© OMICRON Academy Page 1 November 2016, Klaus

If we talk about partial discharges, we have to talk about electric fields. Electric fields are also present in nature.

Under normal weather conditions there are electric fields of some hundred volts per meter. Under overhead lines the electric field
strength is about 5 kV per meter.
In an electrical storm the electrical field rises up to 20 000 Volts per meter before the voltage discharges in a lightening flash with
currents up to 200 000 Amps.

© OMICRON Academy Page 2 November 2016, Klaus

What does the standard say?
PD is a localized electrical discharge that only partially bridges the insulation.
This results in a local breakdown in the beginning (not a total breakdown yet).
The third picture shows a partial breakdown, for example in a cavity. This would result in the destruction of the high-voltage
device.

Only few insulation materials are resistant to PD, e.g. mica - a silicate (phyllosilicate) mineral.
Mica insulations are used for example in the end windings in generators.

© OMICRON Academy Page 3 November 2016, Klaus

Outer PD (corona): The UV activity was made visible with a DayCore PD camera, which can be operated under daylight
conditions.
In this case, the surrounding air serves as the insulation. Therefore, the main insulation which is being “destroyed“ by partial
discharges is air.
The air around the high-voltage device will recombine and is getting exchanged by wind. Since there are no additional costs for
“repairing” this insulator, sometimes outer corona is not considered to be dangerous.

Outer corona, however, can harm the solid insulation close to its place of discharge. Furthermore, it can make it hard to measure
inner discharges at the same time.

© OMICRON Academy Page 4 November 2016, Klaus

The change of color proves destructive PD activity, followed by a degradation of the surface material. The black dust and ashes
often lead to an increased surface conductivity, causing parasitic currents and hot spots. These effects will further deteriorate the
insulation – eventually leading to more partial discharges.

© OMICRON Academy Page 5 November 2016, Klaus

This photo shows the cross section of a cable. On the lower right corner, a part of the outer semiconductor screen can be seen.
The inner conductor is in the direction of the left upper corner.
Water breaks through the outer semi conducting layer and creates a „water tree“ in the insulation. This „water tree“ (colorful
structure on the left) grows in the direction of the electrical field – towards the middle of the cable.
Water (at least contaminated water) is a much better conductor than the solid insulation of the cable. Once the water is inside the
insulation, it will influence the electrical field lines. This results in a higher concentration of the electrical field at the tip of the
„water tree“.
Eventually, the electrical field exceeds the limits of the solid insulation and an „electrical tree“ will start.
This „electrical tree“ (fine black lines in the middle of the photo), starts at the tip of the „water tree“ and grows in both directions
towards the electrodes of the cable.

Inside solid insulation material void discharges can grow as „Electrical Trees“ through the insulation, finally forming a breakdown
channel.

© OMICRON Academy Page 6 November 2016, Klaus

Here the insulation of a cable was modified to clear it up.
Therefore light can pass through and allows us to see the results of a discharge.
This discharge bridged the insulation and destroyed it.

If this would have happened in a real-case scenario, the total power (charge) inside the cable would have discharged at this very
spot. This discharge power (in a real-case scenario) would have destroyed a much larger area around the discharge point.

© OMICRON Academy Page 7 November 2016, Klaus

Partial discharges, being present over years or even decades, can cause a massive change of the insulation surface, finally
leading to a break down.

The left photo shows an RBP bushing with massive traces of partial discharge (black lines).
The photo on the right shows the destruction inside a transformer.

© OMICRON Academy Page 8 November 2016, Klaus

In joints, PD activity can often be identified by visible tracking structures or material erosion on the inner surfaces.

© OMICRON Academy Page 9 November 2016, Klaus

Foreign particles will also cause PD, if they are located in areas with high electrical stress. The dark color of this small metal
particle indicates the thermal activity, which indicates the amount of energy that degrades the joint material.

Almost all foreign particles in the solid insulation will have a higher conductivity than the solid insulator. Therefore the electrical
field will be influenced, leading to areas of lower and higher concentration of the electrical field.
An increased concentration of the electrical field might result in partial discharges at this very point.

© OMICRON Academy Page 10 November 2016, Klaus

This is a video of a needle on the left side and a large electrode on the right.
This needle is pushed into a silicon mass in a glass jar.
High voltage is applied and the treeing process can be witnessed.

The channels/tunnels formed by partial discharges, have the strong tendency to “follow“ the electrical field lines. This takes into
account that every channel/tunnel will change the electrical field on its own.
Since the discharges are within a glass housing, the conductivity on the right side is very limited. Therefore, new
channels/tunnels can be created even though others have already reached the right side. Without the glass bottom of the jar on
the right side, the first channel/tunnel reaching the right side would result in a total breakdown – destroying most of the silicon
around it.

