Analysis of the discharge development of a positive rod-plane gap in air

An improved method is suggested for calculating and correlating the burst pulse and streamer onset voltages of a positive rod-plane gap in air. The computed results indicate that the positive corona in rod-plane gaps always starts with burst pulses in agreement with experiment. The conditions of burst pulse-streamer and burst pulse-glow transitions are also discussed. It is found -for the first time-that the photoelectron distribution within the ionization zone, which depends upon the gap geometry, plays an important role in deciding the discharge development from burst pulses.