Assessment of Partial Discharges in the Air by Application of Corona Camera

This paper reports the results of the analysis of measurements involving partial discharges (PD) occurring in the air using a corona camera (UV camera). The measurements were carried out in laboratory conditions and applied two electrode systems: needle-needle and needle-plate, in order to obtain various electric field distributions. The measurements of PDs, including a variety of alternatives, were carried out using a portable UV camera, taking into account the impact of the camera gain parameter and its distance from the PD sources. As a result, some important regularities and characteristics were identified that could significantly affect the ability to assess PDs by application of UV camera measurements. In addition, the results obtained can be employed for non-invasive diagnostic measurements performed on working power equipment and may be useful in further work on standardizing the result interpretation method obtained from measurements using a UV camera.