ELE5211

Switchgear and High Voltage

Engineering
Chapter 3
Generation of High Voltage
Dr. N.B. Kadandani
B.Eng., M.Eng. (BUK), PhD (Newcastle upon Tyne)
MNSE, RE (COREN), MIEEE
Department of Electrical Engineering, Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria
nbkadandani.ele@buk.edu.ng
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 Outline
 Introduction
 Generation of high DC voltage
 Generation of high AC voltage
 Generation of impulse voltage
 Analysis of impulse generator circuit
 Multistage impulse generators

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 Introduction
 Generation of high DC voltages is mainly required in research
work in the areas of pure and applied physics.
 Sometimes, high direct voltages are needed in insulation tests on
cables and capacitors.
 Impulse generator charging units also require high DC voltages
of about 100 to 200 kV.
 Normally, for the generation of DC voltages of up to 100 kV,
electronic valve rectifiers are used and the output currents are
about 100 mA.
 The rectifier valves require special construction for cathode and
filaments since a high electrostatic field of several kV/cm exist
between the anode and the cathode in the nonconduction period.
 The AC supply to the rectifier tubes may be of power frequency
or may be of audio frequency from an oscillator.

3
 Introduction
 There are various applications of high D.C. voltages in
industries, research medical sciences etc.
 HVDC is used for testing HVAC cables of long lengths
as these have very large capacitance and would require
very large values of currents if tested on HVAC voltages.
 Even though D.C. tests on A.C. cables are convenient
and economical, these suffer from the fact that the
stress distribution within the insulating material is
different from the normal operating condition.
 HVDC is also being used extensively in physics for
particle acceleration and in medical equipment (X-Rays).

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 Generation of High DC Voltage
 For the generation of D.C voltages of up to 100kV,
electronic valve rectifiers are used and the output currents
are about 100 mA.
 The rectifier valves require special construction since a
high electrostatic field of several kV/cm exists.
 There are two methods of generating high D.C voltages:-
 i. Through the process of rectification employing voltage
multiplier circuits (Half-wave Rectifier Circuit, Full-wave
Rectifier Circuit, Voltage Doubler Circuit & Cockroft-Walton
Voltage Multiplier).
 ii. Electrostatic generators.

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 Generation of High DC Voltage
 Half-wave Rectifier Circuit
 The simplest circuit for generation of high direct voltage is
the half wave rectifier shown in the figure below

 Here RL is the load resistance and C the capacitance to

smoothen the DC output voltage.

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 Generation of High DC Voltage
 Half-wave Rectifier Circuit
 Assuming the ideal transformer and small internal resistance of the
diode during conduction the capacitor C is charged to the maximum
voltage Vmax during conduction of the diode D.
 Assuming that there is no load connected, the DC voltage across
capacitance remains constant at Vmax whereas the supply voltage
oscillates between ±Vmax
 During negative half cycle, the potential of point A becomes – Vmax

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 Generation of High DC Voltage
 Half-wave Rectifier Circuit
 The single phase half-wave rectifier circuits have the
following disadvantages:
 (i) The size of the circuits is very large if high and pure DC
output voltages are desired.
 (ii) The high voltage transformer may get saturated if the
amplitude of direct current is comparable with the nominal
alternating current of the transformer.

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 Generation of High DC Voltage
 Full-wave Rectifier Circuit
 A full wave rectifier circuit is shown below.
 In the positive half cycle, the rectifier A conducts and charges the
capacitor C.
 In the negative half cycle the rectifier B conducts and charges the
capacitor.
 The source transformer requires a centre tapped secondary with a
rating of 2V

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 Generation of High DC Voltage
 Ripple Voltage: the variation in capacitor voltage due to the charging
and discharging.
 The advantage of a full-wave rectifier over a half-wave is quite clear.
The capacitor can more effectively reduce the ripple when the time
between peaks is shorter.

- Easier to filter
-Shorted time between
peaks.
-Smaller ripple.

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 Generation of High DC Voltage
 Comparison between outputs of Half-wave and Full-wave rectifier

(a) Input sine wave (b) Output with half wave rectifier
and condenser filter

(c) Output with full wave rectifier and

(d) Vmax, Vmean and ripple voltage, δV
condenser filter
with condenser filter of a full wave rectifier
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 Generation of High DC Voltage
 Voltage Doubler Circuit
 One of the most popular voltage doubler circuit is shown below.
 During negative half cycle, diode D1 conducts, thus charging the
capacitor C1 to Vmax.
 During positive half cycle, D2 conducts, capacitor C1 rises to Vmax and
hence terminal M attains a potential of 2 Vmax. Thus, the capacitor C2 is
charged to 2 Vmax through D2.
 Normally the voltage across the load will be less than 2Vmax depending
upon the time constant of the circuit C2RL.

