XXVI Int. Symp.

on Discharges and Electrical Insulation in Vacuum - Mumbai, India – 2014

XXVI Int. Symp. on Discharges and Electrical Insulation in Vacuum - Mumbai, India – 2014

Experimental Investigation of Typical Partial

Discharge Signals in Medium-voltage Switchgear
L.J. Wang 1, W.J. Ning 1, C. Wu 1, L.H. Wang 2, H.J. Wang 1, S.L. Jia 1, H. Lü 2
1
State Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation and Power Equipment, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
2
Electric Power Research Inst. of Guangdong Power Grid Corp., Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
Abstract- Partial discharges (PDs) phenomena in three parts, which are high voltage source, switchgear
medium-voltage switchgears usually exist and are worth cabinet and signal detecting, recording devices. All
being paid more attention. In this paper, a kind of special sensors are set out surface the switchgear cabinet to
switchgear cabinet and two kinds of typical PD sources is detect the PD signals.
designed for the PD measurements. Based on the two
typical PD models, measurement sensitivity and influence
factors of above four kinds of detection methods are
researched and analyzed. The experimental results show
that Pulsed current (PC) method is the most sensitive to PD
signals but it is also more sensitive to the electromagnetic
disturbance. Holes on the switchgear cabinet are important
for Acoustic Emission (AE) method. The cabinet materials
and sensor positions have no significant influence on
Transient earth voltage (TEV) signal. Impermeability
magnetic material has more significant influence on
preventing Ultra-high-frequency (UHF) signals
transmission than the permeability magnetic material,
which is unfavorable for detection of UHF signal. Larger
holes on switchgear cabinet are beneficial to the
Fig.1 Experiment set-up (general view)
measurement of UHF method. For the needle-plane model,
the phase-resolved partial discharge (PRPD) graph changes There are different kinds of holes on the 4 different
from “ball” shape to the “M” shape as the voltage increases. surfaces of designed switchgear cabinet, which are
Different from needle-plane model, PRPD graph of shown in Fig. 2. The left surface (the door is called the
suspended-metal model exists significant stratification front surface) of the switchgear cabinet is made of
phenomena. stainless steel while others are made of iron plate coated
by aluminum zinc, which is the usual commercial
I. INTRODUCTION switchgear plate.
The safe operation of switchgear is crucial for the ɸ10mm ɸ20mm ɸ10mm ɸ20mm

running stability of the entire power grids. According to

the statistics, about 40% of the switchgear faults were 100*18mm2 100*9mm2 100*18mm2
caused by insulation defects and current-carrying faults, 100*9mm2

the most of faults was due to the insulation flashover and

plugs’ poor contact [1]. If the abnormal signals can be front back left(stainless steel) right

detected before fault occurring, the serious faults can be Fig. 2 Schematic figure of holes in the different surfaces of switchgear
avoided, which will be useful for safe running of power cabinet
grids. Generally speaking, weak-amplitude abnormal
discharges, namely, Partial Discharges (PDs) often Fig. 3 shows two kinds of PD models.
locally occur before the formation of insulation and
current-carrying faults. And at this stage, the abnormal
signals should be captured using different monitoring
tools. At present, there are several kinds of methods used
in PDs detection for medium-voltage switchgear, i.e.
Radio Frequency (RF) method [2], Pulse Current (PC)
method [3, 4], Ultra High Frequency (UHF) method [5,
6], Acoustic Emission (AE) method [7], and transient
earth voltage (TEV) method [9].
(a) (b)
II. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
Fig. 3 Two kinds of PD models in the experiments
Fig. 1 shows the experimental set-up. It consists of (a) needle-plane model; (b) suspended-metal model

