IET Science, Measurement & Technology

Research Article

ISSN 1751-8822
Modelling of aged cavities for partial Received on 22nd July 2014
Accepted on 5th December 2014
discharge in power cable insulation doi: 10.1049/iet-smt.2014.0222
www.ietdl.org

Tohid Shahsavarian, Seyyed Mohammad Shahrtash ✉

Center of Excellence for Power System Automation and Operation, Electrical Engineering Department, Iran University of Science and
Technology (IUST), Tehran, Iran
✉ E-mail: shahrtash@iust.ac.ir

Abstract: In this study, the ageing process of cavities in solid insulation of power cables is divided into three stages, and
for each stage a circuit model is proposed. Each of these circuit models preserves the basic characteristics of the cavity
under the circumstances of the corresponding stage and provides the expected behaviour of generated partial
discharge (PD) pulses. This set of models simulate cavity wall effects, the non-uniformity of internal electrical field and
charge deployed on the wall surfaces with considering the existence of electronegative gases according to the
requirements of the three defined ageing stages. Finally, the simulation results, in the forms of phase resolved PD
patterns are presented showing good agreement with the published experimental measurements drawn from
accelerated ageing process setups.

1 Introduction for introducing the concepts of PD [7, 8] and Resistive-Capacitive

One of the most important concepts that has major influences on cable
insulation lifetime is partial discharges (PDs) generated within the
embedded cavities inside cable insulation. These gas-filled cavities
within solid insulation material may be created during
manufacturing, installation, maintenance and operation processes.
Experimental results have shown evidences of ending to insulation
breakdown in the presence of internal PDs, depending on the
electrical stresses (e.g. voltage, frequency and current), mechanical
stresses (e.g. bending, compression, tension and torsion) and
thermal stresses which may happen on cable insulation [1].
Modelling, either physically through experimental setups or
numerically through simulations by computers, is a serious need for
any investigation about PDs. This need arises from the fact that
investigations on the contributions of different combinations of PD
sources (i.e. cavities) including geometrical parameters (cavity size,
depth, shape …), internal conditions (internal gas pressure or
temperature and composition, internal surface smoothness, space
charge …) and insulation characteristics (insulation type, age,
thickness …) cannot be managed on cables in-service. Moreover,
fixing some of these parameters at desired values or even measuring
their values may not be available, not only in the real world but also
in experimental modelling. Therefore numerical models have
attracted the researchers on PD phenomenon as they have enough
flexibility to cover all combinations of different values for the
mentioned parameters.
Numerical PD modelling can be categorised as ‘micro models’
and ‘macro models’. The former one includes, mainly, those
methods that focus on studying electric field distributions inside
cavities and providing explanations of induced charges before and
after PD occurrence, the electron avalanche generation and
formation of discharge up to extinguishing. Employing either
mathematical formulations or finite element simulations have some
examples in the literature [2–6]. Besides, micro models investigate
the impact of free electrons, gas combination, cavity shape, cavity
surface changes because of chemical and physical reactions and
modelling of various regimes of discharges during their evolutions
within cavity. Nevertheless, the main disadvantages of micro
models are that they cannot be employed (at least as such they are)
in simulations for producing PD signals anywhere else along the
cable, for example, cable terminals.
Macro models, which are mainly circuit models, themselves can be
divided to Capacitive models (C-models), which have mostly proposed
models (RC-models) [9, 10]. RC-models have evolved in their life
and various modifications have been proposed in order to remove
and/or respond to the criticisms about them. Their deficiencies
include assumption of Laplacian fields to derive the elements of the
model, ignoring the cavity conditions and/or characteristics in
calculating the elements of the model and lack of equipotential
surfaces matched with the inner surfaces of cavity [11]. The new
generation of this type of models has been proposed in [12–14],
which are based on induced charge concept. A comprehensive
circuit model for cavities embedded in solid insulations of cables has
been proposed in [15] (further extended to include electrical trees
[16], as well), where the contributions of geometrical properties of
cavity (such as size, shape and depth) on the elements of the model
as well as stochastic delay in PD occurrence (for modelling the
contributions of free electrons remained from previous PDs) have
been considered and its results were shown that are in good
agreement with the ones obtained in experimental investigations.
In this paper, the structure of the model in [15] is extended to give,
for the first time, three distinct views of the cavity embedded in cable
insulation in its three life stages, that is:
† Gas composition stage;
† Electronegative gases initiation stage; and
† Surface erosion stage.
The simulation results have been compared with the published
ones drawn from experimental setups built for accelerated ageing
processes, which have shown good agreements.
The rest of this paper is organised as follows. First, the concept of
cavity ageing and related phenomena are explained in Section 2.
In Section 3, the basic circuit model is introduced, the one that the
proposed set of aged models is based on. Then, in the next section,
the proposed set of models for cavity in its process of ageing is
described. This section is divided into three subsections that
illustrate the evolution of different stages. The simulation results are
presented, discussed and conceptually compared with the previous
published results in Section 5, and finally the paper concludes.
2 Ageing mechanisms within cavity
Degradation inside cavities exposed to PDs, usually, begins at
localised regions on the internal surface of cavities and gradually

