An experimental study on partial discharge characteristics of Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) under AC - DC voltages

The partial discharges (PDpsilas) due to artificial void in the sample of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) sheet have been investigated in this work. PD may cause the degradation of insulating materials and affect the lifetime of high-voltage apparatuses. Therefore, it is important to understand the correlation between PD inception voltages under various voltage source conditions. An experimental work using sphere ball-plane electrode system and a 0.8 mm PVC sheet was carried out. PD experimental results, such as PD inception voltage and PD charge, as functions of the applied voltage magnitude were compared for various types of applied voltage sources. The experimental results showed that the PD inception voltage under AC and DC voltage sources were not similar. The PD inception voltage under DC voltage source is lower than that for the AC voltage source. The results also show that the PD charges tend to increase when the voltage magnitude is increased.