Experimental investigation of high frequency effect on the ignition and damping of corona discharges

In recent years, there has been an increasing need for energy, depending on population growth and the rapid development of industry. Therefore, in order to support the growing need for energy, researchers are on the one hand looking for new energy sources or trying to discover new types of energy; on the other hand they are working on minimize the losses of existing energy systems. Today, as the concept of electric energy efficiency has great importance; studies aiming at reducing losses occurring on energy transmission lines have gained importance. There are some significant disadvantages as well as the advantages of high voltage transport of electric energy on transmission lines. One of these disadvantages is the loss of high-voltage caused corona from the line. In this study, a number of studies have been carried out to experimentally investigate the effect of high frequency voltage/current oscillations on the ignition and damping of corona discharges that occur in electrical energy transmission lines. Due to the effects of various reasons such as internal and external over voltages caused by shutdowns, switching circuit breakers, balanced or unbalanced loads coming into and out of the interconnection network instantaneously, some voltage/current oscillations at various frequencies on the lines are known to have occurred in power generation, transmission and distribution lines. From this point, the effect of the harmonic or current oscillations with various frequencies, on the supply voltage of corona discharges occurs on the networks have been experimentally investigated in terms of 50, 150, 250, 350 and 500 Hz frequencies at the Needle-Plane and Sphere-Plane electrode systems that corresponding to the transmission line model. By using obtained experimental measurement results, the generated Voltage-Current graphs at certain frequencies of corona discharges were interpreted comparatively. As a result of the study, high frequency voltage/current oscillations have a significant effect on the ignition and damping voltages of corona discharges, and the increase in the frequency value has facilitated the ignition of corona discharges considerably.