© OMICRON Academy Page 11 November 2016, Klaus

This is a video of a needle on the left side and a large electrode on the right.
This needle is pushed into a silicon mass in a glass jar.
High voltage is applied and the treeing process can be witnessed.

The channels/tunnels formed by partial discharges, have the strong tendency to “follow“ the electrical field lines. This takes into
account that every channel/tunnel will change the electrical field on its own.
Since the discharges are within a glass housing, the conductivity on the right side is very limited. Therefore, new
channels/tunnels can be created even though others have already reached the right side. Without the glass bottom of the jar on
the right side, the first channel/tunnel reaching the right side would result in a total breakdown – destroying most of the silicon
around it.

© OMICRON Academy Page 12 November 2016, Klaus

The growth of an electrical tree is similar to the growing process of total electrical discharges, such as lightning.
The physical processes for total discharges and partial discharges are more or less the same. Electricity is a natural process.
Even though electricity is a natural process, humans are unable to sense electrical fields.

© OMICRON Academy Page 13 November 2016, Klaus

The nerve-cord communication of the human body works with electricity. A current of ions leads to potential differences between
the cells and the intra cellular space.
The human body, consisting of about 65% of water, can influence the electrical field just by its presence.
Every day we are exposed to Electro Static Discharges (ESD) with some thousands of volts, which are of very short duration and
only produce currents on the very outer parts of our bodies.

© OMICRON Academy Page 14 November 2016, Klaus

For DC, charge can be defined as the current, flowing through a conductor, multiplied by the time progressed.
For time dependent currents (AC currents), the simple multiplication has to be replaced by an integral.

© OMICRON Academy Page 15 November 2016, Klaus

Seen from a geometrical point of view, both mathematical expressions on the top of the slide are describing an area below a
current curve.
Since current cannot be measured easily, the voltage drop over a known resistor (shunt) will be used.
This resistor will be R, t1 and t2, which and defined by the user of the measurement system.

Charge Measurement by Frequency Domain Integration will be covered later in detail.

© OMICRON Academy Page 16 November 2016, Klaus

These are SI prefixes mostly used.

Charge is measured in Coulomb [C]. Commonly, discharge values will be displayed in pico Coulombs [pC] or nano Coulombs
[nC].
Only places with almost no interferences from other electrical devices (e.g. shielded rooms), the background noise can be
measured in femto Coulombs (fC).

© OMICRON Academy Page 17 November 2016, Klaus

For PD charge measurement by Frequency Domain Integration, the time-domain signal is transferred to the frequency-domain.
The integration into frequency-domain is done by a frequency filter, typically by a band-pass system.

© OMICRON Academy Page 18 November 2016, Klaus

Analog PD measurement systems consisted of a pre-amplifier, some kind of physical filter and setup of a capacity and a resistor.
The PD pulse is first amplified and then filtered. Afterwards, the capacitance gets charged with the peak value of the PD. The
resistor discharges the capacitance.
Therefore, the first analog meters for partial discharge measurements used to be volt meters. These volt meters displayed the
voltage over the capacitance. The higher the measured partial discharge, the higher the capacitor gets charged.
The first analog systems had a constant and a fixed filter, which would alter over time and temperature. A mechanical display
would indicate mechanical behaviour. A further disadvantage was the slow reaction of the system.

Furthermore, every laboratory cable between the measurement system and the volt meter would have a capacitance, inductance
and resistance of its own. Therefore it would change the behavior of the whole partial discharge measurement system.

© OMICRON Academy Page 19 November 2016, Klaus

The second generation of PD measurement systems was the so called “digital system“:
The first digital systems made it possible to create fingerprint diagrams (PRPD) by recording the PD event and test-voltage by
zero detection.
The first analog/digital-converters had a drift of the voltage, which was influenced by temperature shift, aging process and
warming up. Thus, the behavior would be slightly different every time.
Still, no flexible filters were included. Only one filter frequency and bandwidth were used for the measurement. This was pre-set
by the manufacturer, but as mentioned before, this would change over time.
These changes are almost impossible to monitor, and therefore remain unknown.

© OMICRON Academy Page 20 November 2016, Klaus

The uncertainty of an analog filter has now been solved.
The PD pulse gets pre-amplified and digitized by an analog/digital converter. Real digital filters are used, making it a true digital
system. These filters do not change their behavior over time and temperature.
Furthermore, the user is able to switch the measuring frequency and alter the bandwidth.
The PD impulses are digitized by maintaining their amplitude and point of time when they occurred.

Furthermore, more PD processing functions are included in the hardware, such as thresholds and adjustable preamplifiers.
The voltage signal is digitized as well. All of this information is transmitted via fiber optical cables. These fiber optic cables and
the battery allow the user to use the measurement system on high voltage. The information about PD and voltage is processed
further in the computer. A recording of the entire measurement is possible.