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 Generation of High DC Voltage
 Cockroft-Walton Voltage Multiplier (cont.):
 The figure below shows a multistage single phase cascaded circuit of the
Cockroft-Walton type.
 Here n number of capacitors and diodes are used.
 Voltage is cascaded to produce output of 2nVmax .

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 Generation of High DC Voltage
 Cockroft-Walton Voltage Multiplier
(cont.):
 It uses a network of diodes and capacitors to
convert lower AC voltage to higher DC voltage.
 C1 is charged through D1 to Vs (difference
between left and right plate of the capacitor.
 During the first positive peak, the potential of C1
adds with that of the source, thus charging C2 to
2Vs through D2.
 During the first negative peak, C1 has dropped to
zero, thus allowing C3 to charge through D3 to
2Vs.
 During the next positive peak, C1 rises to 2Vs,
also charging C4 to 2Vs. The output voltage rises
till 4Vs.
 Each additional stage of 2 diodes, and 2
capacitors, increases the output voltage by twice
the peak A.C supply. 14
 Generation of High DC Voltage

• Cockroft-Walton Voltage Multiplier (cont.)

I n n  1 I n n  1
Ripple voltage, V     (1)
fC 2 2 fC

Total Ripple, VT  2 x V (2)

VT
% Ripple, %  VT  x 100% (3)
2n Vmax
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 Generation of High DC Voltage

• Cockroft-Walton Voltage Multiplier (cont.)

• Voltage drop, ΔV is the difference between the theoretical no load
voltage 2nVmax and the on load voltage,
I  2 3 n2 n 
Voltage Drop, V  fC  3 n  2  6  (5a)
 
• For large values of n (≥5), the 2nd and 3rd terms will be small and
may be neglected, thus
I 2 3
Voltage Drop, V   n  (5b)
fC  3 

% Voltage Regulation, V (6)

% V  x 100%
2n Vmax
Voltage regulation is the ratio between voltage drop and no load voltage,
2nVmax
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 Generation of High DC Voltage

Cockroft-Walton Voltage Multiplier (cont.)

The optimum number of stages assuming a constant Vmax, I, f
and C can be obtained

Vmax x fc
noptimum  (7)
I
• In general, it is more economical to use high frequency and
smaller value of capacitance to reduce the ripples or the
voltage drop rather than low frequency and high capacitance.

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 Generation of High DC Voltage

Cockroft-Walton Voltage Multiplier (cont.)

Problem 1:
A ten stages Cockraft-Walton circuit has all capacitors of
0.06μF. The secondary voltage of the supply transformer is
100kV at a frequency of 150Hz. If the load current is 1mA,
determine
• (i) the voltage ripple
• (ii) the voltage drop and regulation
• (iii) the maximum output voltage
• (iv) the optimum number of stages

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 Generation of High DC
Voltage
Cockroft-Walton Voltage Multiplier (cont.)
• Solution:

• (i) The voltage ripple

I n n  1 I n n  1
V    
fC 2 2 fC

= 6.111 kV

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 Generation of High DC Voltage
Cockroft-Walton Voltage Multiplier (cont.)
• (ii) The voltage drop and regulation

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 Generation of High DC
Voltage
Cockroft-Walton Voltage Multiplier (cont.)

• (iii) The maximum output voltage

• (iv) The optimum number of stages

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 Generation of High DC Voltage
 Electrostatic Generator:
 It uses variable capacitor principle to convert mechanical energy to electrical energy.
 It consists of a stator with interleaved rotor vanes forming a variable capacitor and
operates in vacuum. The rotor is insulated from the ground, and is maintained at a
potential of + V.
 The rotor to stator capacitance varies from C0 to Cm, and the stator is connected to a
common point between two rectifiers across the DC output which is -E volts.
 When the capacitance of the rotor is maximum (Cm), the rectifier B does not conduct and
the stator is at ground potential.
 The potential E is applied across the rectifier A and V is applied across Cm. As the rotor
rotates, the capacitance C decreases and the voltage across C increases.
 Thus, the stator becomes more negative with respect to ground. When the stator reaches
the line potential -E the rectifier A conducts, and further movement of the rotor causes the
current to flow from the generator. Rectifier B will now have E across it.

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 Generation of High AC Voltage
 Generation of high AC voltages are required for the
purpose of testing various types of power system
equipment.
 Test transformers are normally used.
 These transformers are mainly used for short time tests on
high voltage equipment.
 For higher voltage requirement, a single unit construction
becomes difficult and costly.
 These drawbacks are overcome by series connection or
cascading of the several identical units of transformers.
 High AC voltages can be generated by either test
transformers or resonant circuits.
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 Generation of High AC Voltage
 Cascaded Transformers
 For generating AC test voltages of less than a few hundred
kV, a single transformer can be used.
 For voltages higher than 400kV, it is desired to cascade two
or more transformers.
 The figure below shows a basic scheme for cascading three
transformers.

