HV Cables Assignment

Leonardo Bolzonella 5450869

Rahul Rane 5722403
Bonne Bogaert 5107105

Introduction
In this assignment a HV system is depicted, shown in Fig. 1. An AC voltage source is connected to a
capacitor and a parallel source of partial discharge, modelled as a corona discharge. The loss factor of
the system is to be computed and analyzed, firstly focusing on the magnitude per frequency
component, and then comparing the fundamental component when varying the applied voltage
amplitude.

To solve this assignment, first the capacitor current and PD current must be computed, and then
summed in frequency domain to analyze the loss tangent factor as the ratio of the imaginary and real
part of the total current. A base frequency of 50Hz is supposed.

Figure 1: Setup

Procedure
Firstly, the Fourier analysis of the current through the capacitor can be easily computed, since a
sinusoidal current will only present one peak at the base frequency. Since the impedance of the
capacitor is imaginary, the resulting current will also present a real and imaginary component.
𝑉𝑝 𝑗
𝐼𝐶 = 𝑍𝑐 = −
𝑍𝑐 𝜔𝐶
Next, the PD current has to be modelled. The partial discharge only occurs at the negative half cycle
of the sinusoidal oscillation, whenever the amplitude crosses the threshold value of 4kV. The total
current can be expressed as
 𝐼𝑃𝐷 = 𝑄 ∗ 𝑛
Where Q is the charge per pulse (10pF), and n is the repetition rate, computed as:

𝑛 = (|𝑉| − |𝑉0 |)2 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑉 < 0

This waveform is computed in MATLAB, and the resulting time domain current can be seen in Fig. 2.
It can be seen that the PD discharge current only occurs when the voltage overcomes 4kV in the
negative half cycle.

Figure 2: Voltage and PD current in time domain

Next, the FFT is computed for this signal, shown in Fig. 3. Note the base harmonic at 50Hz and higher
harmonic components.
 Figure 3: Magnitude spectrum of PD current

Next, the total current in frequency domain can be computed as:

𝑌𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 = 𝑌𝑃𝐷 + 𝑌𝑐

Where 𝑌𝑃𝐷 is the FFT of the PD current, and Yc is the FFT of the capacitor current (therefore a single
peak at the 50Hz component). Finally, the loss tangent can be computed as:
𝐼𝑚(𝑌𝑡𝑜𝑡 )
𝑡𝑎𝑛𝛿 =
𝑅𝑒(𝑌𝑡𝑜𝑡 )

The resulting vector contains the loss tangent factor for each frequency component. The frequency
spectrum of the loss tangent can be used to inspect the frequency dependent behavior:
 Figure 4: Frequency analysis of loss tangent factor

Next, the relationship between peak voltage and loss tangent factor can be inspected. T PD discharge
is computed for different peak voltage values, ranging from 4kV to 10kV with steps of 0.2kV. The
starting value is chosen at 4kV since no PD discharge occurs until the threshold voltage is reached.
Fig. 4 shows an example of the current waveforms for peak values of 5kV and 8kV.

As before, the FFT is performed for each PD current waveform, and this is then combined with the
single component FFT of the capacitor current. It is important to note that the capacitor current is
also dependent on the applied voltage value. Once the total current is calculated for each peak value,
the loss tangent factor is computed for the 50Hz component (corresponding to n = 1). The result is
shown in Fig. 5. It can be seen that the loss factor reduces as the peak value increases. This is to be
expected, since, as the voltage increases, more discharge happens, which causes an increase of the
real part of the total current. This in turn causes a decrease in loss tangent.
 Figure 5: PD current for 5kV or 8kV

Figure 6: Loss tangent at different peak voltage

Appendix 1: MATLAB code

%% HVC assignment

close all
clear all

%% Part 1
%parameter declaration
f = 50;
T=1/(f);
Fs = 1e6; % Sampling frequency
t = 0:1/Fs:0.08;
L=size(t,2)-1; %number of intervals

