A novel flexible approach for prediction and on line diagnostic of partial discharge [electrical insulation applications]

Partial discharges (PD), due to unavoidable local defects produced by the industrial manufacturing process, can determine local erosion of the material that may cause the electrical breakdown of the component in which the dielectric material represents the fundamental part. Recently, improved diagnostics of electrical insulation systems by means of electric PD measurements through a stochastic processing of the acquired data have been carried out. In this way, the identification of the defects as well, as the separation of multiple defects simultaneously active, have been performed. In this paper, a novel flexible approach for the on-line characterization of the defects in a dielectric material is proposed. The approach is based on the measurement of the electromagnetic transient field radiated from the PD.