Partial Discharge Process and Characteristics of Oil-Paper Insulation under Pulsating DC Voltage

Oil-paper insulation of valve-side windings in converter transformers withstand electrical stresses combining with AC, DC and strong harmonic components. This paper presents the physical mechanisms and experimental researches on partial discharge (PD) of oil-paper insulation at pulsating DC voltage. Theoretical analysis showed that the phase-resolved distributions of PDs generated from different insulated models varied as the increase of the applied voltages following a certain rule. Four artificial insulation defect models were designed to generate PD signals at pulsating DC voltages. Theoretical statements and experimental results show that the PD pulses first appear at the maximum value of the applied pulsating DC voltage, and the resolved PD phase distribution became wider as the applied voltage increased. The PD phase-resolved distributions generated from the different discharge models are also different in the phase-resolved distributions and development progress. It implies that the theoretical analysis is suitable for interpretation of PD at pulsating DC voltage.