28th ICPIG, July 15-20, 2007, Prague, Czech Republic

Topic number: 10

Atmospheric correction factor for impulse breakdown voltage

P. Ortga1, R.T.Waters2, A.Haddad2, R.Hameed3, A.J.Davies3
2

Laboratoire Terre-Ocan, University of French Polynesia High Voltage Energy Systems Group, Cardiff University, UK 3 Department of Physics, Swansea University, UK

In the design of high-voltage transmission systems it is important to have reliable data concerning the effect of air density and humidity. This is helpful also in the modelling of discharges and lightning in mountainous regions. This paper describes a systematic laboratory investigation of the combined effects of humidity and gas density on the breakdown strength of a 0.2m rod/plane air gap that is subjected to positive-polarity lightning impulses, using a test chamber to reproduce the conditions commonly found in such regions. The results show that there are appreciable deviations between the measured humidity and air density correction factors and those of the 1973 and 1989 I.E.C. Standards when extended to low air density. The paper proposes the adoption of a radically different correction procedure, based upon the influence of density and humidity on streamer propagation field, and including the effect of the high gradient in the anode region.

1. Introduction The stochastic nature of sparkover in an air gap, even under controlled atmospheric conditions, is well known. For gaps subjected to a lightning impulse of the kind used in the present work, sparkover is preceded by the streamers of the first corona, the leader phase being negligible for gaps of less than one metre. Consequently, the sparkover probability is influenced by the randomness of the corona inception that is significantly dependent upon local conditions. For atmospheric pressure and temperature P and T, the air density is usually quantified by the Relative Air Density (RAD) . Besides the influence of the RAD, the effect of the humidity, H, is of importance. A large number of experiments on rod-plane gaps under lightning impulse reviewed by Allen et al [1] have shown a linear increase in U50 with H. The aim of this paper is to re-examine the combined effects of humidity and gas density, over a wide range of conditions, upon the breakdown strength of small rod/plane air gaps (d<0.5m) subjected to positivepolarity lightning impulses. The measurements of the breakdown strength of a 0.2m rod/plane air gap subjected to positive-polarity lightning impulses are mainly described here. These results have been obtained in a chamber in which the experimental conditions could be closely controlled and monitored and which covered the range of air pressures (1.0 to 0.6bar) and absolute humidity (2 to 18gm-3) commonly found in the mountainous regions of Europe up to an altitude of approximately 4.5km above sea level [2]. The minimum RAD in the chamber was even lower at 0.56. Likewise, previous

studies made with various rod diameters, gap length and impulse shapes will be used to extend our discussion.
2. Experimental Results

The present test data were measured in a sealed stainless-steel ionization chamber of 0.908m internal diameter and 1.150m internal height. A rod/plane electrode configuration was used where the cylindrical rod was of 0.02m diameter and had a hemispherical tip. The cathode plane was of 0.867m diameter and the gap distance was constant at 0.2m. Positive polarity lightning impulses (0.88/45 shape) were applied to the rod with a maximum peak voltage of approximately 280kV. The chamber was filled with normal laboratory air (which contains the natural proportion of CO2, in contrast to commercial dry air where it is absent). During the tests overpressures up to 1.2bar and absolute humidities up to 30gm-3 were also used. A multi-level testing strategy was employed in which, for each of the experimental conditions studied, 40 impulses were applied at a number (in general six) of voltage levels, and the number of breakdown events were recorded. The breakdown probabilities of the rod/plane gap, plotted on normal probability paper for humidity in the range 2 to 30gm-3 and air pressures in the range 0.6 to 1.2 bars, are linear. This linearity shows that, whatever the atmospheric conditions, the flashover data satisfy the cumulative normal distribution.

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3. A linear correction factor For all the atmospheric conditions, the corrected 50% breakdown voltages U0 have been calculated using the IEC-60 1973 and 1989 standards [3, 4]. The IEC correction factors overestimate significantly the breakdown voltages at low air density, although it is noted that these atmospheric conditions are outside the specified range. The discrepancy is much more marked at low air density for the 1973 Standard, the 1989 Standard corresponding to a considerable improvement but only if a parameter is adjusted in contravention to the specified procedure.

have a physical basis that is absent from the IEC standard.

