2296 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTROMAGNETIC COMPATIBILITY, VOL. 64, NO.

6, DECEMBER 2022

Response of a Surge Arrester With a Series Gap for 6.6-kV Distribution Lines to
Steep-Front Transients
Ryota Mori , Member, IEEE, and Akiyoshi Tatematsu , Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract—Surge arresters with a series gap are commonly in-

stalled in distribution lines to effectively protect insulators, trans-
formers, and other equipment from lightning threats in Japan.
On the other hand, it has been well known that the high-altitude
electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) at an early stage, called E1 HEMP,
may extensively cause overvoltage on distribution lines, and the
rise time of the E1 HEMP is as short as a few nanoseconds, which
is much shorter than that of lightning electromagnetic pulses. To
evaluate the effectiveness of surge arresters with a series gap against
overvoltage induced by the E1 HEMP, it is necessary to evaluate the
effect of a discharge delay due to the series gap on the protection
level of surge arresters for steep-front transients. In this work, using Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of an experimental setup.
a pulse current injection system, we apply a high voltage to a surge
arrester with a series gap widely used for 6.6-kV distribution lines in
Japan and measure the response of the surge arrester to steep-front
transients. From the measured results, we obtain the voltage–time the surge arresters installed in a wide area may be useful to
characteristics of the surge arrester with a series gap and residual protect distribution lines from the HEMP threat. In [12], the
voltages, which are compared with the results for lightning impulse responses of metal–oxide surge arresters, which are used in
voltage.
10-kV distribution lines, to steep-front transients with a rise time
Index Terms—Distribution lines, high-altitude electromagnetic of 5–100 ns were studied using a pulse current injection (PCI)
pulse (HEMP), lightning electromagnetic pulse (LEMP), pulse system [13], and it was found that the peak values of the residual
current injection (PCI), surge arresters with a series gap.
voltage of the surge arresters are about 50%–60% higher than
those under lightning impulse voltages. On the other hand, most
I. INTRODUCTION of the surge arresters used for protecting 6.6-kV distribution
lines in Japan have an internal series gap [14] to prevent faults
N GENERAL, the causes of lightning faults in 6.6-kV dis-
I tribution lines are classified into indirect and direct lightning
strikes. In 6.6-kV distribution lines in Japan, power distribution
caused by increased leakage current or temporary overvoltage
in distribution systems. In [15], it was presented that the internal
series gap of a surge arrester used in 6.6-kV distribution lines
equipment (e.g., insulators, pole-mounted transformers, and increases the sparkover voltage of the series gap owing to a
automatic switches) are rarely damaged due to lightning over- discharge delay for lightning impulse voltages with a rise time
voltage induced by lightning electromagnetic pulses (LEMPs) of 1–10 µs.
arising from indirect lightning strikes because the distribution In this work, using a PCI system, we apply a high voltage
lines are well protected by surge arresters installed at short to a surge arrester with a series gap, which is widely installed
intervals [1]. On the other hand, it has been well known that in 6.6-kV distribution lines in Japan, and study the response of
the high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) at an early the surge arrester to the steep-front transient with a rise time of
stage, called E1 HEMP, may extensively cause overvoltage on several nanoseconds to evaluate the effect of a discharge delay
distribution lines [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], whereas the rise time due to its internal series gap on the protection level of the surge
of the E1 HEMP is as short as a few nanoseconds [8], [9], [10], arrester. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study on
which is much shorter than that of LEMPs [11]. As mentioned the transient response of the 6.6-kV surge arrester with a series
earlier, in 6.6-kV distribution lines in Japan, many surge arresters gap to impulse voltages with a rise time of several nanoseconds.
are closely installed to protect against lightning overvoltage, and
II. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
Manuscript received 1 March 2022; revised 23 July 2022; accepted 22
August 2022. Date of publication 9 September 2022; date of current version A. Overview of Experimental Setup
14 December 2022. (Corresponding author: Ryota Mori.)
The authors are with the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Fig. 1 shows the experimental setup used to measure the
Industry, Kanagawa 240-0196, Japan (e-mail: ryota-m@criepi.denken.or.jp; response of a 6.6-kV surge arrester with an internal series gap,
akiyoshi@criepi.denken.or.jp). an overview, and the specifications of which are given in Fig. 2
Color versions of one or more figures in this article are available at
https://doi.org/10.1109/TEMC.2022.3202155. and Table I, respectively. As shown in Fig. 1, the surge arrester
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TEMC.2022.3202155 was mounted on a large copper plate, and using a PCI system,
0018-9375 © 2022 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See https://www.ieee.org/publications/rights/index.html for more information.