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penetrates into the insulation, and finally cause final insulation
breakdown. To make timely decisions about carrying on and/or
replacing cables, monitoring and assessment of cables, to find out
whether PDs have reached a critical state or not (as an indicator of
cable insulation condition), is very important. Any intrinsic and/or
extrinsic ageing factors cause different impacts on physical and
chemical characteristics of cavities, which in turn affect on the
ageing trend and cable lifetime.
Following changes can be observed during the ageing process of a
cavity [17–20]:
† Increase in surface conductivity because of the reaction processes
of humidity and the gaseous dissociation at short time after PD
occurrence;
† Variations in inside gas composition and humidity because of
electron avalanches;
† Production of electronegative gases such as carbon monoxide
(CO), carbon-di-oxide (CO2) and hydrogen dioxide (H2O);
† Coarsening void surface because of chemical reaction such as
crystal and droplet formation; and
† Growth of electrical tree at the local contaminant regions.
Many researches have been followed to identify and distinguish
intervals of ageing for solid insulations. Assigning these periods
can give proper warnings to utilities in scheduling maintenance
actions. In [17, 21], life tests for 15 specimens have been carried
out and the ageing process has been divided into four stages, based
on the trend of the PD repetition rate (number of PD pulses in
pre-defined cycles) and discharge amplitude values, whereas for
each stage the phase resolved PD (PRPD) patterns have been
recorded. Similar measurements have been reported in [18], where
according to j–q–n patterns (corresponding to the pattern of j as
the PD inception angle, q as the apparent charge of PD and n as the
number of PD pulses), the insulation lifetime has been divided into
five stages recommended for diagnosis of insulation degradation.
Besides, attempts have been conducted [19–32], which have
represented experimental results during the accelerated ageing
process.
Overall, in this paper, ageing process has been divided into three
stages, each of which has distinguishable PD behaviour including the
trends of repetition rate and average PD charge both represented by
the forms of j–q–n pattern, in a two-dimensional (2D) form of j–q,
whereas the number of PD repetition rate can be recognised from the
summation of the number of specified points on the pattern for a
number of cycles (as in [33]). The characteristics of each stage can
be summarised as given in Table 1 (the corresponding references
for each cell have been also included); although more detailed
description of each stage has been given in the next sections.
These observations have provided a good description of the
mechanisms of PD activity related to each stage; however, the
main question is how to implement them in one or more models in
order to simulate the behaviour of aged cavities.
3 Basic model
As aforementioned, comprehensive 3-capacitor model proposed by
Haghjoo et al. [15], has been considered as the basis for
developing the set of models for the three ageing stages. Fig. 1
shows this basic model, where RVoid and CVoid are the elements of
cavity model, RSeries and CSeries are the elements of the model for
the safe insulation in the same column with the cavity, RParallel and
CParallel are the elements of the model for the safe insulation of the
rest of the cable. Rarc corresponds to the discharge model. The
switch closes as the voltage across the cavity exceeds the
breakdown voltage and discharge occurrence becomes probable,
and it opens as that voltage becomes lower than the residual
voltage. Different voltages and currents in the circuit of Fig. 1 can
be found by employing any numerical method in analysing
electrical circuits (e.g. the one given by Dommel [40]).

