A Thin Polymer Film Based Optical Fiber Sensor for Partial Discharge Detection

Partial discharge (PD) detection in high voltage equipment is a vital solution for the identification of insulation degradation. It is a regular strategy of detecting the PD by acoustic emission using conventional methods like piezoelectric transducers (PZT) but this method has drawbacks such as low sensitivity and false alarms due to electromagnetic interference (EMI). In order to avoid these kinds of drawbacks, a thin polymer film based Single-mode fiber (SMF) - multimode fiber (MMF) - single-mode fiber (SMS) was fabricated and studied. The thin polymer film SMS sensor was tested with two types of light source; Broadband source (BBS) and Tunable laser source (TLS). The experiment has been carried out with air ultrasonic transmitter and high voltage source for creating PD to detect the acoustic signal generated. The signal to noise ratio (SNR) of both sensors was observed and measured. The PD signal detection was carried out in air medium and the phase-resolved partial discharge patterns were recorded and the performance was compared with the conventional measuring instrument. The acoustic signals have been detected by the sensor generated from the transmitter and surface discharge using BBS and TLS. Identification of the best light source for PD detection has been explained.