High Voltage Engineering

Md. Alamgir Hossain

Assistant Professor
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Khulna University of Engineering & Technology
1. [C.L._Wadhwa] High Voltage Engineering
2. [E._Kuffel, W. S. Zaengl, J Kuffel] High Voltage Engineering
Fundamentals
3. [M._S._Naidu, V. Kamaraju] High Voltage Engineering
4. [Mazen_Abdel-Salam etc] High Voltage Engineering –
Theory and Practice
5. [R.D._Begamudre] Extra High Voltage A.C. Transmission
Engineering
• Low ≤ 1kV
Distribution
• Medium 1kV ~ 66kV

• High 100kV ~ 230kV

• Extra High 275kV ~ 765kV Transmission

• Ultra High ≥1MV

 X- Ray

100 kV

Electron Microscope
 100 kV ~1MV

Electrostatic Precipitator
 Up to 1MV

Insulation Test
Half-wave Rectifier

During one period, T=1/f of the a.c. voltage a charge Q is transferred to

the load RL, which is represented as

The ripple voltage,

This charge is supplied by the capacitor over the period T when the voltage
changes from Vmax to Vmin over approximately period T neglecting the conduction
period of the diode. Suppose at any time the voltage of the capacitor is V and it
decreases by an amount of dV over the time dt then charge delivered by the
capacitor during this time is
The single phase half-wave rectifier circuits have the following disadvantages:
i. The size of the circuits is very large if high and pure d.c. output voltages are
desired.
ii. The h.t. transformer may get saturated if the amplitude of direct current is
comparable with the nominal alternating current of the transformer.
H.V. output at no-load
The steady state potentials at all nodes of the circuit are
sketched for the circuit for zero load conditions. From this it can
be seen, that:
 the potentials at the nodes 1’, 2’,…..n’ are oscillating due to
the voltage oscillation of V(t);
 the potentials at the nodes 1,2...n remain constant with
reference to ground potential;
 the voltages across all capacitors are of d.c. type, the
magnitude of which is 2Vmax across each capacitor stage,
except the capacitor Cn’ which is stressed with Vmax only;
 every rectifierD1, D1’, ....Dn, Dn’ is stressed with 2Vmax or
twice a.c. peak voltage; and
 the h.v. output will reach a maximum voltage of 2nVmax.
If the generator supplies any load current I, the output voltage
will never reach the value 2nVmax. There are two things to deal
with: the voltage drop ∆V0 and the peak-to-peak ripple 2δV
Now let a charge q be transferred to the load per cycle, which is
obviously q=I/f=IT. This charge comes from the smoothing
column, the series connection of C1...Cn. If no charge would be
transferred during T from this stack via D’1..D’n to the oscillating
column, peak-to-peak ripple would merely be

( n/Ci )

Therefore, the total ripple will be

I

Thus the lowest capacitors are most responsible for the ripple

For equal capacitor C1.........Cn

q q Load

q 2q

q 3q

4q

nq
The capacitor Cn will be charged to a voltage
C’n-1 can only be charged up to a maximum
voltage of

If all the capacitors within the cascade

circuit are equal or

then the voltage drops across the individual

stages are
I
Since the lowest capacitors are most responsible for the total ΔV0
as is the case of the ripple, only a doubling of C’n is convenient,
because this capacitor has to withstand only half the voltage of
the other capacitors; namely Vmax. Therefore, ΔVn decreases by an
amount of 0.5nq/c, which reduces ΔV of every stage by the same
amount, thus n times. Hence,

For this case and, n≥4 linear term can be neglected and
therefore approximate the maximum output voltage by
The optimum number of stages assuming a constant Vmax, I, f and
C can be obtained for maximum value of V0max by differentiating
equation

with respect to n and equating it to zero. That is,

Using the value of nopt
Example 2.1. A ten stage Cockraft-Walton circuit has all
capacitors of 0.06µF. The secondary voltage of the supply
transformer is 100kV at a frequency of 150Hz. If the load
current is 1mA, determine (i) voltage regulation (ii) the ripple
(iii) the optimum number of stages for maximum output voltage
(iv) the maximum output voltage.

-
 27.5
=3.05kV
4
3.05

0.15%
Robert Jemison Van de Graaff developed belt driven electrostatic
generator in 1931

Can generate
up to some
Mega volt
The advantages of the generator are:
Very high voltages can be easily generated
Ripple free output
Precision and flexibility of control

The disadvantages are:

Low current output
Limitations on belt velocity due to its tendency for
vibration. The vibrations may make it difficult to have an
accurate grading of electric fields
High Voltage Cascaded Transformer
High voltage is generated in the laboratory for testing power
equipments and research purpose. The current required for
testing are as follows:

Insulators, C.B., bushings,

Instrument transformers = 0.1– 0.5 A
Power transformers, h.v. capacitors. = 0.5–1 A
Cables = 1 A and above

For less than 300kV, a single unit transformer is suitable but for
more higher voltage cascade transformer is used that reduces
the problem with-
Cost
Transportation
Erection and
Insulation
For the three-stage transformer, the total
output VA will be 3VI= 3P and, therefore,
each of the secondary winding of the
transformer would carry a current of
I= P/V.

The primary winding of

stage-III transformer is
loaded with P and so also
the tertiary winding of
second stage transformer.
 I. Regulating transformer , II. Compensating reactor
III. Test transformer with commutable primary
In case of insulation test, load is highly capacitive and hence the
voltage across the load becomes higher than rated voltage. So,
regulation at primary side is needed to maintain the voltage
across the load.
 Fig: Equivalent circuit of a single
stage loaded transformer
For certain loading, resonance may occur in the circuit suddenly
and the current will then only be limited by the resistance of the
circuit and the voltage across the test specimen may go up as
high as 20 to 40 times the desired value. But, it is difficult to
manufacture continuously variable high voltage and high value
series reactor.
 L N N2 L

For certain setting of the reactor, the inductive reactance may

equal the capacitive reactance of the circuit, hence resonance will
take place.
The variable reactor is incorporated into the high voltage
transformer by introducing a variable air gap in the core of the
transformer. The output voltage remains practically constant.
Within the units of single stage design, the parallel resonant
method offers optimum testing performance.
The output voltage is achieved by auto transformer action and
parallel compensation is achieved by the connection of the
reactor.
Example 2.2. A 100kVA 250 V/200 kV feed transformer has
resistance and reactance of 1% and 5% respectively. This
transformer is used to test a cable at 400 kV at 50 Hz. The cable
takes a charging current of 0.5 A at 400 kV. Determine the series
inductance required. Assume 1% resistance of the inductor. Also
determine input voltage to the transformer. Neglect dielectric loss
of the cable.
Solution: 1 200 2
The resistance of the transformer and inductor,   4 K
100 0.100
5 200 2
The resistance of the transformer,   20 K
100 0.100
400
The capacitive reactance of the capacitor,  800 K
0. 5
At resonance, X L  X C
Inductive reactance of transformer is 20 KΩ . Therefore,
additional inductive reactance required will be
800  20  780K
For testing electrical apparatus for switching surge, high
frequency high voltage damped oscillations are needed which
need high voltage high frequency transformers.

The advantages of these high frequency transformers are:

 absence of core reduces size and cost
 pure sine wave output
 slow build-up of voltage over a few cycles and hence no
damage due to switching surges
 uniform distribution of voltage across the winding

Commonly used high frequency high voltage resonant

transformer is Tesla coil that is an electrical resonant transformer
circuit designed by inventor Nikola Tesla in 1891.