Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Properties and Applications of Dielectric Materials July 19-23, 2009, Harbin, China

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Electrical Equivalent Circuits of Outdoor Insulators based on Leakage Current Waveforms and Computer Simulation
Suwarno*, Fari. P School of Electrical Engineering and Informatics Institut Teknologi bandung Jl. Ganesha 10 Bandung 40132, INDONESIA e-mail: suwarno@ieee.org

Abstract: During operation, outdoor insulators may severe a certain degree of pollution which may reduce their performances such as surface resistance and flash over voltages. Under these conditions a large leakage current (LC) may flow on the surface and degradation may take place. The LC waveforms are normally non-pure sinusoidal. This is due to the non linear behavior of insulator surface and in particular condition electrical discharges ma take place which distort the leakage current waveform. In order to understand the behavior of the leakage current on the outdoor insulators, computer simulation of the leakage current was done by utilizing electrical equivalent circuits using ATP/EMTP. The simulated leakage currents were compared with those obtained from experiment. The similarity of the simulated and experimental leakage currents was indicated in the magnitude, dominant harmonic components, total harmonic distortion (THD) and asymmetry of the LC. The simulation results indicated good similarity between leakage current waveforms obtained from experiments and simulation. In general, the proposed equivalent electrical circuit consists of capacitor(s), nonlinear resistor(s), and arc model(s). These three parameters will be used to simulate the LC waveforms of ceramic insulator under various environmental conditions. Using the proposed equivalent electrical circuit, the influence of each electrical circuit components to the LC waveform characteristics, such as its magnitude, electric sparks, asymmetrical waveforms, and its total harmonic distortion (THD) is discussed. Keywords: outdoor insulator, leakage current,

of surface resistance may enhance the leakage current to flow on the surface[1]. Leakage current (LC) with large magnitude flow on the surface for long period may cause degradation of the insulator surface[2-3]. In long term the degradation may lead to the flashover of the insulators. Leakage current waveforms of outdoor insulators have been investigated and reported[3-5]. It was reported that the LC waveform is important for the diagnostics of the insulator condition[6-7]. There is few model has been proposed for ceramic insulators based on the characteristics of the leakage current waveforms[8]. This paper explains the experimental results on the leakage current waveforms on ceramic insulator samples. Based on the experimental waveforms an electrical equivalent circuit is proposed. The equivalent circuit composed of capacitances, resistances, non linear resistances and spark gaps. By utilizing the equivalent circuit, leakage current waveforms were simulated using ATP/EMTP software package. The analysis of the simulation results and the comparison between experimental and simulated LC waveforms were presented in this paper. EXPERIMENT AND COMPUTER SIMULATION

waveforms, equivalent circuit, computer simulation.

INTRODUCTION Ceramic insulators are widely used in power system since long time ago. At present time ceramic insulators are still widely being used. Ceramic insulator has good mechanical and electrical properties and less expensive. As outdoor insulator it may severe a certain degree of pollution and other environmental factors which may reduce their surface resistance. The reduction

Samples used in this experimet were ceramic blocks with dimension of 250 x 50 x 20 mm3. An AC high voltage of 50 Hz was applied to the samples. The leakage current flowed on the insulator surface was measured by measuring the voltage across a series resistance using a Digital Oscilloscope TDS 220 with digitizer of 8 bit, bandwidth of 100 MHz, and the maximum sampling rate of 1 GS/s. LC waveforms including low and high frequency components were obtained. The digital data was transferred to a personal computer trough a GPIB for further analysis. Based on the obtained LC waveforms, equivalent circuits for insulators are proposed as shown in figure 1. By using the equivalent circuits LC waveforms simulation was done using ATP/EMTP software package.

