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Design of 1000-kV Ultra-High Voltage AC Corona Test Cage in China

Jian Tang 1,2, Jinliang He1, Yingjian Yang 2, Xiong Wu2, Shaoshi Ma2
1

State Key Lab of Power Systems, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University Beijing 100084, China
tang-j05@mails.thu.edu.cn
2

Wuhan High Voltage Research Institute (WHVRI) Wuhan 430074, China research of indoor test cage in [7]. Nevertheless, quantitative study of key parameters in the design of outdoor corona cage was not carried out. Consequently, the configuration of UHV AC cage and the method for measuring corona characteristic of UHV AC transmission line by using test cage are introduced and the principles for the selection of UHV cage key parameters are analyzed in detail in this paper. Combining the calculation results and the investigation of UHV AC corona cage in several countries, the cross-section size and the length of UHV test cage are recommended. It provides insight for designing UHV AC test cage of China. II. BASIC STRUCTURE As shown in Fig. 1, corona test cage has two isolated layers generally. The outer layer, which is grounded directly, called as shielding cage, and the inner layer is called as corona measuring cage. Brace insulators are equipped between these two layers. To avoid rustiness and corrosion, stainless or galvanized steel is selected as the material of corona test cage. In order to solve the problem of end effect, UHV test cage is divided into three sections. The middle section is called as measuring section and both of the end sections are called as shielding sections. In addition, artificial rain equipment is installed to simulate different rainfall precipitation cases, such as acid rain can also be simulated.

Abstract1000 kV ultra-high voltage (UHV) AC power transmission system is being constructed in China. UHV corona cage is an indispensable testing facility for the research of the electromagnetic environment problem caused by the corona effects of UHV transmission lines. In this paper, the principles for the selection of the key parameters of the UHV corona cage are analyzed in detail. According to the calculation results, the cross-section size of UHV AC cage is recommended to be 8 m 8 m, and the length of the middle measuring and end shielding section, 25 m and 5 m respectively. Finally, a novel cage end structure is proposed for increasing the length of uniform surface gradients section.

I. INTRODUCTION In recent years, UHV power transmission technology has been developed rapidly with the growing need for electric power in China. With the increase of voltage level, the electromagnetic environment problem caused by corona discharge of transmission lines becomes more and more prominent. The generated audible noise and radio interference of 1000 kV UHV AC lines are possible to bring some environment effects on the normal work and daily living of neighboring people. As a consequence, the corona performance becomes a crucial factor on the selection of UHV conductors and the research on corona characteristics provides criterions and standards for the design of UHV power transmission lines. In the primary stage of research, it is not economical to build a few kilometers power lines and change conductors frequently for studying corona performance of conductors with different sizes. Therefore, short test lines and cages are constructed for corona study in UHV test bases and research organizations in several countries. Compared with test line, test cage is more convenient and economical. Artificial rain system can be installed for simulating the cases of different precipitations in the corona cage. Thus, UHV corona test cage is an indispensable testing facility for the research of the electromagnetic environment problem caused by the corona effects of UHV transmission lines especially considering the high altitude condition. Many countries have constructed UHV test cages and a lot of research works about corona characteristics of the bundles have been performed with the cages [1-6]. However, the reference about the design of test cage is few. Some useful suggestions for the construction are proposed through the

Fig. 1. Structure of the UHV corona cage.

III. DESIGN ON CROSS-SECTION OF CORONA CAGE A. Design Principle In the case of corona discharge of bundle conductors under an alternating voltage applied, positive and negative ions are generated alternately and reciprocate near the conductors. In order to simulate the practical distribution of electrical potential gradients around the conductor surface, the ions generated by corona discharge should not reach the side wall of the cage and the margin should be enough.

