An Experimental Study on the Positive Streamer Leader Propagation under Switching Impulse Voltages in a 10m Rod-Plane Air Gap

Abstract

A large-scale investigation into leader development in a 10-m rod-plane gap with different rise time 250 μs, 1000μs and 2500μs. To explain the leader propagation under switching impulse voltages, the leader propagation is recorded with a high-speed charge-coupled device (CCD) camera. It is significant to figure out this phenomenon to deepen our understanding of leader discharge. The observation results showed that the leader mechanism is a very complex physical phenomenon. It could be classified into two types of leader processes continuous and the discontinuous leader streamer-leader propagation. Furthermore, we studied the continuous leader development parameters, including two dimensional (2-D) leader length, injected charge, and final jump stage under switching impulse. We observed that the discontinuous leader makes an important contribution to the appearance of channel re-illuminations of the positive leader. Finally, the comparative study shows better results in terms of standard switch impulse and long front positive impulse in this study.