Partial discharge monitoring technique for research purpose on solid insulating material

It is not easy to perform an analyzing of on-line partial discharge (PD) data of solid insulating material under test using common spreadsheet application software like Microsoft Excel. This is because the PD data are normally long and depend on the sampling rate used during insulation sample testing. Data sample will increase when sampling rate increase and time to analyze data will increase, too. Other problem is associated with compiling of PD data. Microsoft Excel uses a large memory to run, calculate, and plot and the PD data, and it may lead computer memory crash. In order to overcome this problem, an alternative on-line PD analyzer needs to be developed. This paper deals with the development of on-line PD monitoring technique using LabView software. The results revealed that the technique can extract PD characteristics such as PD magnitude, plotting PD pattern, PD number, without consuming large time and memory compared to Microsoft Excel system. This technique also experiences no memory crash when sample testing up to 125 mega sampling rate.