The Ninth International Conference on Electronic Measurement & Instruments ICEMI’2009

Experimental Study on the Partial Discharge Characteristics of Four Typical

Defects in GIS
Jisheng Li 1,2 Xuefeng Zhao 1 Xiu Yao 1 Yanming Li 1
1
School of Electrical Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University,
Xi’an, 710049, China
2
College of Physics & Information Technology, Shaanxi Normal University,
Xi’an, 710062, China
E-mail: 932150@163.com

Abstract–Partial discharge (PD) can be one of the most

influential phenomena in the aging of electrical insulation II. EXPERIMENT SETUP
systems. In order to ensure reliability in the operation of such
equipment, the detection and interpretation of PD
measurements is required to monitor the condition of insulation. A. Design of the physical models for typical defect in GIS
In this paper, physical model of typical defects in gas-insulated
substation (GIS) are established, and studied for PD using Figure 1 shows a 220 kV GIS bus bar cavity used in
Pulse current method, which are based on the characteristics of
the experiment. The external diameter of the conductor in
defects and PD checker instrument. The results show that the
phase-resolved PD (PRPD) patterns, the time domain the cavity is 106mm, and the shell of the cavity has the
waveforms, average amplitude and central phase changing of internal diameter of 320mm.
PD signals have very similar distribution characteristics and
those of different defect have different ones. So it would be very
convenient for the recognition of PD types and a deeper study
of the mechanism of PD.
Keywords–GIS, defect model, partial discharge characteristics;
pulse current.

I. INTRODUCTION

GIS has developed very quickly and has been in use

all over the world since the early seventies because its
insulating structure is very compact and reliable [1-5]. It
is known that the defects (mainly including fixed
protrusion, free metal particles, contamination on the
barrier surface, voids in the barrier, suspension defects,
etc) can not be excluded completely in the process of
manufacture and assembly, and those most defects
produced PD activity which might lead to failure in a GIS.
So it is important to detect the PD in GIS. However, there
are no uniform standards for physical models of defects
at present [6]. Actually, physical models are of
importance to do a great deal of experiment in laboratory.
In this paper, three typical physical models of defects in
GIS are designed, and then a PD measurement system is
established based on the PD checker instrument [7,8].
The PD signals of different defects are measured and
analyzed, respectively. The study results are significant
to recognition of PD types and further research of the
mechanism of PD.
Fig.1. GIS model
Figure 2 shows the physical models of three typical
defects that are designed based on the characteristics and
features of PD in GIS. Figure2a shows a protrusion fixed
on the conductor. A steel needle is used to simulate this
type of defect. The length of the needle is 53mm.
Figure2b shows suspended defect in the GIS. An
aluminum sheet with the size of 4h3cm is used to
simulate this type of defect discharge. The distance
between aluminum sheet and conductor is 1.5mm. Figure
2c shows surface contamination on the spacer.
Conductive powder adhering the insulator is used to
simulate this defect.

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978-1-4244-3864-8/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEE (a) Protrusion defect

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the SF6 gas in the cavity reached 60KV and 0.35MPa,
respectively. Fig.4b and Fig.4c show the effects of the
applied voltage on the center phase distribution and
average voltage amplitude of PD pulses. The single PD
pulse was acquired by digital storage oscilloscope
4054(Analog bandwidth is 500MHz and the maximum
sampling rate is 2.5Gsps) and spectrum analysis were
showed in Fig.4d and Fig.4e, respectively.

(b) Suspended defect

(c) Contamination defect

Fig.2. Models of the defects in GIS
(a) PRPD Spectra

B. measuring system

The test configuration is shown in Fig.3.

Autotransformer (T1), isolation transformer (T2) and
corona-free discharge transformer (T3) were used to
produce applied voltage to avoid interference of signals
aside from the internal partial discharge in GIS. The
voltage is applied to GIS model through a water
resistance (R), and could be changed from 0 to 400KV. A
soft aluminum tube with diameter of 10mm was used as
the HV leading wire. C is the coupling capacitance, and
Cx is the equivalent capacitance of GIS model. Z is the
broadband impedance, which sampling PD pulses when
PD happens in GIS. Then the PD signals sampled were
analyzed by adoption of PD Checker and computer (b) Center phase trend of discharge
terminal software system.

