Investigation the optimal method for improvement the protective characteristics of gas filled surge arresters w/o the built in radioactive sources

Summary form only given, as follows. The aim of this paper is to determine how to improve the protective characteristics of gas filled surge arresters (GFSA) on the best way. In this order there were big number of examinations of construction factors influence on following GFSA characteristics: 1) static breakdown voltage, 2) dynamic breakdown voltage, 3) volt-second characteristic. Influence of radiation sources close to GFSA electrodes is one very important construction factor. In GFSA model used in this research are built in alpha (241Am) and beta(90Sr) sources, respectively. During examination due to detail analysis influence of radiation sources on GFSA characteristics were changed type of gas and gas pressure in chamber. Also, we presented an alternative method for improvement of GFSA protective characteristic without the use of radioactive sources. With the application of hollow cathode improvement of protective characteristic is obtained. On the base of experimental results we can conclude that built in radioactive sources significantly improve the protective characteristics of GFSA. This is especially obvious in decreasing of response time more then three times e.g. from 100 ns to 30 ns. On the lower pressure the alfa emitters application is more useful and on the higher pressure the beta emitters application is more useful because of the greater cross section for ionization by beta particles. Hollow cathode method is less efficient then the radioactive filling method, but also less risk for the environment. We believe that the future prospects should be to investigate the possibility of combined use of short-living radioactive isotope and hollow cathode effect. The measuring methodology was based on the computer controlled high quality instrumentation and statistics experiment organization. This approach assures the high accuracy, reliability and repeatability of performed measurement.