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTROMAGNETIC COMPATIBILITY, VOL. 64, NO. 6, DECEMBER 2022
Fig. 2. Surge arrester with a series gap [14].
TABLE I
SPECIFICATIONS OF SURGE ARRESTER WITH A SERIES GAP
TABLE II
SPECIFICATIONS OF MEASURING EQUIPMENT
we applied a steep-front high voltage to the surge arrester while
changing the charged voltage of the PCI system (maximum peak
current in a short circuit, 1.2 kA; maximum peak voltage in an
open circuit, 80 kV). Using the aforementioned experimental
setup, we measured the transient response of the surge arrester.
From the measured waveforms of the voltage across the surge
arrester and the current flowing through it, we obtained the
discharge characteristics, that is, voltage–time characteristics of
the internal series gap, that cause the delay of the operation of
the surge arrester. Table II summarizes the specifications of the
measuring equipment used in this letter.
Before performing the test, we measured the output current
of the PCI system, where its output terminal was treated as short
circuit. Fig. 3 shows the measured current waveform at the output
terminal. The rise time (time between 10% and 90% of the
peak value on the wavefront) and pulsewidth (50% duration)
of the current were 6.8 ns and 549 ns, respectively, and we
confirmed that the current waveform in the short circuit satisfied
the limits specified in MIL-STD-188-125-1 [13]. Note that, as
shown in Fig. 3, the injected current had a steep front, and in
the experimental setup, to minimize the unintended effect of the
inductance of wires, we kept the length of the wires, which were
used to connect the output terminal of the PCI system to the
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2297
Fig. 3. Measured output current of PCI in short circuit. (a) Time frame of
−0.5–2.5 µs. (b) Time frame of −10–50 ns.
Fig. 4. Measured current through surge arrester and voltage across it when the
surge arrester was not activated.
upper terminal of the surge arrester and the bottom terminal of
the surge arrester to the copper plate, as short as possible.
B. Evaluation of Discharge Characteristics
Fig. 4 shows the measured waveforms of the voltage across
the surge arrester and the current flowing through it when the
surge arrester was not activated, that is, the applied voltage was
not sufficiently high to short the series gap through sparkover.
Here, to evaluate the discharge characteristics (voltage–time
characteristics) of the internal series gap that may delay the
operation of the surge arrester, it is necessary to obtain the
time to sparkover at the series gap t, that is, the time difference
between the start time of applying the voltage and the time of
the occurrence of the sparkover to short the series gap. However,
as shown in Fig. 4, the pulsed current, the peak value of which
was around 23.9 A, flowed through the surge arrester even when
the series gap was not short through sparkover. This current is
assumed to be the effect of a leakage current, and the leakage
current Il of a surge arrester with a series gap can be expressed
as follows [16]:
dV (t)
I l = iC + i G , iC = C · , iG = G · V (t) (1)
dt
where iC , iG , and V denote the leakage current due to the
capacitance C of the surge arrester, the leakage current due to
the conductance G of the surge arrester, and the voltage across
the surge arrester, respectively.
Fig. 5 shows the measured current flowing through the surge
arrester and the current calculated using (1). The capacitance C
and conductance G were set to 4.87 pF and 6.19 µS, respectively,
2298 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTROMAGNETIC COMPATIBILITY, VOL. 64, NO. 6, DECEMBER 2022
Fig. 5. Comparison between the measured current through surge arrester and
that calculated using (1).
Fig. 6. Capacitance and conductance measured using an impedance analyzer.
(a) Frequency characteristics of capacitance. (b) Frequency characteristics of
conductance.
which were obtained using the following expressions:
N
 N
 Fig. 8 shows the measured voltage–time characteristics of the
C= s n Cn / sn (2)
n=1 n=1
N
 N
 also give the fitting curve of the measured voltage–time charac-
G= s n Gn / s n (3)
n=1 n=1
where N, sn, and s n are the number of samples of the Fourier
transform, the spectrum of the derivative of the measured voltage
at the nth frequency, and the spectrum of the measured voltage at
the nth frequency, respectively. The capacitance Cn and conduc-
tance Gn at the nth frequency were measured by an impedance
analyzer (HP, 4294A), as shown in Fig. 6.
As shown in Fig. 5, the rise time and shape of the calculated
current agree well with the measured waveform before the
occurrence of the sparkover across the series gap, and it was
confirmed that this current occurred mainly because of the effect
of the capacitance of the surge arrester. Taking this phenomenon
into account, to evaluate the discharge characteristics (voltage–
time characteristics) from the measured voltage and current,
we defined that the voltage V is the peak value of the voltage
waveform Vpeak , and the time to sparkover t (see Fig. 7). As
shown in Fig. 7, tV and tI are zero crossing times of the straight
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Fig. 7. Evaluation of time to sparkover.
Fig. 8. Measured voltage–time characteristics of surge arrester.
lines between 0.9 Vpeak and 0.3 Vpeak and between 0.9 Ipeak
(Ipeak : peak value of the current) and 0.3 Ipeak , respectively.
III. MEASURED RESULTS
A. Discharge Characteristics of 6.6-kV Surge Arrester With
Internal Series Gap
internal series gap of the surge arrester obtained, as explained in
Section II-B. In Fig. 8, in addition to the measured results, we
teristics, which was expressed using the following approximate
expression [17]:
  
