Surface partial discharge characteristics of oil-paper insulation under combined AC-DC voltage

The valve side windings of converter transformers bear AC, DC, impulse, and reversal-polarity voltages during operation, which could result in serious insulation problems of the equipment. By performing experiments with surface discharge model of oil-paper insula- tion at 80 ℃ under combined AC-DC voltage for 200 h, we studied the spectrums and statistical parameters of partial discharges at different discharge stages. Furthermore, some fingerprint parameters were calculated in order to estimate the development situation of par- tial discharge, while the characteristic gases dissolved in the transformer oil were measured by gas chromatography. The surface discharges in the experiments were observed using a high speed camera, and a full discharge process could be marked off into four stages as follows. ①The elementary stage. When a partial discharge occurs near electrodes, electrical charges are injected into the region near electrodes and causing bubble generation. ②Due to their high resistivity and low dielectric constant, the bubbles would bare the major part of the voltage applied to samples. Therefore, discharge happens inside the small bubbles, and it emits a lot of light. ③Micromolecules of gas are produced in discharge, and further ionization in the transformer oil takes place simultaneously when high-energy electrons collide with oil molecules. ④The carrier charge moves forward to electrodes driven by the applied electric field, till they neutralize with the charge from electrodes, and hence discharge channels are formed subsequently.