Measurement and simulation of partial discharge in oil-paper insulation under the combined AC–DC voltage

Depending on unique operation characteristics for voltage applied on valve side winding of the converter transformers, it is extraordinarily significant to study the partial discharge (PD) behavior with oil-paper insulation under combined AC–DC voltage. Therefore, this paper investigated PD inception characteristics by pulse current methods with needle-plate electrode system under combined AC–DC voltage. Furthermore, 3D electric field distributions versus combined AC–DC voltage in different ratios were calculated by Finite Element Analysis (FEA). An experimental conclusion was drew that AC partial discharge inception voltage (PDIV) in pure oil would decrease linearly with the DC component increasing but the inception voltage with oil-paper insulation appeared to be independent of DC voltage and dependent of AC voltage. And 3D electric field distribution deduced from simulation provided a supplementary proof on the experimental results. Moreover, high speed photography was used to capture emitted light produced by discharge, estimate streamer velocity (1.8 km/s) and record streamer initiation and propagation process in oil gap. Previous studies have shown that the prebreakdown phenomena involving the generation and propagation of vapor channels through the oil could be divided into a three-stage process.