Table 1 Trends of changes of various parameters during the ageing process of cavity
Physical parameter revolutions PD characteristics

Pressure* Temperature* Surface Surface Discharge type Average PD repetition f − q − n pattern

conductivity roughness charge rate

stage1 decrease [17, increase increase not seen [20, 29, streamer decrease decrease turtle-like
18, 34, 35] [1, 19] [19, 36, 37] 37] [20, 22, 38] [17, 21] [17, 21] [17, 18, 23, 35, 39]
stage2 increase [17, increase increase very little [20, townsend increase increase turtle-like to rabbit-like
18, 34, 35] [1, 19] [19, 36, 37] 29, 37] [20, 22, 38] [17, 21] [17, 21] transition [17, 18, 23,
35, 39]
stage3 decrease [17, increase curve saturation gradual erosion townsend to increase (slow decrease (slow rabbit-like to bulgy
18, 34, 35] [1, 19] region [19, 36, 37] [18, 20, 29, 37] glow and slope) [17, 21] slope) [17, 21] turtle-like transition [17,
pitting [20, 29, 18, 23, 35, 39]
38]

*
Owing to time evolution of gas moles during the ageing period, ideal gas law is not satisfied and no direct relation between pressure and temperature exists.

Fig. 1 Basic model for PD analyses on the signals at PD source location (left) and at cable ends (right)

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 The basic model (standing for unaged cavity, embedded in a solid oxygen, the mobility of free electrons increases [18]. This makes
insulation of a cable) includes relations for introducing its elements streamer discharges to appear with smaller amplitudes, which have
and is capable of simulating the contributions of geometrical been also reported by Tanaka [29] and Hikita et al. [39]. To
parameters of cavity (including shape, size and depth), operational represent this process, which results in decrements in average
conditions of cavity (including the contributions of internal gas charge in conjunction with decrements in PD repetition rate, gas
pressure or temperature and random existence and behaviour of conductivity was chosen to be increased, as one of the effective
free space charges) and cable insulation characteristics (including parameters in this stage.
insulation type, age and thickness). Nevertheless, this basic model
has not been prepared for modelling the ageing process that 4.1.3 Surface conductivity: Tanaka [29] commented that the
happens in embedded cavities inside cable insulations. oxygen contributes on uniform void surface degradation.
Therefore it is necessary to improve the model and its components Moreover, Morshuis [20] and Hudon et al. [36, 37] reported that
and/or modify the basic model in each ageing time interval of cavity. the surface resistivity decreases dramatically (at least six to seven
Indeed, to simulate aged cavities, it is expected that the modifications orders of magnitude) to a low and stable value at the early times
of the basic model involve only with RVoid, CVoid and the closing/ of ageing process of cavities.
opening of the switch, where the basic relations for these elements These changes in the conductivity of the void surface must be
are rewritten in Appendix 1 (see Table 7). considered and modelled. Considering the configuration of the
cable as shown in Fig. 2, the cavity surface should be exposed (in
this paper, thickness of this conductive layer has been assumed in
4 Advanced model the range of 10−3–10−2 times of void diameter). Thus, an RC
element should be added to the basic model (as shown in the same
The set of models proposed contains three models corresponding to figure) to simulate the contribution of cavity surface.
the three stages of a cavity in its process of ageing; without Elements of this new branch, Rsurface and Csurface, are introduced
concerning about the reasons behind the ageing process. In other (in a similar way to the calculations in [15]) as follows (other
words, the models are prepared to be used in simulation of the parameters have been defined in Table 7)
defined ageing stages and it is the responsibility of the user to
select appropriate model for investigating the cavity under study. 1surf
Table 2 superscribes the address of the circuit models proposed in Cu =
ln ((rcond + dc − rc /2)/(rcond + dc − rc /2 − dsurf ))
this paper, which are explained in sequel.
lc
· ·t (1)
4.1 First ageing stage (rcond + dc ) c
1surf lc
In the first stage, the initiation of streamer discharge leads to Cl = . .t
decomposition of trapped cavity gas, which in turn affects the gas ln((rcond + dc + rc /2 + dsurf )/(rcond + dc − rc /2)) (rcond + dc ) c
pressure and cavity wall conductivity. Thus, the effective (2)
parameters in this stage are as follows.
Cu · Cl
Csurface = (3)
4.1.1 Gas pressure: Starting from an unaged specimen, as a Cu + Cl
general time behaviour of cavity gas pressure under constant gas

