Accuracy of calculations of electrostatic fields by means of measuring high voltage

Abstract

When developing means of measuring high voltages it is necessary to know the accurate values of the parameters of the electrostatic fields produced in these devices by electrodes of complex shape. This enables one to eliminate corona and leakage currents over the surface of the insulation in the construction, and it is necessary in order to determine the metrological characteristics of the means of measurement. When designing electrostatic voltmeters and comparators for the absolute measurement of high voltage [i] the problem of determining the partial capacitances of the sensitive elements of the means of measurement is therefore an extremely important one. A calculation of the field-strength distribution over the height of a resistive pulse-voltage divider enables one to determine such an important divider characteristic as the response time [2] etc. Since it is extremely difficult to measure the field strenth experimentally, and in the immediate vicinity of the surface of high-voltage elements is often impossible in the present state of measurement technique, theoretical methods are of considerable importance. For this purpose the method of expansion in series in nonorthogonal functions [3] is widely used; this is called the method of equivalent charges in the electrical literature [4]. In particular, this method has been used to investigate the properties of resistive voltage dividers [2], capacitive dividers [5] etc. The method of expansion in series in orthogonal functions consists in representing the solution of Laplace's equation