Time dependence of spacer charging in SF6
under DC stress
Michael Schueller, Ueli Straumann and Christian M. Franck
Power Systems and High Voltage Laboratories, ETH Zurich, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland
Abstract- As gas insulated DC transmission systems unite the
advantages of space saving installation and big transmission
capacity, this technology will become essential soon. The main
problem in operation with respect to insulation seems to be
identified today, which is charge accumulation on the surface of
the insulators, so called spacers. These trapped charges can cause
a reduction of dielectric strength and can lead to a breakdown,
especially at polarity reversals and overvoltages.
For experiments, a full encapsulated test setup was constructed.
Test voltages up to 700 kV DC and a pressure up to 8 bar SF6 are
possible. The main component of this setup is a 3 axis fully
automated robotic handle system for moving the probe over the
test samples inside the encapsulation. So the surface charge can
be measured at all positions at the sample surface.
The time dependence of the charging mechanism till the
saturated state is of big interest. Thus the experiments presented
in this paper deal with the influence of the measurement itself on
the charging process.
I. INTRODUCTION
Considering the great increase of new renewables and thus
the increased need for high transmission capacities, HVDC
technology will become more and more important in the future
[4]. As gas insulated equipment can be installed in a very
space saving way, gas insulated switchgears and gas insulated
lines are becoming increasingly interesting due to their
advantages already known from AC applications [3].
Due to DC, the electric fields are not capacitively but
resistively determined. This can lead to considerable charging
and a change in the dielectric stress of the insulation [7]. The
neuralgic part of the insulation seems to be the surface of the
insulators interfacing SF6 and solid insulation, as well as the
triple junctions on the insulators [8]. Especially breakdown
voltages in situations of polarity reversal may be reduced
under DC conditions due to charge accumulation [9].
In order to investigate the unknown effects with respect to DC,
a suitable full encapsulated test setup was constructed for
accurate measurements of SF6 insulated GIS spacer charging
under DC stress.
The main goal of this paper is to show the impact of the
measuring procedure itself on the accumulation of surface
charges. So it was investigated if the measurements of the
surface potential influence the charge accumulation and with it
especially the temporal evolution of the surface charges.
II. THEORY
Various factors can influence the charging process and thus
have to be considered.
If the voltage on the high voltage electrode is switched off for
measuring, it has a potential of U = 0 V. But the surface
978-1-4673-1252-3/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE
potential on the spacer can be quite high, up to a few kV. So it
might happen that charges are lost because of discharges back
to the high voltage electrode. As SF6 has a dielectric strength
of 8.8 kV/mm·bar, only the upper end of the spacer can be
affected. Thus this effect should be negligible also due to its
small spatial impact.
The measurement probe itself can also have pronounced
influences on the charging. If the probe is put too close to the
spacer surface, discharges from the surface onto the sensor are
possible. As a Kalvin Probe (explained later) was used, this
effect is minimized as the sensor head is put to the same
potential as it is measuring. Thus there is no potential between
the surface and the probe except at very fast potential jumps
faster than 330 V/ms, which is the maximal velocity of the
probe.
Charges can also decay via the bulk insulation material as
charges drift by the face of the electric field. As the time
constant in Teflon is huge, this effect can be neglected
considering the measurements that take around 1 minute.
Of course the gas phase itself has an influence on the charge
decay. The main effects that have to be considered are
detachment and recombination of the charges in the gas. This
was investigated in detail in [5].
III. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP AND MEASUREMENT
PROCEDURE
As it was shown in [1] it is not possible to conclude from
small scale models to full scale geometries taking the gas
phase of the setup into account. That is because the larger the
geometry, the higher the ion current in the gas gets due to
natural ionization, as the possible way of an electrical field
line also gets longer when the setup turns from small size
models into real applications [1].
Thus the constructed test setup should have dimensions like a
real GIS application and should be operated at voltages close
to real applications. This was reached by using parts from a
real GIS for 550 kV AC as a test vessel.
Test SetUp
The used test vessel has an inner radius of 0.55 m and the
overall volume of the setup is 617 liters. The experimental
setup can be operated from vacuum up to 8 bar SF6 or any
other gas.
The electrodes between which the test sample is put have a
modular design, thus various forms of electrodes can be
installed.
The required DC voltage is generated by two Greinacher
cascades that can be switched on the test setup alternately.
Thus power reversal tests with voltages up to +/- 320 kV DC
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with a reversal time of less than four seconds can be
performed.