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applied voltage of 20 kV the LC waveform became unsymmetrical and discharges were observed around the peak of positive half cycles similar to corona which usually observed around the peak of applied voltage but at negative half cycles[9].
200 150 LC (micro A) 100 50 0 -50 -100 -150 -200 Period 20 ms

(a)

(a) 5 kV
1000 800 600 LC (micro A) 400 200 0 -200 -400 -600 -800 Period 20 ms

(b)

(b) 20 kV Figure 2: Typical experimental LC waveforms for clean samples under clean fog at (a) 5 kV and (b) 20 kV

(c)
Figure 1: The proposed electrical equivalent circuits (a) basic model (model 1) , (b) symmetrical LC waveforms with discharges (model 2) and (c) asymmetrical LC waveforms with discharges (model 3) (a)

EXPERIMENTAL AND SIMULATION RESULTS Leakage Current waveforms for clean sample under clean fog condition Figure 2 shows typical experimental leakage current waveforms for clean insulator under clean fog of low humidity at applied voltage of (a) 5 kV and (b) 20 kV. The LC waveforms were slightly distorted from their sinusoidal due to presence of harmonic components especially 5th and 3rd components. At 5 applied voltage of 5 kV the LC waveform was symmetrical. No discharge was observed. However, at (b) Figure 3: Simulated LC waveforms of the proposed equivalent circuit for clean samples under clean fog at (a) 5 kV and (b) 20 kV Figure 3 shows the simulation results with the same applied voltage. The waveforms are similar to the experimental LC waveforms in fig 2. The resistance value is assumed, i.e. 4421 MC [8]. This value is

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chosen in order to obtain the leakage current of the order of microamperes. The number of arc model used depend on the spark occurred in waveforms. It increased along with the distortion occurred. The distortion of positive half cycle was obtained by the arc model as described in previous explanation. Changing parameters of arc model influenced the leakage current waveforms and its THD value. The simulated leakage current waveforms as shown in figure 3 were obtained by adjusting the combinations of components values in the equivalent circuit. Simulation results shows that at applied voltage of 5 kV the LC waveforms were symmetrical with amplitude of about 150 A and the THD was 11.4% with dominant harmonic component of 5th . These values are in good agreement with experimental results. At applied voltage of 20kV the LC waveforms were asymmetrical with amplitude of about 600A and the dominant harmonic component of 3rd and THD of 15.1 %. These are in good agreement with the experimental leakage currents. The comparison of experimental and simulated leakage current waveforms is shown in table 1. Table 1 Comparison between experimental and simulated leakage for clean samples under clean fog Experimental LC Applied voltage : 5 kV
- LC magnitude -Dominant harmonic component - THD -Positive & negative symmetry - 0.15 mA - 5th - 13.9% -symmetrical

(a) 5 kV

(c) 15 kV
Figure 4 Typical experimental LC waveforms for kaolin-salt polluted sample of 1.2 mS/cm under clean fog at (a) 5 kV (b) 15 kV

At applied voltage of 15 kV, the strong asymmetrical LC waveform was observed with higher distortion at negative half cycles due to intensive appearance of discharges. The THD increased to 17 %. The dominant harmonic components were 2nd, 3rd and 5th .
Figure 5 shows typical simulated LC waveforms for kaolin-salt polluted samples under clean fog obtained by using model 1 for applied voltage of 5 kV and model 3 for applied voltage of 15 kV.

Simulated LC
- 0.15 mA - 5th - 11.4% -symmetrical

Applied voltage : 15 kV
- LC magnitude -Dominant harmonic component - THD -Positive & negative symmetry - 0.6 mA - 3rd - 15.88% - asymmetrical - 0.6 mA - 3rd - 15.1% - asymmetrical

(a)

Leakage Current waveforms for kaolin-salt polluted sample under clean fog condition

Figure 4 shows typical experimental LC waveforms for kaolin-salt polluted samples at conductivity of 1.2 mS/cm under clean fog for applied voltage of 5 and 15 kV. At 5 kV the LC waveform was symmetrical with amplitude of about 6 mA and THD 8 %. The dominant harmonic components were 3rd and 5th. Even harmonic components were very small.

