Partial discharges in a cavity at variable applied frequency part 2: measurements and modeling

In this paper partial discharges (PD) in a disc-shaped cavity are measured at variable frequency (0.01 - 100 Hz) of the applied voltage. The measured PD phase and magnitude distributions, as well as the number of PDs per voltage cycle, changed with the varying frequency. A charge consistent model is presented and used to dynamically simulate the sequence of PDs in the cavity. The simulation results show that the properties of the cavity surface, mainly the surface conductivity and the surface emission of electrons, change with the varying applied frequency. This is interpreted as an effect of the difference in time between consecutive PDs at different applied frequencies. This is the second of two papers addressing the frequency dependence of PD in a cavity. The first paper described how the PD frequency dependence changes with the applied voltage amplitude, the cavity size and the cavity location.