As the setup has to be gas-tight, a handling system for test
spacers and the measurement probe had to be constructed
inside the test vessel. This was realized with various systems
built by the company Festo. Three axes were used for that
purpose: One horizontal axis for moving the measuring probe
to the sample and back again when high voltage is applied, a
vertical driving system is used for moving the earth side
electrode up and down, and the third system is to rotate the
earth electrode with the test sample standing on it. Thus every
point of the spacer models is accessible and the accumulated
surface charges on the whole surface of the test sample can be
measured.
As correct positions - especially the distance between the
surface of the spacer and the measuring probe - are of great
importance, all the moving axes have an accuracy of repetition
of 0.08 mm. All axes can be operated at a speed of 100 mm/s
to keep measurement procedures short in order to minimize
the impact of the measurement procedure on the charging
process.
All axes can be controlled via PC and thus fully automated
measurements are possible.
Measuring
For measuring the accumulated surface charges, the DC-
Stable Electrostatic Voltmeter 347 from Trek was used. This
is a high precision electrostatic voltmeter with a vibrating
Kalvin probe for doing non contacting surface charge or
voltage measurements. The sensor is placed on the horizontal
automatic handling system and has to be put in a distance of 2
mm to the surface of the test sample for measuring.
The principle of the vibrating Kalvin probe was introduced by
W.A. Zisman in 1932 [2].
As electronics has improved massively over the last years, this
measurement method is very suitable for surface charge
measurements as it is also very stable and accurate.
A step of 1 kV can be followed within 3 ms. Thus fast
measuring procedures are possible. As the drift with time is
less than 100 ppm/h, long time decay measurements of the
accumulated surface charges can be done as well.
Due to minimization of the measuring probe, according to the
manufacturer a resolution of 5 mm² can be achieved.
Test Samples
For the experiments presented in this paper, Teflon samples
were used to minimize the effect of bulk conduction due to the
high bulk resistivity of 1018 Ω cm. In order to get a big normal
component of the electric field on the surface of the spacer,
inserts were designed and put into the test samples.
Measurement Procedure
First it has to be ensured that the test spacer is absolutely
dry. The massive influence of the humidity on the electric
conductivity κ and thus the charging process was worked out
in [4] in detail. To ensure the dryness of the test samples, they
are only stored in vacuum. Further the samples have to be
charge-free before the experiment. This is done by using
Isopropanol for cleaning the sample and only touching it with
conductive grounded gloves.
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Bushing
High voltage electrode
Specimen
Probe for charge measuring
earth electrode automatic probe handling system
DC high voltage source earth connection
voltage
measurement
insulation
automatic earth electrode
handling system,
= rotation and height
Fig. 1 Schematic view of the constructed test setup with voltage supply and
measurement in the left part and the test setup itself on the right side.
After putting the specimen between the electrodes, a pressure
of 0.5 MPa SF6 is filled into the test vessel. Then the High DC
Voltage is applied. For measuring, the high voltage has to be
switched off and the probe has to be moved to the spacer
surface with the horizontal axis of the handling system. For
better measurement accuracy, the probe is then kept in its
position and the cylindrical shaped test sample is moved in
front of the sensor.
The measured voltage signals are put together with the
positions of the 3 axes handling system to map the measured
surface charge on the right position on the spacer surface.
IV. RESULTS
To the Authors’ knowledge, the time dependency of the
charging itself has not yet been studied in detail. Only
measurements of the final saturated state of the charge
accumulation have been presented in literature so far. As also
the charging process itself is of big interest, any possible
disturbances of the measurements in the charging process are
going to to be worked out in detail in this section.
Charge decay
Charge decay during measurements has to be considered to
investigate the maximal possible length of time a
measurement procedure can take without having a large
impact on the whole experiment.
The decay of accumulated surface charges was studied in
more detail in [5]. It was found that the charge decay time
constant strongly depends on the height of the surface
potential. Also a slight difference in the decay time of positive
and negative charges was observed [5].
The main mechanism of decay is natural ionization. The
natural ion production rate was measured in the lab 10 m
below ground level with 29 IP/cm3s. This value matches the
data from literature, such as 26...55 IP/cm3s at 0.4 MPa [6],
quite well.
 represents six measurements at different spacer - sensor
separations. A separation of 3 mm is suggested by the
manufacturer of the sensor and measurements at a separation
of 2 and 1 mm were performed as well. In order to see if the
first measurement in certain spacing did corrupt the
accumulated charges, because of the reasons discussed before,
a second measurement was taken immediately after the first to
see any differences in the surface charge potential.

