Partial discharge modelling based on a cylindrical model in solid dielectrics

Partial discharges (PDs) are harmful to electrical insulation as they may degrade the material. Consequently, a lot of efforts have been made to develop suitable systems for PD measurements and monitoring. Due to the complexity of PDs and many factors that can influence PD characteristics, the research on PDs is still very active and several models have been proposed over the years to understand the behaviours of PDs. In the present paper, we have investigated the frequency characteristics of a cylindrical void in solid dielectric based on the model proposed by Forssen. Using similar program environments of MATLAB and COMSOL, our algorithm performs better in computation time and gives the similar results compared with the experiments. More importantly, a new interface has been developed so users are able to change parameters. This new feature allows the user to examine effects of various factors such as conductivity of the cavity surface, the applied voltage and statistical time lag on PD characteristics.