Experimental emulation of stator turn insulation breakdown during a surge test

The surge test is a well-known offline method to determine the integrity of the turn-to-turn insulation of coils as they are found in transformers or induction machines. There has been a lot of research about various topics related to surge testing like the risk to the health of the turn insulation, the influence of the voltage rise time or the applicability to an operating machine. One important aspect to any diagnostic method is the emulation of the fault condition to prove the feasibility of the diagnostic method. This work suggests a low cost and easily reproducible method to emulate the breakdown of the turn insulation during a surge test, which can be used to experimentally validate the surge test and gain a better insight on the test.