Development of Nanosecond Pulsed Corona on a Twin Line

Propagation of short HV pulses along a 6-m long twin line was studied in presence of corona discharge. The experimental setup included a twin-line arrangement, a 100 kV, 5 ns pulse generator, voltage and current probes and photomultipliers. The dependencies on line geometry and wire conductivity and on pulse voltage and polarity have been studied. It was found that the discharge was very much asymmetric when one of the pulser´s terminals was grounded, even when the line height was much greater than the distance between the wires. This effect will be pronounced to heights of hundreds of meters. Pulsed corona study on NiCr resistive wires revealed intense pulse decay: only 1% of the launched energy reaches the end.