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Lightning impulse (LI) test is an effective means to detect insulation defects in gas-insulated metal-enclosed switchgear (GIS) equipment. However, the LI test wavefront time Tf will exceed the standard value of 1.2 μs ± 30% for large test load capacitance. Whether extending the Tf will influence defect detection effectiveness should be a concern. In this study, a generating system of impulses with different wavefront parameters was established. The insulation characteristics of a coaxial cylinder structure with an SF6 gas gap with conductive protrusion in a bus under impulses with different wavefront parameters were studied. Experimental results show that the voltage–time curve of the gap shows a bathtub trend that has a flat part in the range of 1 μs to 5 μs. With a Tf increase, the 50% breakdown voltage increases. Whether extending the Tf will influence defect detection effectiveness is analyzed from the standpoint of the different meaning of the breakdown voltage in voltage-time curve and 50% breakdown voltage. The essence of detection effectiveness under impulse voltages with different wavefront parameters is a comparison of the probability of detecting the same insulation defect. Based on the discharge probability distribution, a new quantitative method to evaluate the insulation defect detection effectiveness of impulse voltages for GIS equipment is proposed. The method, based on the 90% discharge voltage value of an insulation defect under a standard LI, normalizes the discharge probability under different wavefront parameters. [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]

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]

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]

Partial discharges (PDs) initiated by conductive particles attached to the insulator surface in gas-insulated metal-enclosed switchgear (GIS) may occur at different particle tips with varying spatial information. PD modes also differ depending on the spatial position and voltage phase. In this study, PDs were investigated as per phase-space joint resolved characteristics using two photomultiplier tubes and phase-resolved discharge images. PDs were observed to occur mainly at the negative particle tip regardless of the half-cycle. A sudden increase in apparent PD charge is attributed to the corona-creepage transition. The PD mode transition mechanism and effectiveness of the on-site dielectric test for defect detection were also determined. The results presented here may provide theoretical support for GIS defect identification and threat assessment. [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]

The detection of gas decomposition products is widely used to diagnose the inner condition of SF6-insulated electrical equipment for its anti-interference ability and high sensitivity. A discharge chamber with Teflon coating inside was designed, with adjustable defect parameters and the volume nearly the same as real ones in gas-insulated switchgear. With the assistance of newly developed dual gas chromatography detection system, this paper investigated the influences of relatively low moisture on the discharge characteristics and gas decomposition under corona and mild spark in SF6. Considering notable hydrolysis reactions in the main gas volume and on the vessel walls, SO2F2, SO2, and S2OF10 were selected as typical gas decomposition products. The average discharge capacity and its fluctuation were found to decrease with the increase of moisture content within research scope, which is related to the electronegativity of water molecule. The concentration of typical decomposition products under various moisture conditions was observed in detail. The results show that in mild spark, O atom in S2OF10 mainly originated from oxygen rather than water vapor in SF6. To diagnose internal insulation condition by only monitoring, the magnitude of discharge capacity is proved unreliable. A new parameter, the concentration ratio of SO2/S2OF10, was proposed to group moisture content and discharge types. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, the influence of surface charges is quantitatively analyzed based on the study of surface charge distribution under DC voltage and flashover characteristics of insulators under superimposed voltage of DC and lightning impulse. It is found that when DC and impulse voltage are in the same polarity, surface charges weaken the electric field along the insulator surface and flashover voltages under superimposed voltage increases. When DC and impulse are in the opposite polarity, surface charges enhance the electric field along the insulator surface, and flashover voltages will decrease. The calculation results of the electric field along the flashover path show that the changing rate of the maximum field strength is approximately equal to the changing rate of flashover voltage, which proves that the influence of surface charges on flashover characteristics of insulators mainly depends on their distortion of the electric field. [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]

By using 1 MV Marx generator and a 220 kV GIS bus, an experiment platform has been established, and a stainless steel needle is applied to simulate spike defect, so as to study the influence of pressure, wave front time and electric field on 50 % breakdown voltage (U50) and voltage-time (V-t) characteristics of SF6 gas gap with existence of a spike defect on the bus of GIS under double exponential impulse voltage. When wave front time is short, 50% breakdown voltage of the SF6 gap hardly changes with various pressures, and U50%-P curve turns to be a hump shape when wave front time increases. However, pressure has no significant effect on V-t characteristics. The slope of V-t characteristics curve is negative when wave front time of applied voltage is short (0.08~0.9μs), and it will turn to be positive when wave front time becomes longer (several ~15μs). A new method to fit these V-t characteristics curves under impulse voltage with longer wave front times is proposed. It is found that 50 % breakdown voltage decreases almost linearly with the increase of electric field non-uniformity factors (f), and V-t characteristics cluster with valley-like profile have been drawn at different f. Dispersion of V-t characteristics cluster reduces and the flat region expands with the increase of f, and minimum value of breakdown voltage of SF6 gap with spike defect under impulse voltage, which is of guiding significance for engineering, can be obtained. [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]

Alumina filled epoxy resin is important insulating material, which discharge characteristics are greatly determined by its material properties. In this paper, the surface flashover characteristics of the epoxy resin with various alumina contents (250- 400 phr) in 0.4 MPa SF6 are studied. The short-term and long-term withstand voltages and the application times are measured, and then the V-T characteristics are compared accordingly. The withstand voltage of the epoxy resin with certain alumina content decreases exponentially with time and the long-term withstand voltage is about 20-30% lower than the short-term withstand voltage. The discharge damages to alumina filled epoxy resin material are also studied through the carbonization traces and the microcosmic damage patterns. It is found that the epoxy resin with 350 phr alumina has the lowest short-term and long-term withstand voltages and most serious carbonizations according to the experimental results. The ?wormholes? formation in the discharge and its effect in the flashover process are analyzed and discussed based on the carbonation traces and the microcosmic patterns. It is found that the flashover paths shift from creeping-discharge-based to bulk-breakdown-based due to wormholes effect with the increase of alumina content and the critical alumina content is about 300-350 phr. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]