1 (rcond + dc ) rcond + dc − rc /2
volume, the gas pressure inside the cavity decreases steeply to a Ru = · · ln (4)
lower value [17, 18]; irrespective of void shape and size [34, 41]. ssurf lc tc rcond + dc − rc /2 − dsurf


1 (rcond + dc ) r + dc + rc /2 + dsurf
4.1.2 Gas composition: Rather than variations in gas pressure, it Rl = · · ln cond (5)
ssurf lc tc rcond + dc − rc /2
is the impact of changes in gas composition, which is more
significant on the PD outputs at this stage. In fact, the rate of Rsurface = Ru + Rl (6)
oxygen consumption is higher than gaseous products rate and also
the ratio of O2/N2 becomes low [17, 21], where by lack of where Ru and Cu are equivalent resistance and capacitance of upper
surface of cavity Rl and Cl are the same for lower surface of cavity
and Rsurface and Csurface are the final equivalent resistance and
Table 2 Instructions for creating the proposed set of circuit models capacitance for surface of cavity.
Ageing Circuit Required relations Input data guideline
stage model 4.1.4 Overall: Table 3 summarises the guideline to modify the
basic model to simulate a cavity in its first stage of ageing, whose
first stage Fig. 2 equations of Table 7 Table 2 and Table 8 for
(right) “(1)–(6)” “(9)” for β β – the fourth column results (given in Section 5) have shown good agreements with the
physical observations reported in Table 1 for this stage.
second Fig. 2 equations of Table 7 Table 3 and Table 8 for
stage (right) “(1)–(6)” “(9)” for β β – the fifth column
4.2 Second ageing stage
third Fig. 2 equations of Table 7 Table 4 and Table 8 for
stage (right) “(8)” “(9)” for β β – the sixth column
In this middle stage, the increase in the amounts of electronegative
gases makes more absorption of free electrons taking part in
Table 3 Guidelines (for improving the basic model) to simulate a cavity discharges, which in turn leads to PD pattern transition from
in its first stage of ageing ‘turtle-like’ to ‘rabbit-like’ shape. Again, there are the gas pressure
Rule Variation Instructions
and its composition, which are the main parameters in the second
stage but they show opposite behaviours with respect to the first
1-1 decrease of enclosed change in closing and opening criteria stage. In addition, presence of special gases (as the contribution of
gas pressure of the switch according to the discharges inside the cavity) will have some impacts on the PD
corresponding relations in Table 7 characteristics described as follows.
1-2 increase of enclosed change the value of RVoid according to
gas conductivity the corresponding relation in Table 7
1-3 increase of cavity add an RC branch as shown in Fig. 2
4.2.1 Gas pressure: Unlike the first stage, in this stage, oxygen
surface conductivity molecules are reproduced and gas pressure increases again. The
increment in gas pressure has been reported as low [17].