(b) Figure 5: Simulated LC waveforms for kaolin-salt polluted sample under clean fog at (a) 5 kV and (b) 15 kV

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Comparison of LC magnitude, dominant harmonic components, THD and asymmetrical behavior between simulated and experimental LC are shown in table 2. Table 2 Comparison between experimental and simulated LC for kaolin-salt polluted samples under clean fog Experiment LC
Applied voltage : 5 kV - LC magnitude -Dominant harmonic component - THD -Positive & negative symmetry - 6 mA - 3, 5 - 8% - symmetrical

waveforms for various condition of insulators such as clean sample under clean fog and kaolin salt polluted sample under clean fog condition. The simulated LC waveforms were similar to those obtained from experiment in term of LC magnitude, dominant harmonic components, THD and symmetrical behavior. The results indicated the validity of the proposed model. REFERENCES [1] D.L. Williams, A. Haddad, A.R. Rowlands, H.M. Young, R.T. Waters, Formation and Characterization of Dry Bands in Clean Fog on Polluted Insulators, IEEE Trans. DEI, Vol. 6, No. 5, 1999, pp. 724-731. [2] Siderakis, K, D Agoris, P Eleftheria, and E Thalassinakis. "Investigation of Leakage Current on High Voltage Insulators-Field Measurments." WSEAS Transaction on Circuits and System , 2004: 1188-1191. [3] Suda, T. "Frequency Characteristics of Leakage Current Waveforms of a String of Suspension Insulators." IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, 2005: 481-487. [4] AH El Hag , S.H. Jayaram, E.A. Cherney, Fundamental and low Freq. components of LC as a diagnostic Tool to Study Aging of RTV and HTV SIR in Salt-Fog, IEEE Trans. on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2003, pp. 128- 136, Feb. 2003. [5] Suwarno, Leakage Current on outdoor Insulators under tropical Conditions, ISEIM 2003, Himeji, Japan, November 2003 pp.111-114 [6] Ayman H. El Hag, A New Technique to Detect Dry Band Arcing, IEEE Trans on Power Delivery, Vol. 20, No. 2, 2005, pp. 1202-1203. [7] Suwarno, leakage Current Waveforms of Outdoor Polymeric Insulators and Possibility of Appalication for Diagnostics of Insulator Conditions, KIEE Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology, Vol. 1, pp. 114-119, 2006. [8] Waluyo, P. Pakpahan,Suwarno. "Study on The Electrical Equivalent Circuit Models of Polluted Outdoor Insulators." ICPADM IEEE, 2006: 546-549. [9] Suwarno, T. Mizutani, Pulse Sequence Analysis of Discharges in Air, Liquid and Solid Insulating Materials, KIEE Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology, Vol. 1, No. 4, 2006, pp. 528-533

Simulated LC
- 6 mA - 3, 5 - 6.5% - symmetrical

Applied voltage : 15 kV - 10 mA - LC magnitude -Dominant - 2, 3, 5 harmonic component - 17 % - THD -Positive & negative - asymmetrical symmetry

- 10 mA - 2, 3, 5 - 15.2% -asymmetrical

CONCLUSIONS Leakage current waveforms on outdoor ceramic insulator samples were measured under clean and salt fog conditions. For clean sample, under clean fog the LC waveforms were slightly distorted from their sinusoidal due to presence of harmonic components especially 5th and 3rd components. At low applied voltage the LC waveform was symmetrical but at high applied voltage the LC waveform became unsymmetrical and discharges were observed around the peak of positive half cycles. For kaolin-salt polluted samples in clean fog, at low applied voltage, the LC waveform was symmetrical with dominant harmonic components of 3rd and 5th. However, when applied voltage was increased the LC waveforms became asymmetrical with larger distortion at negative half cycles due to the presence of discharges. The dominant harmonic components were 2nd , 3rd and 5th. The appearance of 2nd harmonic component was due to unsymmetrical of LC waveforms. Based on the experimental results on the leakage current waveforms 3 kinds of outdoor equivalent circuits were proposed. Model 1 represents outdoor insulator with non linear properties. Model 2 represents outdoor insulator with symmetrical LC waveform and containing electrical discharge while model 3 represents outdoor insulator containing electrical discharges and has unsymmetrical LC waveforms. The proposed electrical equivalent circuits were used to simulate leakage current

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