COMSATS University Islamabad,Abbottabad Campus

Generation And Measurement of High Voltage Impulse

CEP Report

By

KASHIF ZAMAN FA19-EPE-052

For the course

HIGH VOLTAGE ENGINEERING

Semester Fall 2022
Supervised by:
MA’AM SIDRA MUMTAZ

LAB Engineer: MA’AM MARYAM

Date : 01/08/2023

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering COMSATS

University Islamabad – Abbottabad Campus

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DECLARATION

I Kashif Zaman (FA19-EPE-052) hereby declare that I have produced the work presented in this report,
during the scheduled period of study. I also declare that I have not taken any material from any source except
referred to wherever due. If a violation of rules has occurred in this report, I shall be liable to punishable
action.

Date: 08-01-2023
KASHIF ZAMAN

FA19-EPE-052

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Abstract
Various high voltage equipment are present in transmission substations. These kind of equipment's are so
costly and also important, their protection should be the higher priority. These equipment should not only
tolerate the rated voltage which is the highest voltage of a system, but also over voltages. Accordingly, it is
mandatory to test high voltage (HV) apparatus during its development stage. The insulation of such
equipment's must be tested under the given artificial lightning or switching over voltages. In this Complex
Engineering Problem I will discuss Generation and Measurement of High Voltage Impulse an also describes
MATLAB simulation of Multi-stage impulse voltage generator circuit(Marx Circuit) to generate the impulse
voltages of 1.2/50µs or 250/2500µs

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION············································································································2
Abstract·······················································································································3
Introduction····················································································· Error! Bookmark not defined.
METHODOLOGY··········································································································5
A. Multistage Impulse Generator (Marx circuit)·····································································5
Problem associated with impulse generator···········································································6
MATLAB Circuit Diagram·······························································································6
Modelling and simulation··································································································7
Mathematical modelling of impulse generator········································································7
Simulink modelling of the impulse generator·········································································9
Discussion·····················································································································9
Application of Impulse Generator Circuit·············································································9
CONCLUSION··············································································································9
REFERENCES·············································································································10

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Introduction

International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) has specified that the insulation of transmission line and
other equipments should withstand standard lightning impulse voltage of wave shape 1.2/50 s and for higher
voltages (220 kV and above) it should withstand standard switching impulse voltage of wave shape 250/2500
µs . In the design or use of impulse voltage generators for research or testing, it is required to evaluate the
time variation of output voltage, the nominal front and tail times and the voltage efficiency for given circuit
parameters. Also, it needs to predict circuit parameters for producing a given wave shape, with a given source
and loading conditions. The loading can be inductive or capacitive. The wave shapes to be produced may be
standard impulse, steep fronted impulse, short tailed impulse or steep front short tailed impulse. Expressions
and curves have been already developed to predict the parameters of impulse voltage generator circuits
required to reproduce the wave forms of required shape for the testing of transformers. An analysis of
standard Marx circuit, with an inductance in series with the tail resistance for the production of short tailed
impulses was done by Carrus. An algorithm workable in a personal computer to evaluate the time variation of
the output voltage, nominal front and tail times and voltage efficiency for given circuit parameters or to
predict the circuit parameters for given wave shape, source and loading conditions was reported. After
performing an experimental investigation to evaluate the influence of tail resistance and tail inductance in the
characteristic parameters of the impulses, provision of an analytical criterion is available for choosing the
most suitable inductance value to be combined with a given resistance in order to generate the desired waves.
Methods to be followed to determine parameters and indicate practical criteria which facilitate generation of
wave shape. Studies of transient disturbances on a transmission system have shown that lightning and
switching operations are followed by a travelling wave of a steep wave front. This type of impulse may result
in the breakdown of the insulation system in power equipments. Generation of impulse voltages in a test
laboratory becomes, therefore, one of the standard techniques for testing the breakdown strength of electrical
insulation. In high voltage engineering, assembling the actual circuit might be very bulky, time consuming
and costly, while for the design, calculation technique could be complicated and may involve a lot of
simplifications

METHODOLOGY

A. Multistage Impulse Generator (Marx circuit)

The arrangement for charging the capacitors in parallel and then connecting the capacitors in
series for discharging was originally proposed by Marx.

Figure 4: Schematic diagram of Marx generator circuit arrangement

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for multistage impulse generator

Usually charging resistance Rs is chosen to limit the charging current to about 50 to
100 mA while the generator capacitance C is chosen such that the product CRs is
about to 10s to 1 minute. The discharge time constant CR1/n (for n stages) will be
too small (microseconds), compared to the charging time constant CRs which will be
few seconds.
Impulse generators are nominally rated by the total voltage (nominal), the number of stages
and the gross energy stored. The nominal output voltage is the number of stages multiplied
by the charging voltage [5]. The nominal energy stored is given by:
E 1/2 C V 2 (1)
where;
V = nominal maximum voltage (n times charging voltage)
C1= discharge capacitance

The discharge capacitance, C1 given by:

C1= C/n (2)
where; C = capacitance of the generator
n = number of stage

Problem associated with impulse generator

In the case of a 15 stages 3MV multi-stage, the capacitors are charged to 200 kV from a regulator and charging supply
section. After the capacitors are charged, the fifirst gap G1, is triggered from a pulse triggering circuit, which in turn
causes a breakdown of all other gaps. To obtain the desired waveform, the choice of Rd and Re is critical. Changing
these high voltage resistors in the laboratory can be inconvenient as the components are too bulky and the processes are
too time consuming. Also, the generator has to be triggered each time to obtain the desired output waveform, which at
times could become risky for the personnel involved. Hence, modelling of the generator using SIMULINK would be a
remedy for the above problems.
MATLAB Circuit Diagram:

Image 1 Multistage Impulse Voltage Generator

Image 2 Output waveform of multistage marx circuit.

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Parameter Value
Image Charging Resistor (Rs) 150k 3 Two stage Marx impulse voltage
generator MATLAB model Ω
Generator Capacitors (C1 – 20µf
C2)
Load Capacitor (Test 0.5µf
Sample C0)
Wave Front Resistor (R1) 0.88
Ω
Wave Tail Resistor (R2) 12.10

Image 4 Waveform of 2nd Stage Marx circuit

Modelling and simulation:

Mathematical modelling of impulse generator

The behavior of impulse voltage generator can be represented by differential equations. By simulating the complete
system, using its governing equations, the performance can be per-determined before building the actual system. The
following equations represent the system:

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Image 5 Block diagram representation of the mathematical model of impulse generator

Image 6 Simulink model of impulse voltage generator

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Simulink modelling of the impulse generator
Impulse generator can be modelled by SIMULINK program with standard blocks
available in Simulink as shown in Fig. 5. The voltage across the object under test
depends on the condition of the active switch G. When the switch is ON (A = l) the
voltage across the test object is given by (6), and when the switch is OFF (A = 0) the
voltage is zero. The next step in the simulation process is to select the integration step
size, t for the simulation. The solution will become more accurate as the step size
reduces to small values. However, reduction in solution step size will increase the
solution time. In general, the step size will have to be taken much smaller than the
natural time periods of the system and the switching time periods employed in the
control.

Discussion
1) Stray capacitance could be added across every resistor except charging resistor to
get the small difference of measurement between simulation and the real impulse
generator (practical).
2) Tail resistor should be adjusted in order to get similar waveform as standard
waveform of impulse generator. From try and error, if the value of the tail resistor is
high, then the tail of the output waveform will also increased. In other words, the tail
of the output waveform is directly proportional to the value of the tail resistor.
3) Changing the value for front resistor will affect the peak voltage. If the value of the
front resistor is increased, the front voltage will decrease. In other words, the tail of
the peak voltage is inversely proportional to the value of the front resistor.
4) The shape of output waveform is also affected by load capacitor. Peak voltage of
the output waveform will increase if the value of the load capacitor is decreased, and
vice versa.
Application of Impulse Generator Circuit
The major application of the impulse generator circuit is to test high voltage devices.
Lightning arresters, Fuses, TVS diodes, different types of surge protectors, etc are
tested using the Impulse voltage generator. Not only in the testing field, but the
Impulse generator circuit is also an essential instrument that is used in nuclear physics
experiments as well as in lasers, fusion and plasma device industries.

The Marx generator is used for the simulation purposes of lightning effects on power-
line gear and in aviation industries. It is also used in X-Ray and Z machines. Other
uses, such as insulation testing of electronic devices are also tested using impulse
generator circuits.

CONCLUSION
A prototype of high impulse voltage generator is designed and is based on the
simulation results performed in MATLAB software. The practical implementation of
two stage Marx impulse voltage generator is made. The simulated result and the
practical circuit result are close to the IEC standard wave shape for lightning impulse
testing. In this work, the entire circuit is simulated and modelled based on the circuit
parameters which were methodically calculated. The calculated parameters and their
effect on characteristics of the impulse wave was studied and it was found that by the
proper assumptions and the method followed in the work, the standard impulse wave
can be generated.

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REFERENCES:

1. Insulation coordination. 1989. International Electrotechnical Commission,

Geneva
2. Matlab reference guide. The Math Works Inc., 1992.
3. Mihir A Bhatt “Impulse voltage generation using MATLAB/ Simulink and its
integration in undergraduate high voltage engineer International journal of
scientific research and education” Volume –4 ISSN(e): 2321-7551
4. M. Jayaraju, B. R. Prabhakar. Generation of unidirectional and bidirectional
oscillatory switching impulse voltages. 1995, 4: 4505 1–4505–4. Proc .of the 9th
International Symposium on High voltage Engineering, Graz Technical
University, Austria
5. A. Carrus, L. E. Funes. Very short tailed lightning double exponential wave
generation technique based on marx circuit standard confifiguration. IEEE Trans.
PAS, 1984, 103(4): 782–787.