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4.2.2 Gas composition: Owing to re-generation of oxygen with
a higher rate rather than its consumption rate in this stage [17], the
mobility of free electrons decreases; and, thus, PD inception
voltages and PD charge values increase.
4.2.3 Electronegative gases: In addition to oxygen, other
electronegative gases such as CO, CO2 and H2O are generated
[17]. These electronegative gases absorb free electrons. Hence, the
time interval between two successive discharges rises and PD
occurs in larger voltage values; which in turn raises the PD charge
value. In most cases, these large PDs occur at the beginning of
each round of PD inceptions in each half cycle. Thus, another type
of PD pattern shows up, which is known as the ‘rabbit-like’
pattern [17, 18].
In addition to the voltage criterion (i.e. reaching voltage across the
cavity to a voltage higher than its breakdown voltage), circumstances
for PD occurrence have been modelled accurately by introducing an
additional criterion, that is, PD occurrence probability function
proposed by Candela et al. [42] and Schifani and Candela [43]
and improved by Haghjoo et al. [15] (the corresponding relation
has been given in Table 7). Therefore the switch in Fig. 1 closes
whenever both the voltage criterion as well as the probability
criterion is fulfilled. In this respect, the authors have found that
employing a time-varying exponent, β, in the relation of
probability function can be a good approach to manage the
probability of avalanche occurrence in the presence of
electronegative gases. Exponential increment of β function, which
makes decrement in the value of the probability function,
simulates the physical concept of capturing free electrons by
Fig. 2 Schematic illustration of cavity in cable insulation (left) and its model regarding cavity surface (right)
Fig. 3 Schematic illustration of eroded cavity surface (left) and its corresponding sphere–plane configuration (right)
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electronegative gases, resulting in larger delay in PD occurrence.
More details about the proposed model for β function are given in
Appendix 2.
4.2.4 Overall: Table 4 summarises the guideline to change the
first stage model to simulate a cavity in its second stage of ageing,
whose results (given in Section 5) have shown good agreements
with the physical observations reported in Table 1 for this stage.
4.3 Third ageing stage
The first two stages of the ageing process in the cavity have smaller
time intervals in the whole of ageing process until final breakdown,
and it is the third stage which takes the major interval, in this respect.
In this stage, in addition to evolution of gas composition, cavity wall
degradation leads to important events with vital effects on extension
of defect until final breakdown occurrence. The following events
have been observed.
4.3.1 Gas pressure: In this stage, consumption of various gases
and reaction with the insulation surface goes on. Thus, gas pressure
gradually decreases. The pressure reduction rate depends on
temperature and voltage [34]. Experimental results in [17, 21]
have shown slight decrement of gas pressure.
4.3.2 Gas composition: Some of electronegative gases, such as
O2, are consumed during the chemical reaction on the void surface.
At the same time, other types of electronegative gases are generated
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Table 4 Guidelines (for improving the first model) to simulate a cavity
in its second stage of ageing
Rule Variation Instructions
2-1 increase of enclosed change in closing and opening criteria
gas pressure of the switch according to the
corresponding relations in Table 7
2-2 decrease of enclosed change the value of RVoid according to
gas conductivity the corresponding relation in Table 7
2-3 increase of void surface keep the RC branch standing for the
conductivity cavity surface
2-4 decrease of mobility of use time-dependent Beta function
free electrons defined by (9)
including CO, CO2 and H2O. As a result, the reduction in the
repetition rate of PDs takes lower rates.
4.3.3 Glow discharges: By increments in humidity and
temperature and density of nitrogen molecules within the gas,
another type of discharges can be observed. These PDs, known as
‘glow discharge’, have lower amplitudes and wider pulse widths
rather than PD pulses in the first two stages.
4.3.4 Surface erosion: Glow discharges generate other products
namely crystals, such as oxalic acid, on the void surface and cause
considerable damage to the insulation [18, 19]. Formation of
localised crystals leads to local discharges and further degradation of
cavity surface happens by formation of pits on the surface of cavity
[19, 20, 32]. Furthermore, electrical field enhancement at crystal tips
leads to formation of water and electrical trees in these regions.
4.3.5 Electric field non-uniformities: Owing to non-uniform
field distribution inside the cavity, localised discharges occur in
the regions whose field strengths are high.
In this paper, to consider the contributions of the three latter
phenomena, a model for equivalent capacitance of cavity has been
proposed. In this model, eroded cavity surface has been assumed
to have a wave-shape form, schematically shown in Fig. 3, as an
assumption to consider the cavity surface with a number of pits
being located on. Then, as the tips of such surface play more
important role in the formation of electrical field, the tips as the
start and end points of electric field lines were assumed to be
substituted by spheres. Finally, considering one of these tips/
spheres on each of the opposite surfaces of cavity as the starting
and ending points of discharge phenomenon (and neglecting the
others for simplification), according to the Gauss’s law and by
applying ‘image theorem’ with considering uniform charge
distribution on these spheres, the equivalent capacitance
corresponding to ‘sphere–sphere’ configuration can be simplified
by ‘sphere–plane’ structure whose equivalent capacitance can be
presented by
4p10
CVoid = (7)
(1/a) − (1/(2d + a))
where 2d is the distance between cavity surfaces ( = rc in Fig. 10) and
a is the radius of eroded surface tips, illustrated in Fig. 3. By
comparing the above relation with some others (such as the ones
proposed by Najafipoor [44] and Shallal and Harrison [45]), need
of some improvements were discovered, especially for low values
of d/a. Therefore, the final relation, to substitute for CVoid of the
basic model, has been introduced by multiplying a dimensionless
factor in terms of d/a to CVoid as
4p1 a
Creformed =   0  [k1 eg1 (d/a) + k2 eg2 (d/a) ] (8)
1 − 1/ 1 + 2(d/a)
where k1, k2, γ1 and γ2 are constant parameters found through fitting
process.
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Table 5 Guidelines (for improving the second model) to simulate a
cavity in its third stage of ageing
Rule Variation Instructions
3-1 decrease of enclosed change in closing and opening criteria
gas pressure of the switch according to the
corresponding relations in Table 7
3-2 roughness of void change the value of CVoid according
surface to (8)
3-3 decrease of mobility of use time-dependent Beta function
free electrons defined by (9)
4.3.6 Overall: Table 5 summarises the guideline to change the
second stage model (with keeping the RC branch standing for the
cavity surface) to simulate a cavity in its third stage of ageing,
whose results (given in Section 5) have shown good
agreements with the physical observations reported in Table 1
for this stage.
5 Results and discussion
In the previous section, the requirements for modelling of cavity in
each stage of its ageing process, according to the physical
phenomena, have been proposed. In this section, the results of
applying each model (with assigned parameters given in Table 6),
in simulating the deterioration process of cavity are presented.
To obtain these results for each stage, first, node voltages and/or
branch currents were calculated at each time step, by employing
nodal analysis, after applying numerical integration substitution to
the corresponding circuit model (where, as in [46], based on
trapezoidal integration, each element of the considered circuit is
converted into a resistance in parallel with a current source). Next,
the results of PRPD patterns for each stage (extracted from 20
sequential cycles) were obtained by:
To find q corresponding to each PD pulse: Applying numerical
integration to the transient component of the current passing
through the ‘switch’ in the corresponding circuit model; each time
it closes, up to the time it opens later;
To find j corresponding to each PD pulse: Keeping the time instant
that the ‘switch’ closes and finding its corresponding phase angle on
applied voltage waveform;
In this step, 2D patterns such as the ones in Figs. 4–9 can be
sketched, by indicating the points corresponding to each twin j–q
data; and
To find n: counting the number of points indicated in each cycle, as
shown in Fig. 4 (alternatively, the number of points indicated for
each j can be counted).
For better illustration and giving more informative reasoning and
discussion, the patterns are presented in four time snapshots in each
stage.
5.1 First ageing stage
In this stage, the consumption of oxygen increases resulting in more
mobility of electrons involved in discharge process and PDs to occur
at lower voltages rather than unaged cases, which in turn makes
gradual decrease in PD magnitudes during this stage.
Fig. 4 shows the results for four snapshots during this stage,
by applying all the rules in Table 3 for modelling of this stage,
where the gas and surface conductivities were incremented and the
gas pressure was decreased in each case during this stage. The trend
of these results agrees with the published results in [17, 18], where:
† During this stage, PRPD patterns of ‘turtle-like’ have been
observed;
† Investigations have shown that the increment of gas conductivity
has more effect on PD behaviour and PRPD patterns, rather than the
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Fig. 4 PRPD pattern of four snapshots (a to d) during the first stage (while in each case decrements in gas pressure and increments in gas and surface
conductivities have been considered)

