The implementation and application of practical partial discharge data capture systems

The much greater availability of fast data processing electronics and computer memory has made detailed data capture during partial discharge measurements practical and accessible to both the academic and the industrial user of partial discharge measurements. Different techniques may be used to perform the actual data capture and these each have some advantages and disadvantages. Continuous data sampling throughout a test ensures that a complete record of the signals detected will be obtained. However, such a technique will require further algorithms to be applied to the raw data in order to define such parameters as the discharge rate, mean discharge amplitude, discharge pulse analysis, etc. Since the basic capture mechanism itself does not define the presence of partial discharge pulses separately from the ever-present system noise, the algorithm must also identify when a pulse actually exists. In order to achieve a good time resolution of the pulse information, a suitable sampling rate must be used in the process