High Voltage

Engineering
EE4207
Lecture 06: Breakdown of Gaseous Insulations II

Vidura Jayasooriya, Ph.D.

vidura@sjp.ac.lk
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Breakdown of Gaseous Insulations

Time Lags Spark Breakdown

- Breakdown under impulse fields
- Actual BD
- Applied voltage sufficient for BD
- A certain time elapses
• Appearance of avalanche initiating electron
• Temporal growth of current
- Statistical time lag, ts
- Formative time lag, tf
- Time lag characteristics
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Breakdown of Gaseous Insulations
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Breakdown of Gaseous Insulations
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Breakdown of Gaseous Insulations

Corona Discharge
In a uniform electric field
- Gradual increase in voltage across a gap
- Breakdown of the gap
- Form of a spark
- Without any preliminary discharges
Non uniform field
- Increase in voltage
- Localized discharge
- Points with the highest electric field intensity
- At sharp points or where the electrodes are curved or on transmission line conductors
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Breakdown of Gaseous Insulations

Corona Formation
Disruptive Critical Voltage (dcv)
- As the voltage is increased, the air surrounding the conductors get ionised
- At a certain voltage a hissing noise is heard caused by the formation of corona
Visual Corona Inception Voltage
- Further increase in voltage
- visible violet glow around the conductors
Corona – DC voltage
- Positive – Uniform discharge pattern
- Negative – Patchy, with streamers at rough points
- AC – Appears uniform, but combination of both
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Breakdown of Gaseous Insulations

Losses due to Corona Discharge

- Formation of corona
- Current waveform and therefore the voltage waveform à Non-sinusoidal
- Loss of power
- High frequency discharges – RF interference
- Preventing Corona formation
- Operating voltage kept at least 10% less than the dcv, under fair weather conditions
- Increase the effective radius
- A safety front for lightning surges
- Reducing the effective magnitude of the surge
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Breakdown of Gaseous Insulations

Waveform of Corona Current

- Under normal conditions
- Purely capacitive shunt current
- No power loss in the line under no load conditions
- Corona occurs
- Air is rendered conducting, power loss
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Breakdown of Gaseous Insulations

Mechanism of Corona Formation

- Maximum electric stress at the conductor surface

- Decrease rapidly with distance
- When a critical value is reached
- Air in the region become conducting

- Increase the effective diameter of the conductor

- Voltage remains constant
- Two effects
1. An increase in the effective sharpness of the conductor would reduce the stress outside this
region
2. Cause a reduction of the effective spacing between the conductors leading to an increase in
stress
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Breakdown of Gaseous Insulations

Mechanism of Corona Formation

- Fair weather conditions
- BD strength of air, 30 kV/cm
- Wet, stormy weather conditions
- Higher number of ions
- Corona formation at a much lower voltage
- Around 80% that of at fair weather conditions
- Electric stress in a two-conductor system
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Breakdown of Gaseous Insulations

Mechanism of Corona Formation

- electric stress E at a distance x from a conductor of radius r, and separated from the return
conductor by a distance d
1 𝑞
𝐸= .
𝜖! 2𝜋𝑥𝑙
where, q - charge on each conductor in length l
- Potential V,
#$"
𝑞%
𝑉 = , 𝐸𝑑𝑥 = ,
" 2𝜋𝑥𝜖!
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Breakdown of Gaseous Insulations

Example
Determine the
i. Disruptive Critical Voltage
ii. Visual Corona inception voltage
iii. Power loss in the line due to corona
both under fair weather conditions as well as stormy weather conditions
for a 100 km long 3 phase, 132 kV line consisting of conductors of diameter 1.04 cm, arranged in an
equilateral triangle configuration with 3 m spacing. The temperature of the surroundings is 400 C and
the pressure is 750 torr.
The operating frequency is 50 Hz. [The irregularity factors may be taken as mo = 0.85, mv = 0.72]
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Breakdown of Gaseous Insulations

Dielectric Degradation
- Organic insulating materials are subject in varying degree to deterioration
- A chemical process involving decomposition of the material to such an extent that it no
longer functions adequately as the intended insulation
- Electrical breakdown or dielectric breakdown occur
- solids, liquids, gases or vacuum
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Breakdown of Gaseous Insulations

Dielectric Degradation

Surface Degradation
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Breakdown of Gaseous Insulations
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Breakdown of Gaseous Insulations
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Breakdown of Gaseous Insulations

Dielectric Degradation
Thermal Ageing
- Accelerated by increased temperature (logarithm of the life t of the insulation varies
somewhat linearly with the inverse of the absolute temperature θ)
𝐿𝑜𝑔 10 𝑡 = 𝐴/ 𝜃 + 𝐵
For vacuum dried paper immersed in oil in contact with nitrogen,
A= 7000 and B = – 16.9 when t is expressed in wk and θ in K.
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Breakdown of Gaseous Insulations

Dielectric Degradation
Thermal Conductivity
- Materials used for electrical insulation is in general also good thermal insulation
- Insulation of electrical apparatus, which develop heat during their operation
à Higher operating temperature because insulation hinders escape of heat
- Higher thermal conductivity
- reduce the operating temperatures
- increase the life expectancy
- improve the performance of the apparatus
Air is a good thermal insulator
- impregnation with dielectric liquids remove these air pockets and improve the thermal conductivity
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Breakdown of Gaseous Insulations

Dielectric Degradation
Softening Temperature
- Most of the solid dielectrics will soften on rise in temperature, and some of them may
even melt.
Thermal Shock Resistance
- Thermal shock resistance (i.e. the ability to withstand a sharp rise in temperature) is an
important characteristic for brittle materials and components. The stability of a material to
thermal shocks depends on its linear temperature coefficient
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Breakdown of Gaseous Insulations

Dielectric Degradation
Viscosity
- Measure of its resistance to deformation at a given rate
- Important characteristics, especially liquid and semi-liquid insulating materials such as oils,
varnishes, filling and impregnating compounds.
Flash Point
- Lowest temperature at which a liquid can gives off vapor to form an ignitable mixture in air
near the surface of the liquid
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Breakdown of Gaseous Insulations

Dielectric Degradation
Fire Point
- lowest temperature where the vapor of a liquid will initiate and sustain a combustion
reaction, (5 seconds)
These characteristics are of special interest in estimating the quality of transformer oil and
also solvents used in the production of insulating varnishes
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Breakdown of Gaseous Insulations

Dielectric Degradation
Thermal Expansion
- Thermal expansion of dielectrics is estimated by the temperature coefficient of linear
expansion, a2
- Materials with low a2 generally show the highest thermal endurance
Cold endurance
At low temperatures, the dielectric properties of insulating materials generally improve,
but some of these materials which are flexible under normal conditions become brittle in
hard frost so that operating reliability is reduced
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Breakdown of Gaseous Insulations

Properties and use of dielectric materials

Gaseous Dielectrics
Advantages
- High resistivity
- Low relative permittivity (close to unity)
- Small loss tangent
Drawbacks
- Low dielectric strength, which is quite often off set by the use of gasses under pressure.
- When used in capacitances, the low relative permittivity increases the bulk of the
capacitor.
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Breakdown of Gaseous Insulations
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Breakdown of Gaseous Insulations

Factors affecting BDV of a vacuum gap

- Electrode Separation
- Electrode Effects
- Conditioning
- Material and Surface Finish
- Surface contamination
- Area and configuration of electrodes
- Temperature
- Frequency of applied voltage
- Vacuum Pressure