Professional Documents
Culture Documents
CH 5 Corona
CH 5 Corona
Chapter 5
CORONA
08/18/2021 1
OUTLINE
Introduction
Definition: Corona
Factors Affecting Corona
Disruptive Critical Voltage
Corona Loss
Line Design Based on Corona
Advantages and Disadvantages of Corona
Example
08/18/2021 2
Introduction
• The use of higher voltages has become necessary in order to meet the rapidly
increasing demand for power. With the coming into prominence of EHV
transmission lines of more than 230 kV, the corona characteristics of conductors
have assumed great importance. Under this, the size of the conductor is mainly
determined by corona loss and radio interference considerations.
• The name corona has been derived from the glow surrounding the conductors
when the operating voltage is sufficiently high. For overhead transmission system
the atmospheric air, which is the dielectric medium, behaves practically like a
perfect insulator when the potential difference between the conductors is small.
• When an alternating potential difference is applied across two conductors whose
spacing is large as compared to their diameters, there is no apparent change in
the condition of atmospheric air surrounding the wires if the applied voltage is
low. However, when the applied voltage exceeds a certain value, called critical
disruptive voltage, the conductors are surrounded by a faint violet glow
• The phenomenon of violet glow and hissing noise in an overhead transmission line
is known as corona.
08/18/2021 3
Introduction Cont’d
• When the electric field intensity (voltage gradient) reaches the critical value
(critical disruptive voltage), the air in the immediate vicinity of conductors no
more remains a dielectric but it ionizes and becoming conducting. This electric
breakdown is accompanied by the following phenomena:
1. A faint glow appears around the conductors which is visible in the dark.
2. There is an acoustical noise
3. There is a tendency in the conductors to vibrate
4. There is a loss of power
5. There is radio interference
• The higher the voltage is raised, the larger and higher the luminous envelope
becomes, and greater are the sound, the power loss and the radio noise. If the
applied voltage is increased to breakdown value, a flash-over or spark will
occur between the conductors due to the breakdown of air insulation.
08/18/2021 4
Definition: Corona
What Is Corona
• Definition: Corona is a luminous discharge
due to ionization of the air surrounding an
electrode, caused by a voltage gradient
exceeding a certain critical value.
08/18/2021 6
Factors Affecting Corona Cont’d
08/18/2021 7
Physical Parameters of Corona
08/18/2021 8
Corona and the Parameters
08/18/2021 9
Disruptive Critical Voltage
• The phenomenon of corona plays an important role in the design of an
overhead transmission line. Therefore, it is profitable to consider the
following terms much used in the analysis of corona effects:
(i) Critical disruptive voltage. It is the minimum phase-neutral voltage at
which corona occurs.
• Consider two conductors of radii r cm and spaced d cm apart. If V is the
phase-neutral potential, given by (from Chapter-2)
or
08/18/2021 10
Disruptive Critical Voltage Cont’d
08/18/2021 11
Disruptive Critical Voltage Cont’d
08/18/2021 12
Disruptive Critical Voltage Cont’d
• Correction must also be made for the surface condition of the conductor.
This is accounted for by multiplying the above expression by irregularity
factor mo.
• ∴ Critical disruptive voltage,
08/18/2021 14
CORONA LOSS
What is it?
08/18/2021 16
Line Design Based on Corona
• It has been seen that intense corona effects are observed at a working voltage
of 33 kV or above. Therefore, careful design should be made to avoid corona
on the sub-stations or bus-bars rated for 33 kV and higher voltages otherwise
highly ionized air may cause flash-over in the insulators or between the
phases, causing considerable damage to the equipment.
• To minimize corona loss in transmission lines, the following factors shall be
considered in to account:
Voltage of the line
Spacing between the conductors
Conductor Diameter
• The voltage of transmission is fixed by economical and technical
considerations during design (i.e. the amount of power and transmission
length required). To increase the disruptive voltage, the spacing of conductors
is to be increased, but this method has also got its limitation. With the
increase of spacing of conductors the cost of the towers increases and there is
also increase of the voltage drop in the line due to the increase in the
inductive reactance XL .
08/18/2021 17
Line Design Based on Corona Cont’d
• Thus, by increasing the spacing between conductors, the voltage at which corona
occurs is raised and hence corona effects can be eliminated. However, spacing
cannot be increased too much otherwise the cost of supporting structure (e.g.,
bigger cross arms and supports) may increase to a considerable extent.
• By increasing conductor size, the voltage at which corona occurs is raised and
hence corona effects are considerably reduced. This is one of the reasons that
ACSR conductors which have a larger cross-sectional area are used in transmission
lines.
The method of increasing the diameter of conductors has been found to be very
effective (except the cost increase) in reducing the corona effect. The diameter of
the conductor can be increased by either using hollow conductors or steel cored
aluminum conductors (ACSR) or expanded ACSR conductors.
• The present practice is to use bundled conductors (increase the diameter of the
conductor) for reducing corona. The use of bundled conductors has become so
common for transmission of large blocks of power over long distances at Extra-
high voltage (EHV) and Ultra-high voltage (UHV) transmission voltage lines.
08/18/2021 18
Advantages and Disadvantages of Corona
Corona has many advantages and disadvantages. In the correct design of a high
voltage overhead line, a balance should be struck between the advantages and
disadvantages.
Advantages
(i) Due to corona formation, the air surrounding the conductor becomes
conducting and hence virtual diameter of the conductor is increased. The
increased diameter reduces the electrostatic stresses between the conductors.
(ii) Corona reduces the effects of transients produced by surges.
Disadvantages
(i) Corona is accompanied by a loss of energy. This affects the transmission
efficiency of the line.
(ii) Ozone is produced by corona and may cause corrosion of the conductor due to
chemical action.
(iii) The current drawn by the line due to corona is non-sinusoidal and hence non-
sinusoidal voltage drop occurs in the line. This may cause inductive interference
with neighboring communication lines.
08/18/2021 19
Example-1
08/18/2021 20
08/18/2021 21