Fig. 5 PRPD pattern of four snapshots (a to d) during the second stage (while in each case slight increments in gas pressure, decrements in gas conductivities
and increments in surface conductivities, along with β function changes according to Appendix 2, have been considered)

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Fig. 6 PRPD pattern of four snapshots (a–d) during the third stage (while in each case decrements in gas pressure and increments in wall roughness, along with
β function changes according to Appendix 2, have been considered)

Fig. 7 PRPD pattern of the first ageing stage for different cavity sizes, (left) 400 μm and (right) 800 μm

Fig. 8 PRPD pattern of the second ageing stage for different cavity depths, (left) 50% and (right) 80% of insulation thickness from core

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Fig. 9 PRPD pattern of the third stage for different levels of erosion on cavity surface, (left) a = 20 μm and (right) a = 10 μm in Fig. 3

Table 6 Input data being applied to the cavity. Therefore, PD repetition rate increases,
which agrees with the experimental results of [17, 21].
Parameters Values

applied voltage, root mean 25 kV

square
conductor radius, rcond
cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE)
insulation thickness, dins
dimensions of cavity, rc, lc, tc
position of cavity, dc
tip radius, a
5.3 Third ageing stage
5.5 mm
The evolution related to the last stage of lifetime, expressed in this
4 mm paper, has been reported in [17–20], such as reduction of gas
consumption rate [17], production of CO and CO2 gases [18],
400 μm erosion of cavity surface, deposition of discharge by-products
middle (2 mm from sheath)
leading to locally field enhancement [19, 20] and ultimately
formation of ‘turtle-like’ patterns in this stage [17, 18].
flat form in the first two snapshots; Fig. 6 shows PRPD patterns for four snapshots of this stage,
40 μm in the third snapshot; and 20
μm in the last snapshot of the third
whereas all the rules in Table 5 have been applied and β as
stage defined for this stage in Appendix 2 was employed.