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 Generation of High AC Voltage
 Cascaded Transformers (cont.)
 The primary of the first stage transformer is connected to a low voltage
supply.
 A voltage is available across the secondary of this transformer.
 The tertiary winding (excitation winding) of first stage has the same number
of turns as the primary winding, and feeds the primary of the second stage
transformer.
 The potential of the tertiary is fixed to the potential V of the secondary
winding as shown in the figure.
 The secondary winding of the second stage transformer is connected in
series with the secondary winding of the first stage transformer, so that a
voltage of 2V is available between the ground and the terminal of secondary
of the second stage transformer.

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 Generation of High AC Voltage
 Cascaded Transformers (cont.)
 Similarly, the stage-III transformer is connected in series with the second
stage transformer.
 With this, the output voltage between ground and the third stage transformer,
secondary is 3V.
 The advantage of cascading the transformers is that the natural cooling is
sufficient and the transformers are light and compact.
 The main disadvantages of this scheme :-
 i. The lower stages of the primaries of the transformers are loaded more as
compared with the upper stages
 ii. Bulky and heavy

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 Generation of High AC Voltage
 Resonant Circuit
 An alternative method that is more economical and sometimes
technically superior is offered by resonant circuits.
 Parallel resonant circuits involves the addition of parallel reactors
either in the primary low-voltage circuit or the secondary high-
voltage circuit.
 The power factor can be greatly improved
 A simplified diagram of the parallel resonant test system is given in
the figure below.

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 Generation of High AC Voltage
 Resonant Circuit (cont.)
 An alternative system is the series resonance circuit.
 By resonating the circuit through a series reactor L at the test
frequency (50 Hz), harmonics are heavily attenuated.
 A simplified diagram of the series resonance test system is given in
the figure below.

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 Generation of High AC Voltage
 Resonant Circuit: Advantages
 No high-power arcing and heavy current surges
 Cascading is also possible for higher voltage
 Simple and compact test setup
 Pure sinusoidal output waveforms
 Less power requirements from the mains

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 Generation of Impulse Voltage
 Definition
 An impulse voltage is a unidirectional voltage which, rises rapidly to
a maximum value and falls more or less rapidly to zero.

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 Generation of Impulse Voltage
 Definition of Parameters
 The maximum value is called the peak value of the impulse.
 A full impulse voltage is characterized by its peak value and its two
time intervals, the wave front and wave tail time intervals.
 The wave front time is specified as 1.25 times (t2 – t1), where t2 is
the time for the wave to reach to its 90% of the peak value and t1 is
the time to reach 10% of the peak value.
 Wave tail time is measured between the nominal starting point t0
and the point on the wave tail where the voltage is 50% of the peak
value i.e. wave tail time is expressed as (t3 – t0).

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 Impulse Generator Circuit
 Two simplified but more practical forms of impulse generator circuits
are shown below.
 The two circuits are widely used and differ only in the position of the
wave tail control resistance R2.
 When R2 is on the load side of R1 (Fig. a) the two resistances form
a potential divider which reduces the output voltage.
 But when R2 is on the generator side of R1 (Fig. b) this particular
loss of output voltage is absent.

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 Impulse Generator Circuit
 The impulse capacitor C1 is charged through a charging resistance
to a DC voltage Vo
 C1 is then discharged by flashing over the switching gap with a
pulse of suitable value.
 The desired impulse voltage appears across the load capacitance
C2.
 The value of the circuit elements determines the shape of the output
impulse voltage.

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 Impulse Generator Circuit

Circuit Analysis

• The output voltage

• Where;

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 Impulse Generator Circuit

• The front wave time and the tail wave

time can be determined approximately as
follows:
• The time for wave front
C1C2
t1  t f  3.0 R1
C1  C2
• The time for wave tail
t 2  0.7( R1  R2 )(C1  C2 )
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 Multistage Impulse Generators
 The best way for generating
voltage impulses of very high
amplitudes using a DC source of a
moderate output.
 A bank of capacitors are charged
in parallel and then discharged in
series, as originally proposed by
Marx in 1923.
 A typical modification of a Marx
circuit is as shown on the right.
 The gap spacing is chosen such
that the breakdown voltage of the
gaps F is slightly higher than the
charging voltage V.
 All capacitors are charged to the
voltage V.
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 Multistage Impulse Generators
 When the impulse generator is
to be discharged, the gaps F
are made to spark over
simultaneously by some
external means.
 Thus all capacitors are
connected in series and
discharge through the wave-
shaping resistors Rd‘ and Re‘.
 Multistage impulse generators
are usually specified by their
total output voltage, the number
of stages(n), and the stored
energy.

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 Multistage Impulse Generators
 Single Stage Equivalent Circuit

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*

Questions
???
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