Fig. 2 Charge decay over the length of the spacer surface for 130 min with a
measurement every 10 minutes after 120h charging with 1 kV (dashed line)

Fig.2 and Fig.3 represent a decay measurement after stressing

the sample with 1 kV DC for 120 hours. In Fig.2 the charge
distribution over the full length of the spacer is shown every
10 minutes, while Fig.3 pictures the surface potential decay in
certain points over 130 minutes decay time.

Fig. 4 Two immediately in a row taken measurements at 3mm sensor spacing

(solid), 2mm spacing (dashed) and 1mm spacing (dotted)
Statistical spread, measurements with and without
interruption
Comparing all identical measurements of a certain electrode
arrangement and using the same charging voltage (more than
the ones shown here), a statistical spread of less than 2.9 %
could be achieved with the constructed setup.

Fig. 3 Measurement points and curve fit for charge decay for 130 min at point
of maximal negative charge (solid), middle of the spacer (dashed) and point of
maximal positive charge (dotted)

The decay of the negative charges follows an exponential law

with time constant neg=43.5 min, while the positive decay
constant is pos=100 min.
Measurements at different spacing
Using a Kalvin Probe [2], the housing of the sensor has to be
brought to the measured surface potential in order to nullify
the current and get a measurement signal [2]. Depending on
the accumulated surface potential, the probe can reach
potentials up to 3 kV.
As the spatial resolution of the surface potential increases with
decreasing distance between sensor head and spacer surface,
this had to be investigated in detail as well. It was considered
that very close spacing would give the best local resolution of
the measured potential but would maybe lead to discharges on
the sharp edged sensor or corruptions due to the potential of
the sensor. Large spacing, in contrast, would decrease the
local resolution. So the impact of the sensor on the
accumulated charges had to be investigated as well. Fig.4
Fig. 5 Charging of a Teflon spacer with + 1 kV for 24h with and without
interruptions for measurements during the 24h charging process
In Fig.5 two measurements lasting 24 hours at + 1 kV DC
charging voltage are presented. The dotted line represents an
experiment where a measurement point was performed every
10 minutes within the first 100 minutes of the charging time.
After that, some more measurement points were taken after 3,
5, 12 and finally 24 hours DC stress. The solid line represents
an experiment under the same conditions as the one just
explained with the difference that only one measurement was
performed after 24 hours of DC stress.

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The slight differences in both curves are within the statistical
spread.
An interruption for performing a measurement did not take
more than 1 minute from switching off the high voltage
performing the measurement till stressing the sample again
with high DC voltage.
V. DISCUSSION
Charge decay due to natural neutralization as detachment and
recombination seems to be a major mechanism for charge
decay on the spacer surface. In Fig.2 and Fig.3 the decay over
130 minutes is shown. It was shown that positive charges
decay slower than negative charges. This was already shown
in literature [12] before. This could be explained with the
smaller electron affinity of the SF6 compared to the surface of
the Teflon sample. Still a widely accepted model has yet not
been found [13].
Decay time till only 50 % of the initial charges are present was
observed with t = 31.5 minutes at the negatively charged part
and t = 74.8 minutes at the positive surface potential. The
negative decay time exactly matches the half-value period of
charge decay on Teflon in SF6 worked out in [10]. The reason
for the slower decay for positive charges has to be studied in
more detail. In [5] it was shown that charges decay slower
when the surface potential is not that high. This is not the case
here as half-period time for the same low starting potential of
+/- 63 V surface potential was still measured with 31 minutes
for the negative case and 75 minutes for the positive.
Keeping one measurement procedure at a measurement time
of 1 minute, only 2.3 % of the accumulated charges decay in
the faster negative case. This rather small failure can be
accepted as it is beyond the statistical spread of measurement
repeat accuracy of 2.9 % achievable with the presented setup.
The measurements presented in Fig.4 show that no surface
charges are ablated by the measuring sensor. One
measurement sequence consists of 2 measurements taken
directly in a row at a certain distance. As in every sequence
both measurements correspond well, it can be concluded that
no charges were ablated by the probe at the first performed
measurement. Further it can be observed that a close
measuring distance improves the local measurement accuracy.
This can be seen quite well from the profile at position 52 mm
and also at the upper part of the spacer where the maximum
charge is accumulated. As the difference of the measurements
between 1 mm and 2 mm distance between sensor and surface
is quite small, a measurement distance of 2 mm instead of
3 mm recommended by the manufacturer of the measurement
equipment will be used for further measurements as no
charges are ablated but the measurement accuracy is quite
improved.
From what is illustrated in Fig.5 it can also be concluded that
with the presented fast and accurate test setup, short
interruptions for doing measurements during the charging
process can be performed due to their small impact on the
charging process. In fact the measured surface potential is
even larger in the measurement with interruptions compared to
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the one without. This difference is within the measurement
accuracy and thus not significant.
VI. CONCLUSION
 justifiable small impact on the accumulation process if
measurements are kept below 1 minute
 no charge detachment through the Kalvin Probe also at
high surface potentials and small measuring distances
 decay in the presented test setup only through natural gas
neutralization as detachment and recombination and not
through any equipment or the measuring procedure itself
 negative surface charges decay faster than positive surface
charges
VII. OUTLOOK
The effect of slower charge decay for positive surface
potential has to be studied in more detail and the mechanism
behind that has to be found.
As the presented paper has shown and insured that
interruptions during the charging process only have a small
impact on the charging, detailed studies of the time
dependence of the surface charging effects are going to be
performed.
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