† As expected, pattern transition from ‘rabbit-like’ to ‘turtle-like’

other two parameters during this stage; where in conjunction with
gas pressure result in lowering qs in j–q–n patterns;
† On the other hand, as the variation in gas pressure is low in this
stage, the variation in js should not be significant [39], as also
depicted in Fig. 4; and
† Corresponding to the four snapshots, obtained PD repetition rates
have shown a decreasing trend (from 220, 170 and 118, down to 84
in 20 cycles), where this trend occurs as a result of the increase of gas
conductivity, which makes the voltage across the cavity and,
consequently, PD repetition rate to decrease. This result agrees
with the experimental results of [17, 21].
5.2 Second ageing stage
In the second stage, the existence of electronegative gases has the
major contribution on absorbing free electrons that raises the time
interval between two successive discharges which in turn increase
PD charge values; mostly at the beginning of each half cycle.
By applying all modelling rules proposed in Table 4 with employing
β as defined in Appendix 2, PRPD patterns corresponding to the four
snapshots in this stage have been extracted and shown in Fig. 5.
These results are also in good agreement with experimental
observations elsewhere [17, 18], where the followings can be observed:
† During this stage, PRPD patterns make transition from ‘turtle-like’
to ‘rabbit-like’;
† In conjunction with this transition, the average charges of PDs
occurring at lower js in each half cycle gradually increase;
† As the increment in gas pressure is low, no significant variation in
js has been observed; and
† PD repetition rates corresponding to the four snapshots have shown
an increasing trend (from 84, 104 and 137, up to 214 in 20 cycles).
In this stage, the decrease of gas conductivity causes higher voltage
shape which gradually becomes more bulgy (with larger ‘humps’)
can be observed;
† In conjunction with this transition, the average charges of PDs has
increments;
† As the decrements in gas pressure is very low, no significant
variation in js has been observed; and
† Although Morshuis [19] and Tanaka [29] have found many tiny
discharges at the end of this stage as a consequence of decrements
in the percentage of streamer discharges and evolution of glow
discharges, Tanaka [29] has discussed that these tiny discharges
may not be detected. In this paper, the glow discharge occurrence
has not been considered and modelled, therefore, similar to the
trends obtained by the experimental results [17, 21], PD repetition
rates corresponding to the four snapshots of this stage have shown
a decreasing trend (from 214, 199 and 147, down to 128 in 20
cycles).
5.4 Overall discussion
In addition to the above-mentioned discussion expressed for the
results of each stage, other investigations have been performed
where some of the results are as follows:
† The proposed model of the first stage clearly exposes the effect of
the size of cavity on PRPD pattern, in a way that the PD charge and
also repetition rate (from 84 to 117) increase as the size of cavity gets
larger (shown in Fig. 7).
† The proposed model of the second stage also correctly represents
the effect of the depth of cavity (from core) on PRPD pattern, where
it can be seen (Fig. 8) that the ‘ear of rabbit’ in the pattern gets
smaller, whereas PD charge and also repetition rate (from 214 to
120) decrease as the cavity moves farther from the core.
† Moreover, the proposed model of the third stage can show the
variations on PRPD pattern as the erosion of the cavity surface
increases, that is, as the condition of PD source becomes worst or