Figure 2 : U50 and 90% confidence intervals as function of humidity for 4 RAD values (LI - =0.02m)

Figure 1 : U50 and 90% confidence intervals as function of RAD at 3 humidity levels (LI - =0.02m)

In Figure 1, the measured 50% breakdown voltage U 50 ( ,H) from our measurements is plotted against the RAD for tests with given humidity levels. It is clear that the relationship between U50 ( ,H) and RAD is linear, as one would expect from the streamerdominated mechanism but, unexpectedly, there is an intercept on the voltage axis when extrapolated to RAD = 0. A non-linear representation as commonly suggested by the IEC standard and other investigations, can also fit the data but would be justified only to force the relationship unnecessarily through the origin. As far as humidity is concerned, Figure 2 shows a linearity of U50 ( ,H) with H for pressures 0.6-1.2bar (or for = 0.561.15), with a mean slope of close to 1.050.21kV per gm-3. As noted earlier, the linearity of the humidity dependence of the 50% breakdown voltage U50 ( ,H) was also found for the 0.1%, 5% and 95% breakdown voltages. From these observations, we can represent the 50% breakdown voltage of gap length d as a function of both RAD and absolute humidity by: U 50 ( , H) = a.d. + b.H + c (1) where a, b and c are three parameters that will at first be empirically calculated. These will later be shown to

The new approach of the correction factor offered by Eq.1 can also be applied to earlier work by the authors in similar test gaps. In reference [5], a positive polarity switching impulse (100/2500 s) was applied to a dryair sphere-plane gap (diameter = 0.05m and d = 0.2m) with various pressures. In reference [6], the same switching impulse was applied in tests performed in the same chamber as the present work with a rod-plane gap and a 0.05m sphere-plane gap. Conditions ranged from 0.8 to 1.4bar and from 6 to 29gm-3, and the 50% breakdown voltage U 50 for all combinations of pressure and humidity had a linear dependence upon H. The data from [6] have been plotted, and here again, the relationship between U 50 and RAD for the different H values is linear. The slopes vary from 81 to 95kV for this gap length of 0.2m. The data from [5] shows some departure from linearity but only at 2bars pressure, where leader inception becomes significant so that the presparkover phase is not predominantly a streamer discharge.
Table 1 : Coefficients of Eq.1 for 3 tests configurations. is the anode diameter.

LI =0.02m SI =0.02m SI =0.05m

a (kV/m) b (kV/gm-3) 471.6 1.16 464.4 1.00 443.3 1.37

c (kV) 28.4 13.5 21.4

This linearity for gap lengths down to 0.2m suggests that we may generalize the expression of Eq.1 for breakdown voltage for all short gaps, where the streamer mechanism is always dominant. From our tests for lightning impulse (LI) and from [6] for switching impulse (SI), the three coefficients of

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Eq.1 have been calculated with numerical methods and are displayed in Table 1. In Figure 3, the measured U50 ( ,H) from Table 1 and [6] are plotted against the calculated values given by Eq.1 with the linear coefficients of Table 1 for the three configurations : LI-=0.02m; SI-=0.02m; SI=0.05m, where is the anode diameter. The agreement between measured and calculated values is excellent. The calculation of the differences between measurement and Eq.1 gives a zero mean value with standard deviations of 2.2%, 0.9% and 2.1% for the three configurations respectively. The advantage of the linear representation of the U50 ( ,H) data is now evident, since the agreement with the experimental data is good for a large range of atmospheric conditions for both impulse shapes. The three coefficients a, b and c must now be physically justified in order to allow this relationship to be used for a wider range of test configurations. 4. Physical interpretation The introduction of the gap length d in Eq.1 with a coefficient that is linearly dependent on RAD suggests that this is physically related to the streamer process, and so allows the expected well-established electric field for streamer propagation to be used. This can be assimilated in the a-coefficient in Eq.1. The so-called threshold field for streamer development has been measured as 420-440 kV/m [7, 8]. In non-uniform field, it can be expected that the mean gradient in the gap at a 50% breakdown voltage level may be greater than the minimum streamer field propagation. Allen and Boutlendj [9] suggest that a higher 'stability field' of 525 kV/m may be a better value as a streamer breakdown criterion. Likewise, a field of 500kV/m has been anticipated by IEC 60060 1989. In Table 1, it can be seen that the a-coefficient is comparable to these values whatever the impulse shape although slightly reduced for the larger spherical anode (=50mm). The value of 420-440 kV/m is smaller than the field suggested by Allen et Boutlendj [9] and the 1989 Standard, but this reduced value is compensated in Eq.1 by the c-coefficient which represents an additional voltage. Various physical interpretations may be assigned to the c-coefficient. First, c may represent a voltage fall near the anode. A local high-field region is certainly necessary for an initial electron detachment to provide a seed electron within a short statistical time lag and to provide a critical avalanche growth to initiate streamer

formation. We have computed the original Laplace field near our 0.02m anode at the breakdown voltage to be approximately 4MV/m, so the interpretation of an anode fall of the order proposed can provide a reasonable dimension for the ionisation region.