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Moreover, the effect of wind to the movement of ions is significant and even gentle wind could also cause the variation of the ion movement in practice. As a consequence, the size of cross-section needs to be more than 2 times of the summation of the bundles radius and the maximal displacement of ions generally. B. Numerical Analysis of the Ionic Displacement In the case of AC corona discharge, the ions generated can not move far away from bundles and there exists a maximal ionic displacement. If the ions reach the side wall of the cage, the distribution of the conductor surface gradients in the cage would be different from that of practical power transmission lines and the corona performance experiment results from the test cage would be invalid. Thus, it is necessary to compute the maximal ionic displacement first for determining the size of cage cross-section. 1) Method Description It is very difficult to compute the ion motion accurately. As a consequence, the following assumptions are introduced. a) Thermal diffusion of ions is neglected. b) The mobility of ions is constant, which is independent of field intensity. c) The effect of generated ions to the space electric field is neglected. With neglecting the diffusion of ions, the ion motion is subject to the space alternating electric field and the motion velocity of ions can be expressed by [8, 9] (1) v PE , where, v is the motion velocity of ions, E is the electric field intensity of ions location, is the mobility of the ions. The calculation process of ionic displacement is as follows. a) Firstly, the conductor corona onset voltage U0 is computed with a given corona onset electric field strength. Compared U0 with the applied voltage on the conductor, the corona onset time t0 can be calculated. b) Beginning with t0, t is taken as the time step. At t0, conductor surface electric field is calculated first. Then the motion velocity of ions is computed with (1) and the ionic displacement in t is obtained. Finally, the location of ions at t0+t can be determined. c) At t0+t, the electric field strength of the location of ions and the ionic displacement in another t is calculated. Then, the location of ions at t0+2t can be determined. d) With the step-by-step calculation till the electric field strength of the location of ions is zero, the maximal ionic displacement can be obtained. 2) Calculation for Design For the purpose of selecting the proper size of cross-section, the maximal ionic motion distances are calculated with above method in several different cases. For the convenience of computation, the cross-section shape of cage is supposed to be circle. Three cross-sections with the radius of 2 m, 3 m and 4 m and three typical types of 8-split conductors, namely 8ACSR-720/50, 8LGJ-630/45 and 8LGJ-500/40, are taken as examples. The bundles are

arranged at the center of the test cage and the voltage on the bundles is the rated voltage of 1000 kV ac transmission line, 816 kV. Table I shows the calculation results of the maximal ionic displacements in the case of different bundles and cages. In the calculation, the corona onset gradient is assumed as 25 kV/cm. In Table I, r, r0 and R are the radius of sub-conductor, bundles circumcircle and test cage cross-section, respectively, d represents the maximal ionic motion distance and Rmin represents the minimal size of the corona cage for satisfying the ionic motion principle, Rmin=2u(r0+ d). From Table I, it can be seen that the generated ions would reach sides of the cage in the case of 2 m radius. Moreover, the radius of 3 m is not big enough to meet the requirement of ionic motion if considering the bundles having a 60-cm sag.
TABLE I MAXIMAL MOVING DISTANCE OF THE IONS IN THE CASE OF DIFFERENT CONDUCTOR TYPE AND CAGE SIZE No. 1 Type of Bundles 8ACSR-720/50 r (mm) 18.1 r0 (m) 0.65 R (m) 2 3 4 2 3 4 2 3 4 d (m) 0.72 0.57 0.49 0.71 0.58 0.50 0.70 0.58 0.51 Rmin (m) 2.74 2.44 2.28 2.60 2.34 2.18 2.44 2.20 2.06

8LGJ-630/45

16.8

0.59

8LGJ-500/40

15.0

0.52

C. Selection of Cross-section From the calculation results, it is found that the cage with the radius greater than 3 m can just satisfy the requirement for the corona test of 8-split bundles. As for the square crosssection, the side length should be greater than 6 m. Considering the development of UHV power transmission technology in the future, it is necessary to perform research on the corona performance of 10-split and 12-split conductors. Therefore, it is proper to select the cross-section as 8 m 8 m. IV. DESIGN OF CORONA CAGE LENGTH A. Principles for Cage Length Selection UHV test cage includes measuring section and shielding sections and the design principle for them are different. For the length of measuring section, there are two basic requirements. One is that the conductor surface gradient of the measuring section is uniform. The other is that the corona generation quantities can satisfy the test precision requirement of equipments and be measured accurately. For the length of shielding section, it is determined by the length of distorted electric field section near the two ends of the cage. B. Length of Measuring Section There is no strict standard for the length of measuring section. However, the measuring section should be long enough to insure the accuracy of corona performance test and it is mainly determined by test experience. In [10], it is suggested that the length of measuring section is selected to be 3 to 5 times of cages side length for the need of precise measurement.