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668 & The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2015
the cavity ageing proceeds, where this phenomenon can be modelled
by decreasing the radius of tip/sphere in Fig. 3. To illustrate this
phenomenon, Fig. 9 depicts that the ‘turtle-like’ pattern becomes
more bulgy, whereas PD charge and also repetition rate (from 128
to 184) increase.
6 Conclusions
In this paper, a new set of circuit models has been proposed
for modelling cavity ageing, which can deliver the influences of this
phenomenon on the initiated PD pulses. The novelty of the
proposed models is on transforming the physical phenomena to the
effective parameters applicable to the cavity circuit models at its
considered stages of ageing (where the basic/unaged circuit model
was also created in the same laboratory). The well-known PRPD
patterns as well as PD repetition rate and apparent charge magnitude
have been obtained in different ageing stages and the trends have
been compared with the previously published experimental results
to validate the proposed model. The results have shown good
agreements with the ones published from experimental works.
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8 Appendix
8.1 Appendix 1: relations for basic cavity model
The relations for defining the elements of the basic model for a cavity
(i.e. unaged cavity), schematically shown in Fig. 10, have been
presented in [15] (the conversion of cavities with other shapes
rather than the one in this figure have also been proposed in the
same reference). Here, again, they are represented in Table 7 in
order to be a basis for the relations and guidelines derived in this
paper.
669
 Table 8 Parameters of time-varying β function in four snapshots of
different stages

Unaged Aged conditions

condition
Stages

Constants of (9) _ First stage Second stage Third stage

A 1st snapshot 0.4 0.3997 0.3997 0.3986

2nd snapshot 0.3997 0.3996 0.5003
3rd snapshot 0.3997 0.3994 0.6004
4th snapshot 0.3997 0.3986 0.7006
B 1st snapshot 0 0 0 0.03427
2nd snapshot 0 0.02309 0.02845
3rd snapshot 0 0.0314 0.02826
4th snapshot 0 0.03427 0.02783
C 1st snapshot 0 0.0003 0.0003 2.07 × 10−10
2nd snapshot 0.0003 0.0002305 1.916 × 10−8
3rd snapshot 0.0003 1.533 × 10−9 1.995 × 10−7
4th snapshot 0.0003 2.07 × 10−10 3.23 × 10−6
D 1st snapshot 0 0 0 0
2nd snapshot 0 1.149 3.382
3rd snapshot 0 3.839 2.848
4th snapshot 0 4.331 2.202

function for β, the influence of electronegative gases (whose

Fig. 10 Schematic cross-section of a cable with embedded cavity within
insulation material
8.2 Appendix 2: time-varying Beta function definition
To simulate the role of free electrons in the discharge process, that is,
providing the contributions of stochastic time delay in PDs, Haghjoo
et al. [15] have proposed a probability function (defined in Table 7)
which should become greater than a random generated number for
PD inception.
This probability function depends on the Weibull parameters,
where by tuning these parameters the stochastic time delay in PD
process can be handled. However, the results show that β plays
more important role rather than α in this function. In the new
model, proposed for aged cavity, by introducing a time-varying
characteristic in absorption of free electrons should be modelled in
the second and third stages of cavity ageing) has been merged in
the probability function, that is, the contribution of the existence
of these gases can be simulated. The proposed model for β is as
follows
b(t) = AeBt + CeDt (9)
where t (in milliseconds) resets whenever PD occurs. A, B, C and D
are dimensionless parameters for setting β function curve which are
chosen so that the value of β reaches its maximum after a quarter
cycle (as the maximum time interval between the last PD in a half
cycle and the first PD in the next half cycle).
For this time-varying β to simulate the contribution of
electronegative gases on delaying PD occurrences, Table 8 gives
numerical values of the model in different stages of ageing process.

Table 7 Relations for the basic model (unaged cavities)

Parameter Relation Remarks

RVoid
 rcond, tc, lc, rc and dc are geometrical parameters, defined in

1 (rcond + dc ) r + dc + rc /2
Rvoid = · · ln cond Fig. 10
svoid l c tc rcond + dc − rc /2

10 l c tc
CVoid Cvoid =     ·
ln rcond + dc + rc /2 / rcond + dc − rc /2 (rcond + dc )
⎧   ⎫
⎨ ln (Ṅ pu ) · (t − t )pu b ⎬

  
probability function to model P (t) = 1 − exp − surf b
f − eE/(4p10 )
stochastic delay in discharges ⎩ a ⎭ pu
Ṅ surf = Ne .n0 . exp −
t
· exp −
t KT
α and β are Weibull parameters other parameters have
been defined in [15]
d  √ 
breakdown voltage Vbd = 2.1 rc + 2.42rc δ = 295( p/T ) other parameters have been defined in [15]
kh

gd
residual voltage Vres = 2.42 ·r other parameters have been defined in [15]
kh c

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670 & The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2015