An investigation into the effect of thermally stimulated discharges on the partial discharges obtained during electrical treeing

Trapped charges play a significant role in the initiation and propagation of tree channels. Experiments have been conducted in an attempt to use partial discharges (PD) for characterizing the tree growth and to investigate whether modifying the nature of trapped charges can alter these characteristics. The results indicate that it is possible to characterize treeing by partial discharges. These discharges have been defined in all cases by Weibull distributions. The parameters of Weibull distributions are affected by the removal of charges with thermally stimulated discharges. We present a model to explain these and other results.