978-1-4799-6752-0/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE

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978-1-4799-6752-0/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE
 III. RESULTS AND DISSCUSSIONS to the hole of the same size on iron surface from the
stainless surface. Then it rises more when the sensor is
In the following parts, all the unit of size below is mm moved to a bigger hole. It proves that the impermeability
and all the voltage is Root Mean Square (RMS) value. magnetic material has more significant influence on
A. Main Influence Factors of the Sensitivity of Sensors preventing UHF signals to reveal than the permeability
magnetic material and bigger holes on switchgear cabinet
In this section, suspended-metal model is selected as is beneficial to the UHF method. Last, positions and
research objects in the experiments. PC method is material have no obvious effect on TEV measurement
considered as a reference measurement method because signals.
of its measurement stability.
Fig. 4 shows the signals detected by AE sensor at 3 B. Needle Plane Model
different positions and corresponding discharge capacity. For needle-plane model, 4 kinds of different distances
The AE sensor is set on the circular hole position. In case (d) are selected, which are 5mm, 7.5mm, 15mm and
1, AE sensor is on the front surface (Φ10 hole). In case 2, 30mm, respectively.
AE sensor is on the right surface (Φ20 hole). AE Fig. 6, (a) shows PRPD graphs of needle-plane model
sensor’s position of case 3 is the same as that of case 2. under 5mm distance and different voltage, the PRPD
In Fig. 4, case 3 has the same measurement position as graph changes from “ball” shape to the “M” shape as the
case 2, these two curves have approximately same voltage increases. The discharge phase is always near to
measurement results. In case 1, the area of the bigger 270°and is axial symmetry along 270° line. Fig. 6, (b),
hole (Φ20) in the right surface is 4 times larger than the (c), (d) shows that PRPD graph changes to “bar” shape
smaller hole (Φ10) in the front surface. However, the under low voltage when the distance is increased. As the
amplitude of the AE signal measured on the bigger hole voltage increases, PRPD graph returns to “M” shape.
is a little higher than that on the smaller hole. AE sensor
also has been installed at the position without holes. In
this case, when the voltage is increased to 15kV, there 2.17kV 2.34kV 3.06kV
are still no AE signals from the sensor. Experiments
results show that the holes on the switchgear cabinet are
very important to AE method.
1100
case1
2.0
3.78kV 4.15kV 5.06kV
case2
case3

1000 1.5
Amplitude of AE signal / mV
Discharge capacity / pC

1.0
900

0.5
800 (a)
0.0
700

-0.5
 
11.5 12.0 12.5 13.0 13.5 14.0 14.5 15.0 2.66kV 2.86kV 3.80kV
Voltage / kV

Fig. 4 Signals detected by AE sensor at 3 different positions and

correspondent discharge capacity

4.72kV 5.54kV 6.16kV

Fig. 5 shows the amplitude of UHF signals related to
voltage. In case 1, UHF sensor is located on the front
surface. In case 2, UHF sensor is located on the left
surface. In case 3, UHF sensor is located on the back
surface.
(b)
12 Case1
Case2
Case3

11
2.68kV 3.80kV 4.56kV
Amplitude of UHF signal / mV

10

8 5.46kV 6.71kV 7.72kV

11.5 12.0 12.5 13.0 13.5 14.0 14.5 15.0
Voltage / kV

Fig. 5 Amplitude of UHF signals in three cases

From Fig. 5, it can be seen that the amplitude of

measured signals rises a little when the sensor is moved (c)

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 0.06 TEV 1 0.06 1.00 1.00
TEV 2

 
TEV 1 TEV 2
0.04
0.04

2.93kV 4.08kV 5.45kV

0.75 0.75
0.02
0.02
0.00 0.50 0.50
0.00
-0.02
0.25 0.25
-0.02
-0.04

Magnitude (a.u.)
Amplitude / V
-0.04 -0.06 0.00 0.00

0 1 2 3 4 5 0 1 2 3 4 5
0.010 0 40 80 120 160 200 0 40 80 120 160 200

0.06 1.00 1.00

UHF
TEV 3 UHF TEV 3
0.04 0.005
0.75 0.75

0.02
0.000 0.50 0.50

6.51kV  8.49kV  9.64kV 0.00

-0.02
-0.005
0.25 0.25

0.00 0.00

-0.04
-0.010
0 1 2 3 4 5
0 1 2 3 4 5 0 40 80 120 160 200 300 600 900 1200 1500
t / s Frequency / MHz

(a) (b)

Fig. 8 TEV / UHF signals and FFT graphs (d = 5mm, u = 5kV)