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Different corona performance tests, such as audible noise, radio interference and corona loss, have different requirements for the length of measuring section. Table II shows the minimal lengths of measuring section for different corona performance tests in rain [11], it can be seen that the length of measuring section of UHV AC test cage needs to be more than 15 m. According to Table II and the universal suggestion that the length of measuring section is 3 to 5 times of side length, 25 m measuring section is recommended.
TABLE II MINIMAL LENGTH OF MEASURING SECTION FOR THE TEST OF DIFFERENT CORONA EFFECTS IN THE CASE OF RAIN Items of Corona Minimal Length of Performance Test Measuring Section Audible Noise Radio Interference Corona Loss 10 to15 m 5 to 10 m 5 to 10 m

different sags are given in Table III. For example, the conductor surface gradient varies in the range smaller than 2% from 7 m to 20 m in the case of without sag, while the conductor surface gradient from 5 m to 7 m is distorted and the 2-m shielding sections are needed at both ends of the cage. The results in Table III show that the larger the sag is, the longer the shielding section is.

C. Length of Shielding Section Because of the end effect, the electric field of conductor surface is distorted near the two ends of the cage. The distortion property of electric field has influence on the accuracy of the measurement results. Therefore, it is necessary to design shielding sections to control the influence of the end effect on the testing results. In this paper, the electric field distribution of the conductor surface in the cage is calculated by using the finite element method (FEM). To simulate the practical case accurately, the sag of the conductor is considered in the calculation and the influence of different sag is analyzed. As shown in Fig. 2 (a), a 30 m test cage with 8 m 8 m square cross-section is taken as an example for determining the length of shielding section. A 40 m LGJ-630/45 conductor is arranged at the center of the test cage and the lengths of the extension parts at both ends are 5 m. The voltage applied on the conductor is assumed to be 1 kV. In practical case, the conductor sag affects the uniformity of the conductor surface gradient distribution and it should be considered and limited. In order to obtain the proper shielding section length, the longitudinal distribution of conductor surface gradient is computed in the case of different sags. The calculation results are shown in Fig. 3. In Fig. 3, the abscissa axis represents the distance to conductors end, where 0 to 5 m is out of the cage and 5 to 20 m is in the cage. From Fig. 3, it is found that the influence of conductor sag on the uniformity of the electric field distribution along the conductor is great and it can not be neglected in the shielding section design. When considering the sag of conductor, the distortion of electric field due to the end effect is more prominent than that of the case without sag. For the convenience of quantitative analysis, the electric field varied in the range smaller than 2% is supposed to be uniform. According to this assumption, the lengths of uniform surface gradients section and shielding section in the case of

Fig. 2. Example for calculating the electric field on the conductor surface in the corona cage.
Conductor Surface Gradients (kV/m)

1.1 1.0 0.9 0.8 0.7 0 5

30.9 cm Sag Without Sag 61.8cm Sag 123.6 cm Sag

10

15

20

Distance to the End of Conductor (m)

Fig. 3. Longitudinal electric field distribution of the conductor surface in the case of different sags. TABLE III LENGTHS OF SHIELDING SECTION IN THE CASE OF DIFFERENT SAGS Sag of the LowerLength of Uniform Length of Shielding most Point of Surface Gradient Section (m) Conductor (cm) Section (m) 0 30.9 61.8 123.6 26 24 21 15 2 3 4.5 7.5

Furthermore, the sag of conductor should not be large because it would lead to shorter section with uniform gradient distribution. As a consequence, the sag should not exceed 60 cm practical corona cage testing system to ensure measuring accuracy. In this condition, the length of shielding section

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should be larger than 4.5 m. Finally, the length of shielding section of UHV AC test cage in China is recommended to select as 5 m. V. OPTIMUM DESIGN OF CAGE END STRUCTURE From above calculation results, it is found that conductor surface electric field strength near the end of corona cage, from 5 m to 10 m, is lower than that of uniform surface gradients section. Therefore, if the conductor surface electric field strength near the end of corona cage can be enhanced to the same as that of uniform surface gradients section by optimum design of end structure, the length of uniform surface gradients section is increased and the test accuracy of corona performance is enhanced effectively.

