New Techniques for Field Inspection of Medium Voltage Surge Arresters

The aim of this research is to define a set of new techniques to an efficient a field procedure to determine the operational state of conventional surge arresters and, therefore, to assist the maintenance of the distribution networks and the substitution of defective surge arresters. Considering the technique-economic question, two technologies of relatively low cost and easy operation were used - Ultrasonic and Radio Interference detectors. The field results were compared to several tests carried out in the High Voltage Laboratory of the Federal University of Itajuba and, from these results, an analysis of the effectiveness of each technology applied to field research is obtained.