(d) (a) TEV signals; (b) FFT graphs

Fig. 6 PRPD graphs of needle-plane model under different distances
and voltage (a) 5mm; (b) 7.5mm; (c) 15mm; (d) 30mm
There is also one phenomenon worth noticing that
when hen the distance is 5mm and voltage is 2.17kV, PD
signal is firstly detected by PC method. Meanwhile, AE
sensor can successfully detect PD signals, but TEV or
UHF cannot. When the voltage reaches to 6.06kV, the
discharge capacity increased to 300pC. At this stage,
TEV and UHF sensors could successfully get the PD
signal. When the distance is bigger than 15mm, and the
discharge capacity stays still below 200pC, TEV and
UHF sensors cannot get PD signals all the way. It can be
inferred that TEV and UHF methods can only get the PD
signals when discharge capacity is higher than 200pC.
Fig. 7 shows AE signals and FFT graph of
needle-plane model. The main frequency of AE sensor is
40 kHz. In the FFT graph, it can be seen that the highest
spectral line is around 40 kHz.
0.15
0.10
Amplitude / V
C. Suspended-metal Model
The distances between the power electrode (connected
with high-voltage source) and the suspended metal
needle under three cases are 0.5mm, 1mm and 1.5mm,
respectively. From Fig.9, it can be seen that the
significant stratification phenomena appear in the
suspended-metal PD. When the voltage reaches to about
10kV, the discharge phenomena appear at both positive
and negative half waves. The shape is similar to a line
segment. As the voltage increases, the amplitude of
PRPD graph keeps steady, but the graph begins to
separate into two parts at negative half wave. The
discharge phase positions always keep at 30°~120°and
240°~290°. Compared Fig. 9, (a) with Fig. 9, (c), it can
be seen that discharge phase changes little as the distance
increases, but the band width of discharge phase under
longer-distance condition becomes shorter. For 1.5mm
gap distance model, when the voltage reaches to 14kV,
the PRPD graphs of positive and negative half wave
begin to become not symmetric. The discharge capacity

0.05
0.00
-0.05
under longer-distance condition is smaller than that
-0.10 under shorter-distance condition.
-0.15
-2 -1 0 1 2
t / ms
10.70kV 12.15kV
1.00
Magnitude (a.u.)

0.75
0.50
0.25
0.00

0 40 80 120 160 200

Frequency / kHz 13.61kV 14.85kV 
Fig. 7 AE signals and FFT graph of needle-plane model
(d = 15mm, u = 2.7kV)

For the same PD source, the signals from TEV and

UHF sensors are shown in Fig. 8, in which, TEV 1 was (a)
selected as the triggering channel. TEV sensors at
different positions and UHF sensor all can detect the  
12.38kV
effective PD signal. The signal amplitudes from 3 11.50kV

different TEV sensors have the similar value, which is

between 40mV and 60mV. Signal amplitude of UHF
sensor is relatively lower, which is about 7mV. It shows
that TEV method is more sensitive and effective than
13.61kV 14.65kV
UHF method. TEV signals are filtered by high-pass
flitters (cut-off frequency is 1MHz), then FFT transfer is
conducted, the final frequency spectrum can be obtained.
It can be seen that the highest spectral line is around
10MHz. The frequency of UHF signal is mainly (b)
concentrated from 300MHz to 600MHz.

395
    11.75kV 
IV. CONCLUSIONS
12.69kV

Based on the above experimental investigation, the

following conclusions can be drawn. Holes on the
switchgear cabinet are important for AE method. The
materials of switchgear cabinet and installed positions of
13.65kV  14.66kV sensor have no significant influence on TEV method.
Impermeability magnetic material (stainless steel) has
more obvious effect on preventing UHF signals to
release than the permeability magnetic material, which is
not good for UHF method. Bigger holes on switchgeat
(c)
cabinet are beneficial to the measurement of UHF
Fig. 9 PRPD graphs of suspended-metal model under different method. PC method is the most sensitive to PD signals
distance conditions and voltage (a) 0.5mm; (b) 1mm; (c) 1.5mm but is also easily influenced by the electromagnetic
interference. For the needle-plane model, the PRPD
Fig. 10 shows AE signals and FFT graphs of graph changes from “ball” shape to the “M” shape as the
suspended-metal model. It can be seen that the spectral voltage increases. For the suspended-metal model, the
line of the highest intensity is around 40 kHz. The typical PRPD graph has significant stratification phenomena.
frequency with peak values also can be found around 80 AE method is more sensitive to PD signals of the
kHz and 120 kHz. needle-plane model. TEV/UHF cannot successfully get
1.5
the PD signals when the discharge capacity is less than
1.0 200pC. However, all the methods are sensitive to the PD
Amplitude / V

0.5 signal of suspended-metal model.

0.0
-0.5
-1.0
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Email: lijunwang@mail.xjtu.edu.cn

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