Inception behaviour of pulsed positive corona in several gases

Abstract

The inception probability and the streamer length of pulsed positive corona discharges is determined in argon, nitrogen, oxygen and air. This study is performed in a 25 mm point-plane gap at a pressure of 1 bar. The lowest voltage at which a discharge in argon starts is 3 kV but only with an inception probability of 1%. At 5 kV the corona discharge in argon transforms into a spark with a probability close to 100%. The inception probability of corona discharges in all molecular gases used here as a function of the voltage is identical, starting with 1% at 4 kV and going up to 100% at 9 kV. The streamer lengths are quite different for these gases, nitrogen requiring the lowest voltage for streamers to cross the gap and oxygen the highest. This is probably due to electron attachment in oxygen. A remarkable result is that in air streamers bridge the gap at 8 kV, but spark breakdown occurs only above 26 kV. This property makes it relatively easy to obtain powerful pulsed corona discharges in air.