a large-volume discharge, both the positive and negative pulses were applied to the wire-plane electrodes, respectively. Images presented here reveal that the discharge channels are more homogeneous under the negative pulse, and the propagation speed of the discharge channels is faster under the positive pulse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper illustrates a unipolar repetitive nanosecond surface discharge in the subsonic airflows at different velocities. The plasma images presented here indicate that the discharge modes vary with the changes in flow condition. The discharge is promoted in the airflows at a lower velocity. The discharge tends to be either inhibited or even extinguished when the flow velocity accelerates. However, the inhibited mode disappears probably due to the strong memory effect at high repetitive frequency of the pulse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Very fast transient overvoltage (VFTO) in gas insulated switchgear (GIS) is of great concern at the higher rated voltages because the difference between the rated lightning impulse (LI) and the VFTO withstand voltage decreases. In order to clarify VFTO withstand level of 1100 kV GIS, a simulation system was designed for generation of VFTO. The breakdown characteristics of sphere-plane gap and rod-plane gap in SF6 under VFTO and LI were investigated for different gas pressures. Experimental results show that the breakdown voltages in slightly inhomogeneous field gaps under VFTO are higher than that under LI. However, for the rod-plane gaps, the breakdown voltages and voltage-time curves under VFTO fall below that of LI at higher pressure in the case of negative polarity. The polarity effect of rod-plane gaps under LI is reversed at a certain pressure. Based on the analyses, it is concluded that the different breakdown characteristics of SF6 gaps may be attribute to the difference between space charge behaviors during the discharge development under the impulse with different wave front and oscillation tail of VFTO and LI. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]