Steady-state and transient electrical potential distributions in HVDC bushings measured under different thermal conditions

Summary

High voltage DC (HVDC) applications become more and more important and the voltage level for energy transportation increases steadily. Hence the design of the DC insulation systems becomes more and more difficult. The difference between HVDC and HVAC insulation systems is that in HVAC the electrical field is distributed according to the permittivities of the materials. Permittivity is only weakly dependent on temperature, so there is no significant difference between the electrical field distribution at room temperature and operating temperature of the insulation system. In HVDC however the electrical field is distributed according to the conductivities of the insulation materials whereas the conductivity is strongly dependent on temperature. This can lead to completely different field distributions at varying temperatures. The investigations presented here show simulation results of HVDC bushing cores in comparison with measurements on those test objects. Simulations and measurements were performed both for temperature distributions and electric potentials of the grading layers in the bushing at DC voltage. For the first time, it was shown by experiment that the FEM simulation can reproduce real DC field distributions very well. It was also shown, that there is a strong influence of temperature gradients or temperature transients on transient and steady-state electrical potential distribution inside the insulation.

Additional informations

Authors

Fang Chunhua, Li Xianqiang, FAN Yadong, Pálsson, Cai Li, Zhou Mi, Guðmundsson