© OMICRON Academy Page 21 November 2016, Klaus

Details of the MPD600:
The voltage input is secured by a protection circuit. The maximal input value is 60 volts RMS and 10 V at the PD input.
Behind the pd input follows an anti-aliasing filter, damping frequencies higher than 16 MHz (20MHz cutoff freq. 3dB).
Then the signal goes into a AD converter and is digitalized with 14 bit and a sampling rate of 64 MSamples.
The intelligence of the measuring system is an FPGA:
At each start of the software the data is loaded into the FPGA, this assures always the newest software on the MPD.
Implemented fast mathematical algorithm saves processing power of the laptop.
By using a fully digital systems the user can change the measuring frequency and bandwidth for flexible measuring adapting to
the appearing circumstances.
The battery power supply can work up to 2 weeks.
Max. detection of pulses: 1.5 Mio pulses per second restricted by the bandwidth of the USB interface
Every 300ms the data is send via the USB interface to the controlling unit.
The double pulse resolution time is smaller than 200ns.
The system noise is below 15 fC.

© OMICRON Academy Page 22 November 2016, Klaus

A big advantage of the MPD600 is its high synchronous measurement within 2-5 ns. That allows to measure at different positions
at the same time, e.g. 3-phase measurement or at a joint or cross-bonding boxes.
The maximum number of units for synchronous measurement is 32 channels.
In London at a 20 km long XLPE cable more than 30 unit were installed in a tunnel system for PD measurements on the joints
and terminations.
The MPD can communicate over an distance up to 2 km. For larger up to 8km distances the optical module in the MPD has to be
changed, e.g. baltic sea cable.
Each unit is an independent one because the processing is done in each MPD unit. Therefore the settings of each unit can be
changed.

© OMICRON Academy Page 23 November 2016, Klaus

The upper part of the diagram shows a digitized voltage signal in (dark) green. Here the Vrms value of the voltage is 23.20kV.

The lower part of the diagram in red shows the applied testing voltage at the test object over time (11m 10s).
The green curve represents the discharge values correlated to the voltage and therefore time.
The voltage was raised to around 245kV; the discharge values was raised to around 1.1nC.

© OMICRON Academy Page 24 November 2016, Klaus

PD generates electro-magnetic fields => that‘s good because we can measure it.
Furthermore, PD produces sound, light and heat, and it will cause chemical reactions.
With the MPD600, only the changes of the electro-magnetic fields can be measured.

Let´s summarize it:

local electrical stress of insulation => will produce PD
PD generates electromagnetic signals => this can be measured

© OMICRON Academy Page 25 November 2016, Klaus

PD can be distinguished into two major groups: internal and external PD.
The group of internal PD is subdivided into void discharges and treeing.
The group of external PD is subdivided into corona discharges and surface discharges.

© OMICRON Academy Page 26 November 2016, Klaus

Surface discharge:
- Occurs at “triple points” – a point where a conductor, a good insulator (e.g. solid insulator) and a bad insulator (e.g. air) meet.
- Therefore it can be found at boundaries of different insulation materials (e.g. on bushings, end of cables)

Corona discharge:
- Occurs in gaseous dielectrics in the presence of inhomogeneous fields, usually not inside of objects
(One can hear the PD of overhead lines in a substation (transformer / distribution station)

© OMICRON Academy Page 27 November 2016, Klaus

Internal discharges in laminated material:
- Occur when laminated materials delaminate, allowing the formation of gas bubbles or entire areas of gas inside the insulator to
form.

Cavity / void discharges:

- Occur in voids or cavities within solid or liquid dielectrics (voids and cavities are usually filled with some kind of gas).

Treeing:
- Continuous impact of discharges in solid dielectrics forming discharge channels (treeing) in organic materials (e.g. cable
insulation).

PD activity can occur on the surface or/and inside insulations. The cavity discharge and treeing are the most dangerous
processes for assets’ insulation systems being almost impossible to accurately localize them.

© OMICRON Academy Page 28 November 2016, Klaus

Two different types of faults in a cable are shown; damage of the outer semi conductive screen and a void inside the insulation.
Both faults are causing stress in the insulation. Further details can be seen in the magnifications of these faults.

The first fault (left picture) is a tip or conductive particle concentrating e-field lines.
This erosion phenomenon propagates where the stress is high, i.e. at the sharpest point.

The second fault (right picture) is a void with gas, e.g. air, inside.
The electric field rises inside the tiny void for two reasons:
1. The epsilon (permittivity) of the isolation is different.
2. The electrical conductance kappa is different as well.

© OMICRON Academy Page 29 November 2016, Klaus

© OMICRON Academy Page 30 November 2016, Klaus