would be improved as long as the cage end is designed as the proposed novel structure appropriately. VI. CONCLUSIONS In this paper, the principles for the selection of key parameters of the UHV cage have been studied in detail. From the calculation results and corresponding analysis, the following conclusions can be drawn. x 8 m 8 m square shape cross-section is recommended to be used in UHV corona test cage in China. x For ensuring the measuring accuracy, the length of measuring section is recommended to be 25 m. x As for the length of shielding section, it is affected by the conductor sag greatly. The larger the sag is, the longer the shielding section is. In the case of 60 cm sag, it should be larger than 4.5 m. Therefore, the length of shielding section of UHV AC test cage of China recommended is 5 m. x A novel cage end structure is proposed in this paper. With the new type end structure, the length of uniform surface gradients section increased from 26 m to 30 m. As long as the cage end is appropriately designed as the proposed novel structure, the longitudinal distribution of conductor surface gradients in the whole cage would be uniform and the accuracy of corona performance experiments would be improved. REFERENCES

Fig. 4. A novel end Structure of corona cage.

Conductor Surface Gradients (kV/m)

1.2

1.0
Novel End Structure

0.8
Common End Structure

10

15

20

Distance to the End of Conductor (m)

Fig. 5. Longitudinal distribution of conductor surface gradients in the case of common and novel end structure.

Aiming at this, a novel end structure of corona cage is presented in this paper. As shown in Fig. 4, the size of crosssection reduces gradually at the position with a distance D to the end of test cage. With proper distance D and side length of cage end cross-section a, the length of uniform surface gradients section can be extended to the total length of test cage. In our calculation example, the distance D and the side length a are assumed to be 2 m and 6.6 m, respectively. Fig. 5 shows longitudinal distribution of conductor surface gradients in the case of common and novel end structure. It can be seen that the electric field strength near the cage end is enhanced effectively after using the novel structure. In the case of common end structure, the length of uniform surface gradients section is 26 m. While in the case of novel end structure, it is increased to 30 m. As a consequence, the longitudinal distribution of conductor surface gradients in the whole cage would be uniform and the accuracy of corona performance experiments

[1] Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). Transmission line reference book: 345 kV and above / second edition. Palo Alto, CA. 1981. [2] G. W. Juette and L. E. Zaffanella, Radio noise current and audible noise on short sections of UHV bundle conductors, IEEE Trans. PAS., vol. 89, No. 5, pp. 902-913, 1970. [3] G. W. Juette and L. E. Zaffanella, Radio noise, audible noise, and corona loss of EHV and UHV transmission lines under rain: predetermination based on cage tests, IEEE Trans. PAS., vol. 89, No. 6, pp. 1168-1178, 1970. [4] P. S. Maruvada, Corona performance of high-voltage transmission lines, Research Studies Press LTD, 2000. [5] Y. Nakano and Y. Sunaga, Availability of corona cage for predicting audible noise generated from HVDC transmission line, IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 1422-1431, 1989. [6] Y. Nakano and Y. Sunaga, Availability of corona cage for predicting radio interference generated from HVDC transmission line, IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 1436-1442, 1990. [7] Z. Guan, M. Ma and J. Hui, Discussion on the design and application of corona cage, High Voltage Engineering, vol. 32, No. 11, pp. 74-77, 2006. [8] J. J. Clade and C. H. Gary, Predetermination of Corona Losses Under Rain: Experimental Interpreting and Checking of a Method to Calculate Corona Losses, IEEE Trans. PAS., vol. 89, No. 5, pp. 853859, 1970. [9] J. J. Clade and C. H. Gary, Predetermination of Corona Losses Under Rain: Influence of Rain Intensity and Utilization of a Universal Chart, IEEE Trans. PAS., vol. 89, No. 6, pp. 1179-1185, 1970. [10] N. G. Trinh and P. S. Maruvada, A method of predicting the corona performance of conductor bundles based on cage test results, IEEE Trans. PAS., vol. 98, No. 1, pp. 312-325, 1977. [11] M. G. Comber and L. E. Zaffanella, The use of single-phase overhead test lines and test cages to evaluate the corona effects of EHV and UHV transmission lines, IEEE PES Summer Meeting & EHV/UHV Conference. Vancouver, Canada. 1973.

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