Creeping Discharge Development Over Insulator Surfaces in Natural Gases: Design and Implementation of Test Procedure

摘要

Creeping discharges are strongly related to the presence of triple junctions in high voltage equipment. Their occurrence represents a common and important issue in compressed gas insulated systems. So far, many experimental studies available in the literature are dedicated to the characterisation of this phenomenon under the variation of different system parameters such as insulator geometry and material, voltage waveform, gas type and electrodes configuration. This paper deals with the development of discharges over insulator samples of different materials using natural gases, under AC voltage waveforms for a point-plane electrode arrangement. Results from a simulation of the electrode configuration which calculates the initial field conditions are also presented. The results shown in this paper constitute a preliminary part of a future extensive research programme.