Simulation of Partial Discharge in High Voltage Power Equipment

Abstract

In high voltage (HV) electrical power system, variety of solid, liquid and gaseous materials are used for insulation purpose to protect the incipient failure inside the HV power equipment. Among these the solid insulation is widely used for high voltage power equipment HV electrical power system. Most of insulating materials are not perfect in all respect and contains always some impurities. The presence of air bubble is one of such impurities in insulating materials and highly undesirable for such type of insulation which causes a local weak zone inside the insulator. Insulation of the HV power equipment gradually degrades inside the insulator due to cumulative effect of electrical, chemical and thermal stress. Due to the high voltage stress the weak zone inside the insulator causes the partial discharge (PD) which is known as local electrical breakdown. As a result the insulation properties of such materials are enormously degrades its quality due to the PD. In this work, the simulation of PD activity due to presence of a small cylindrical void inside the solid insulation material of high voltage power equipment is studied with the MATLAB Simulink platform.