Figure 3 : calculated U50,C from Eq.1 versus measured U50,m for various impulse shapes and anode radius ()

An alternative explanation can be deduced from the voltage-time curves. For the lightning impulse case, it has been observed that the time to breakdown TB is always greater than the time to crest of the voltage impulse. This means that the peak voltage is always greater than the actual breakdown. Observations show that this "over-voltage" is about 10%. For the switching impulse case, on the other hand, the front is slow enough to allow breakdown before time-to-peak. From Table 1, it can be seen that for the same rodplane gap, this third term is twice as great for LI than for SI. For SI, the coefficient c seems to be dependent upon the anode diameter. It is also noted that the ccoefficient in Eq.1 is slightly RAD-dependent with a minimum around the standard atmospheric condition, but is not humidity dependent. It is clear that more work must be done to evaluate the influence of test configuration upon this third parameter. Lastly, the values of the second term, b, indicates a linear increase in U50 of 1.16kV associated with an increase of absolute humidity of 1gm-3 for the gap length of 0.2m. From the slope of the U50 curves versus H, Figure 2, the humidity coefficient in units of kV per gm-3 is 1.050.21. The linearity between U50 and H reported by Allen et al [1] for the LI case and for gap lengths from 0.5 to 4m is expressed by a coefficient in term of percent of kV per gm-3. Values

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of vary between 0.83 and 1.28 with a significant mean value of 1%/gm-3. Considering the range of the U50 values recorded (80-150kV), the b-value deduced from the non-linear regression, b=1.16kV/gm3 , is in agreement with the -value, showing that this coefficient is still valid for a shorter gap length (d < 0.5m). For the SI case with the same test configuration, Davies et al [6] measured a coefficient of 1%/gm-3 and 1.2%/gm-3 when the rod diameter are 0.02m and 0.05m respectively. This comparison suggests that the impulse shape has little significant effect upon the coefficient . The field distribution in the gap, which is correlated to the anode diameter, could affect the U50 humidity dependence. Table 1 shows the same tendency where the coefficient b is 1.00kV/gm-3 and 1.37kV/gm-3 respectively for the two anode diameters. For the U 50 measured (110kV and 120kV for both diameters respectively), the b-coefficient from Eq.1 is in accordance with those previous measurements. 5. A general linear correction factor In consequence of the above discussion, Eq.1 can be modified in order to extrapolate its validity to a larger range of gap length where the coefficients a, b and c cannot be estimated here from available data. We therefore propose to express the 50% breakdown voltage as follows : U 50 ( , H) = E( + .H /100).d + U a (2) where E and are the coefficients proposed by the standards, E=500kV/m and =1. The third coefficient Ua can be expressed as a function of the 50% breakdown voltage at standard atmospheric conditions U0, which is obtained by setting =1 and H=11gm-3 in Eq.1. The relationship in Eq.2 thus becomes: U 0 = U 50 ( , H) E ( 1) + .(H 11) .d (3)
100

6. Conclusions A systematic investigation of the breakdown of 0.2m rod/plane gaps subjected to positive lightning impulse voltages has simulated the effect of altitude in the laboratory by suitable adjustment of the relative air density and absolute humidity in a test chamber. The breakdown voltage correction procedures of IEC standards do not extend satisfactorily to low relative air densities of 0.56, or even to the recommended lower limit of 0.8. A new linear correction factor has been derived for lightning and switching impulse voltages that will facilitate the design and testing of high voltage apparatus at low altitude for subsequent installation at high altitude. This linear correction factor is shown to have a clear physical basis, and should have an impact on the present standards. Future investigations will be necessary to determine how widely this correction factor can be applied to other gaps and other impulse shapes. References [1] N.L. Allen et al, Electra n 134, 63-89 [2] R.T. Waters, Ch. 3 in "Advances in High Voltage Engineering" (IEE London 2004) [3] IEC 60-2, Part 2, Test procedures, (1973) [4] IEC.60060-1, High voltage testing techniques, (1989) [5] A.J.Davies et al, Gaseous Diel. IV (Pergamon 1984), 128-136 [6] M.Matallah et al 7th ISH, Dresden, 42.07 (1991), 93-96 [7] Phelps CT and Griffiths RF J. Appl. Phys., , Vol 47, (1976), 2929-2934. [8] Allen NL and Ghaffar A, J. Phys. D, Vol 28, (1995), 331-337 [9] Allen NL and Boutlendj M IEE Proc.A Sci Meas. Tech., Vol 138, (1991), 37-43

Subject to the same conditions than the IEC standards, but with RAD condition relaxed to 0.55 < RAD < 1.2, if the breakdown voltage of an air gap at RAD = 1 and H = 11gm-3 is U0 , then at RAD = and humidity H we recommend that the breakdown voltage is predicted to be: U 50 ( , H) = U 0 + E [( - 1) + (H - 11) /100 ]d (4) Present data suggest E = 500kV/m and = 1. These should be verified by further tests.

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