Fig.3. Measurement system

ċ. DETECTIONG AND ANALYSIS OF PD

A. Corona discharge
(c) Average amplitude trend of discharge

Fig.4a describes the PRPD spectrum of the corona

discharge when the applied voltage and the pressure of

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B. Suspended discharge

The pulses collected by the resistance commonly have

large amplitude when PD occurs. Fig.5a~Fig.5e describe
the PRPD spectrum, the effect of applied voltage on
center-phase and average amplitude distribution, single
pulse and spectrum analysis when the pressure of SF6 gas
is 0.35MPa and the voltage is 64KV, respectively.

(d) Single PD pulse

(a) PRPD spectra

(e) Spectrum analysis

Fig.4. Corona discharge

It can be observed that the pulses mainly concentrated

in the positive half cycle of the applied voltage phase at
the early stage of the corona discharge, especially in the
peak of the voltage. The amplitude of the pulses at
positive half cycle is significantly higher than that at the
negative half cycle under the same applied voltage.
However, the discharge density of the positive half cycle (b) Center phase trend of discharge
is lower than negative half-cycle. From Fig.4a, it can be
seen that with the applied voltage increasing, the
center-phase of the discharge during the positive and
negative half-cycle shifts left and right, respectively, and
the range of discharge is wider, also PRPD spectrum
gradually shows "rabbit ears "shape. According to this
the corona discharge can be distinguished from the others.
Fig.4a and 4b show that the density and average
amplitude of the discharge pulses have increased with
enhancing of applied voltage. From the Fig.4d, it can be
observed that the single PD pulse, which has multi-peaks
and the duration of which is about 800ns, has the
envelope that can be regarded as a single exponential
damped oscillating waveform. Fig.4e shows the main
frequency distribution is less than 10 MHz. In a word, the
discharge developed slowly and the amplitude of the
pulses is relatively weak due to the stability of the corona
discharge. (c) Average amplitude trend of discharge

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C. Contamination discharge

The Ag2S powder with the thickness less than 1mm

smeared in the spacer was used to simulate
contamination defect. Fig.6a~6e describe the PRPD
spectrum, the effect of applied voltage on center-phase
and average amplitude distribution, single pulse and
spectrum analysis when the pressure of SF6 gas is
0.35MPa and the voltage is 62.5KV, respectively.

(d) Single PD pulse

(a) PRPD spectra

(e) FFT analysis

Fig.5. Suspended discharge

From the Fig.5a and Fig.5b, it can be observed that the (b) Center phase trend of discharge
initial discharges occur in the rising stage of the positive
half cycle and the falling stage of the negative half cycle
on the applied voltage. With the increase of applied
voltage, center-phase extends to zero-crossing point, that
means the initial discharge voltage is getting lower and
the range of the discharge phase is becoming wider, the
whole PRPD spectrum presents a “strip” shape. In
addition, Fig.5c shows that the average amplitude of the
PD pulse has little change as the voltage increases. From the
Fig.5d, it can be observed that pulse duration is about
500ns, and the envelope can be regarded as a double
exponential damped oscillating waveform. Fig.5e shows
that the main frequency distribution concentrates in
5MHz ~ 20MHz. In a word, the amplitude of the
suspended discharge is higher than other discharge types,
and it has symmetric phase distribution.
(c) Average amplitude trend of discharge

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(d) Single PD pulse
(e) FFT analysis
Fig.6. Ag2s discharge
In the process of the experiment, it can be observed
that the initial discharge at positive half-cycle of the
applied voltage is stronger than the negative half-cycle
discharge, and the repetition rate of the discharge
enhances following with the increase of the applied
voltage. Fig.6a shows that the PRPD spectrum presents
“hill” shape. From the Fig.6b and 6c, it can be seen that
the center-phase extends to zero-crossing point for
increased the applied voltage. Meanwhile, the average
amplitude increased gradually. From the Fig.6d, it can be
observed that pulse duration is about 100ns, and the rise
time of pulse is about 5ns .Also the envelope can be
regarded as a single exponential damped oscillating
waveform. Fig.6e shows the main frequency distribution
is less than 100MHz.
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Č. CONCLUSIONS
The PD detection system using pulse current method
is capable of sampling the signal produced by the PD
activity and thus is suitable to be used to detect the PD in
GIS. The PD characteristics of the three typical defects in
GIS were investigated under the laboratory condition.
The PRPD patterns, time domain waveforms, FFT
analysis spectrum, phase distribution and PD amplitude
changing under the action of alternating voltage were
given. Furthermore, the paper indicates it is helpful for
PD pattern recognition to adopt PRPD spectrum in
different phase sector. For further research works, it is
important not only to acquire much more sampled data in
quantities and varieties, but also to take more research on
the mechanism of PD and characteristics of statistical
spectrum, which will help to recognize PD pattern
spectrum in practical application.
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