Vp = 6e3;
V0 = 4e3;
C0 = 100e-12;
Q = 10e-12;

%input voltage
V = Vp*sin(2*pi*f*t);

%capacitor current
C = C0*(1-10e-3*1i);
Zc = 1/(2*pi*f*C); %imaginary impedance

Ic_f = Vp./Zc; %current as function of f (complex)

%PD current
temp = zeros(1,length(t));
for i = 1:1:length(t)
if V(1,i)<-V0
temp(1,i) = abs(V(1,i))-abs(V0);
end
end

n_t = (temp).^2;
Ipd_t = -Q.*n_t;

%fft of signals
Ypd = fft(Ipd_t);
Yc = fft(V./Zc);

%sum of ffts
Yt = Ypd+Yc;

%loss tangent calcuation

tanD = imag(Yt)./real(Yt);

%plotting of data
figure;
P2 = abs(Ypd/L);
P1 = P2(1:L/2+1);
P1(2:end-1) = 2*P1(2:end-1);
fplot = Fs*(0:(L/2))/L;
semilogx(fplot,P1, 'LineWidth', 1.5)
xlabel('frequency [Hz]')
ylabel('Magnitude')

figure;
P2 = abs(Yc/L);
P1 = P2(1:L/2+1);
P1(2:end-1) = 2*P1(2:end-1);
fplot = Fs*(0:(L/2))/L;
semilogx(fplot,P1)
xlabel('frequency [Hz]')
ylabel('Yc')

figure;
P2 = abs(tanD/L);
P1 = P2(1:L/2+1);
P1(2:end-1) = 2*P1(2:end-1);
fplot = Fs*(0:(L/2))/L;
semilogx(fplot,P1, 'LineWidth',1.5)
xlabel('frequency [Hz]')
ylabel('loss tangent factor')

figure;
yyaxis right;
plot(t, V/1e3, 'LineWidth', 1.5);
ylabel('Voltage [kV]')
yline(-V0/1e3);
yyaxis left
plot(t, Ipd_t*1e6, 'LineWidth', 1.5);
hold on;
ylabel('Current [uA]')
legend('voltage', 'PD current')
xlabel('time [s]')

%% part 2

%peak voltage range

Vp = 4e3:0.2e3:10e3;

sinfact = sin(2.*pi.*f.*t);
sinfact = sinfact';

%computing voltage waveform

V = Vp.*sinfact;

%PD current as matrix with time in horizzontal axis, Vp as vertical

temp = zeros(length(t),length(Vp));

for i = 1:1:length(t)
for x = 1:1:length(Vp)
if V(i,x)<-V0
temp(i,x) = abs(V(i,x))-abs(V0);
 end
end
end

n_t = (temp).^2;
Ipd_t = -Q.*n_t;

%do fft, sum, and compute tan delta at n = 1 (50Hz)

for x = 1:1:length(Vp)
Ypdn(:,x) = fft(Ipd_t(:,x));
Ycn(:,x) = fft(Vp(x)/Zc);
Ytn(:,x) = Ycn(:,x)+Ypdn(:,x);
tanDn(x) = imag(Ytn(1, x))./real(Ytn(1,x));
end

%plot data
figure;
loglog(Vp/1000, tanDn, 'LineWidth',1.5);
xlabel('Peak Voltage [kV]')
ylabel('Loss tangent factor')

figure;
P2 = abs(Ypdn(:,7)/L);
P1 = P2(1:L/2+1);
P1(2:end-1) = 2*P1(2:end-1);
fplot = Fs*(0:(L/2))/L;
semilogx(fplot,P1, 'LineWidth',1.5)
xlabel('frequency [Hz]')
ylabel('Vp = 5kV')

figure;
plot(t, Ipd_t(:, 5), 'LineWidth',1.5);
hold on
plot(t, Ipd_t(:, 8), 'LineWidth',1.5);
xlabel('time [s]')
ylabel('PD current [A]')
legend('Vp = 5kV', 'Vp = 8kV');