1 t − tf
V = V0 1 + exp − (4)
2 ts
where V0 is the minimum sparkover voltage and tf and ts are the
parameters to simulate the effect of the discharge delay, which
were estimated from the measured results (N: number of data)
by the least squares method. In the above measured results, the
maximum sparkover voltage was 49.5 kV at 9.0 ns, which is
about 1.5 times larger than that for the steep lightning impulse
voltage with a rise time of 0.5 µs given in the manufacturer’s
specifications. On the other hand, the voltage–time character-
istics at around 30–40 ns later appear flat, and the minimum
sparkover voltage V0 was 33.3 kV, which was almost the same
as that for the lightning impulse voltage specified in the data
sheet provided by the manufacturer.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTROMAGNETIC COMPATIBILITY, VOL. 64, NO. 6, DECEMBER 2022
Fig. 9. Measured current through surge arrester and voltage across it.
(a) Sparkover time of 9.0 ns. (b) Sparkover time of 40.1 ns.
B. Residual Voltage of 6.6-kV Surge Arrester With Internal
Series Gap
As an example of the measured waveforms of the voltage and
current, Fig. 9(a) and (b) shows the measured currents flowing
through the surge arrester and the voltages across it, where the
sparkover occurred across the internal series gap in the wavefront
and wave tail of the applied voltage, respectively. In Fig. 9(a)
and (b), the times of the occurrence of the sparkover are 9.0 ns
and 40.1 ns, respectively. From these results, we found that the
current starts to flow immediately after the occurrence of the
sparkover across the series gap, and then the voltage across
the surge arrester converges to an almost constant residual
voltage after the sparkover of the series gap. In Fig. 9(a), the
peak value of the voltage after the occurrence of the sparkover
is 34.9 kV, which is 1.5 times larger than the residual voltage
of 24 kV for the lightning impulse current (8/20 µs, 2500 A)
specified in the data sheet of the manufacturer. In Fig. 9(a), the
voltage shows a tendency to decrease after around 30 ns for
the increasing current. The main reason for this is presumed to
be the effect of the frequency characteristics of the MOV, which
indicates that it will be necessary to evaluate the voltage–current
relationship of the MOV itself for steep-front transients. On the
other hand, in Fig. 9(b), the peak voltage is 22.5 kV, which is
closer to the specified residual voltage of 24 kV for the lightning
impulse current. Although the current for the steep-front tran-
sient is 60.9 A in this case, in case of HEMP events, the peak
values of currents flowing through surge arresters in distribution
lines are much smaller than those due to lightning strikes, and
the residual voltage of the surge arrester does not change so
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2299
significantly for currents of about 60 to some hundreds ampere
owing to its nonlinear behavior.
IV. CONCLUSION
In this letter, using a PCI system, we measured the discharge
characteristics (voltage–time characteristics) and residual volt-
age of the 6.6-kV surge arrester with a series gap, which is
commonly installed in 6.6-kV distribution lines as countermea-
sures against lightning overvoltage in Japan. From the measured
results, we found the following points:
1) The sparkover across the series gap occurred at 49.5 kV to
operate the surge arrester even at 9.0 ns in the voltage–time
characteristics for the steep-front transients. This voltage
is about 1.5 times larger than the sparkover voltage for
the steep lightning impulse voltage, which is given in
the specifications from the manufacturer. In addition, the
sparkover voltage of the series gap around 30–40 ns later
is similar to that for the steep lightning impulse voltage
with a rise time of 0.5 µs within a difference of 5%.
2) The voltage across the surge arrester converges to a resid-
ual voltage after the occurrence of the sparkover across the
series gap. Even when the time of the occurrence of the
sparkover was 9.0 ns, the maximum residual voltage of
the surge arrester was 34.9 kV, which is about 1.5 times
larger than that for the lightning impulse voltage specified
in the data sheet of the manufacturer. The residual voltage
of the surge arrester when the sparkover occurred at around
40 ns later is almost identical to that for the lightning
impulse voltage.
The above measured results can be used to model the surge
arresters with a series gap and evaluate voltages induced on
distribution lines and overvoltages entering transformers and
other equipment through electromagnetic transient simulations.
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