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An important tool for improving the reliability of HV insulation systems are partial discharge (PD) measurements. The interpretation of such measurements aims at extracting from the measured data information about insulation defects which then are used for estimating the risk of insulation failure of the equipment. Because the physical understanding of PD has made substantial progress in the last decade, it can now be exploited to support interpretation. In this paper a concept is presented which merges the available physical knowledge about various P D types into a generalized model which can be applied to arbitrary insulation defects. This approach will be restricted to PD of the streamer type in gases and at gas-insulator interfaces which cover a large fraction of the cases encountered in technical insulation systems. The generalized model allows us to derive approximate relations between defect characteristics, insulation design parameters and test conditions on one side, and measurable PU characteristics on the other. The inversion of these relations yields rules for extracting defect information from the PD data. The application of the generalized model is illustrated by two simple examples, namely, spherical voids in an insulator and electrode protrusions in SF6.

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The breakdown mechanism of compressed SF6 in gas insulation is known to be controlled by stepped leader propagation. This process is reasonably well understood for strongly non-uniform insulation gaps (‘point-to-plane’) and in the absence of pre-breakdown discharge activity (‘corona stabilization’). Open questions still remain for weakly non-uniform insulation gaps with small electrode protrusions (particles, surface roughness), in which pre-breakdown partial discharge (PD) activity is present. This paper presents a first attempt to derive a consistent picture under these conditions, which are characteristic for practical gas insulation systems. Experiments were carried out in a uniform field gap with a short protrusion on one electrode. This configuration was studied at various pressures from 0.1 to 0.5 MPa and both polarities using electrical and optical diagnostics. The results are interpreted using a quantitative model and order-of-magnitude estimates. The emerging picture allows prediction of most of the technically relevant aspects of the discharge processes and their main parameter dependences. It comprises statistical time lags, formative time lags including pre-breakdown PD activity and breakdown fields as a function of gas pressure, protrusion length and polarity.

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