Investigation of Partial Discharge Characteristics inside Vacuum Interrupter with Various Floating Shield Potentials

Abstract

The reliable operation of vacuum circuit breakers (VCBs) plays an important role in the power system's reliability. The common cases which lead to the failure in the VCB are related to the loss of vacuum inside the vacuum interrupters (VIs). VIs commonly loses the vacuum with a higher leakage rate, resulting in a decrease in discharge voltage and partial discharge (PD) inside the VI which can lead to the eventual failure of the VCBs. Detecting vacuum leakage at the early stage became an important issue. In the prior study, vacuum failure was studied by detecting PD characteristics inside the VIs by regulating the different internal pressures. This study introduces a novel approach to investigating vacuum leakage within the VIs by detecting PD characteristics under various floating shield potentials to study the possibility of shield potential control on PD measurement. Comparing the experimental results measured at different internal pressures under various shield potentials, this study highlights the measurement of PD characteristics and the possibility of shield potential control on PD measurement. © 2024 Institute of Electrical Engineer of Japan and Wiley Periodicals LLC.