Improving models of partial discharge activity using simulation

Callender, George, Rapisarda, Paolo and Lewin, Paul (2017) Improving models of partial discharge activity using simulation. In 2017 IEEE Electrical Insulation Conference (EIC). IEEE. pp. 392-395 . (doi:10.1109/EIC.2017.8004653).

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

In the literature models of partial discharge (PD) activity have been used to successfully replicate PD data from experiments under controlled conditions. To reduce computational cost PD models are forced to make assumptions about the discharge physics, including the surface charge distributions and magnitudes at a dielectric boundary due to a discharge. In this work a drift-diffusion model is used to simulate a single discharge inside a spherical air filled void at atmospheric pressure surrounded by epoxy resin. It was found that the discharge comprised of an electron avalanche that transitioned into a positive streamer, a result seen in previous work on dielectric barrier discharges. Furthermore, although the surface charge density distributions are approximately bipolar with respect to the symmetry axis, there is a notable asymmetry in the electric field and charged particle distributions during the discharge. Future improvements and possible insights from the results are then discussed.

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