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Frequency Characteristics of Leakage Current Waveforms of a String of Suspension Insulators

Tomotaka Suda, Senior Member, IEEE
AbstractIn order to establish a method for monitoring whether ashover occurs or not in a string of insulators based on leakage current waveforms and their frequency characteristics, the leakage current waveforms and the frequency characteristics of a string of 120-kN suspension insulators were investigated with articial contamination tests and eld tests. As a result, it was found that leakage current waveforms become nearly the symmetrical wave when strong local arcs occur; hence, the intensity of the odd order of harmonic components, e.g., 50, 150, and 250 Hz, is high. Furthermore, it was claried that the transition of the leakage current waveforms until ashover occurs is classied into six stages and that a threshold exists in the magnitude of peak leakage current and prominent odd-order harmonic components by which the occurrence of ashover can be predicted. Index TermsFlashover, harmonic analysis, insulator contamination, leakage currents, signal analysis.

I. INTRODUCTION

HE SEVERITY of insulators such as ashover is mainly due to salt contamination. The development of a reliable system for monitoring salt contamination on insulators is strongly desired in order to take precautions against possible accidents due to salt contamination. The most widely used methods for contamination monitoring are the equivalent salt deposit density (ESDD), the surface conductance, the leakage current, air pollution measurements, optical measurements, and the nonsoluble deposit density [1]. The leakage current, which is driven by the source voltage and collected at the grounded end of the insulator, provides much useful information out of many parameters describing the state of a contaminated insulator. The leakage current surge counting, the highest leakage peak current recording, and charge measurements are three main methods for contamination monitoring [2], [3]. In addition, the characteristics of leakage current waveforms were investigated by applying Fourier series to clarify their inuence on the test voltage in circuits [4] and several dynamic models have been proposed to investigate ac source-insulator interaction in contamination tests [5] and the feasibility of using the dynamic arc modeling in order to characterize approaching ashover [6]. Moreover, the spectral analysis of the leakage current waveforms was conducted for polymer insulators [7], [8]. Performing a frequency analysis of leakage current waveforms with a spectrum analyzer in the wet contaminant ashover

tests (equivalent fog method in [9]), the author found that the third-order harmonic component, 150 Hz, increased when increasing the applied voltage because of the wave distortion due to local arcs [10]. It is expected from these results that a novel monitoring system for the severity mainly due to salt contamination could be developed from further investigations about frequency components of leakage current waveforms as well as the magnitude of leakage currents. Thus, a fundamental research was conducted with regard to the characteristics of leakage current waveforms and their frequency characteristics using single contaminated 75-kN suspension insulator by the wet contaminant method (equivalent fog method in [9]) and the clean fog method (fog withstand method in [9] or solid layer method in [11]) [12]. As a result, it was found that leakage current waveforms become similar to the symmetrical wave when strong local arcs occur, hence, the intensity of the odd order of harmonic components, e.g., 50, 150, and 250 Hz, is high. Furthermore, it was claried that the transition of the leakage current waveforms, until ashover occurs, is classied into six stages and that a threshold exists by which the occurrence of ashover can be predicted. In this paper, the author presents the relationship between frequency characteristics of leakage current waveforms and ashover occurrence at a string of insulators (5 units of 120 kN suspension insulators) on increasing the number of insulators. II. ARTIFICIAL CONTAMINATION TEST A. Experimental Setup The experimental setup is shown in Fig. 1. The experiment was conducted at a fog chamber (volume 7 7 7 m) in Yokosuka Research Laboratory of CRIEPI. A string of ve units of ) were used to 120-kN suspension insulators (diameter 254 clarify the fundamental characteristics of leakage current waveforms of contaminated insulators. The number of units of a , respecstring and the applied voltage were 5 and 40 tively, at the 66-kV transmission line. The specication of the ac source (capacity 50 kVA, impedance voltage 2.32%) is sufcient to perform the articial contamination tests [11]. The experiment of two strings was performed simultaneously to improve experimental efciency. The Figure 1 or 2 preceded by the underbar, for example test number 8_2, corresponds to each string. Leakage current waveforms were detected with a current transformer (CT411 of Pearson Electronics, Inc.), amplied by a dc amplier, and recorded on a data recorder. Frequency spectrum analysis was performed with a real-time signal analyzer having a Hanning window.

Manuscript received November 19, 2003. Paper no. TPWRD-00345-2002. The author is with the Electric Power Engineering Research Laboratory, Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry, Kanagawa-ken 240-0196, Japan (e-mail: t-suda@criepi.denken.or.jp). Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TPWRD.2004.837668

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TABLE I EQUIVALENT SALT DEPOSIT DENSITIES

Fig. 1.

Experimental setup.

Stage 3)

Insulators were contaminated by a spray containing contaminated suspension or by soaking in contaminated suspension for ten seconds. Three kinds of contaminated suspension with varying quantities of salt of 10 g/l, 50 g/l, and 200 g/l for the constant quantity of tonoko of 40 g/l, were prepared in order to simulate light, intermediate, and heavy degrees of contamination. Contaminated insulators were dried in a drying room and moved to the fog chamber. Table I shows salt deposit densities of contaminated insulators measured before the experiment. Test numbers 1, 2, 5, and 6, test numbers 3 and 4, and test numbers 710 correspond to the light, intermediate, and heavy contamination, respectively. Thus, a total of seven tests was conducted, two of them for light contamination, one, for intermediate contamination, and four, for heavy contamination, among which ashover occurred in all the heavy contamination tests but did not occur in any of the light or intermediate contamination tests. The clean fog method was adopted as an articial contamination method [9], [11]. Applied voltage and articial fog were maintained until ashover occurred or for 60 min in the case of ac voltage was applied no ashover after a constant 40 and the articial fog was generated.

The tips of the triangular waveforms observed during stage 2 become sharper and longer the moment the triangular waveforms become narrow in the middle. Stage 4) The tips become sharper. Stage 5) The tips lengthen and intermittent waveforms having large peak values add to the waveforms at stage 4. Stage 6) Groups of pulses having larger peak values occur intermittently. Stage 7) Flashover occurs. The odd-order harmonic components from 50 to about 350 Hz in the frequency spectra of leakage current waveforms increase in intensity from stages 2 to 6 because the peak value of leakage current gradually becomes large in the meantime. The transition of leakage current waveforms in the case of no ashover is similar to that in the case of ashover up to stage 5 as described above. However, after stage 5, the intermittent waveforms whose peak values are not larger than those in the case of ashover do not appear frequently and their peak values become smaller with time. C. Relation Between Prominent Frequency Components and Flashover Occurrence 1) Temporal Variations of Peak Leakage Currents: Fig. 3 shows the temporal variation of peak leakage current. Here, black symbols represent the cases of no ashover in both light (four cases) and intermediate (two cases) contamination while white symbols represent the cases of ashover in the heavy contamination (four cases). In the case of no ashover (light and intermediate contamination), the peak values of leakage currents gradually increase with time from the beginning of voltage application, become maximum during about 20 min, and then gradually decrease. The maximum peak value of leakage current is at test number 3 of the intermediate contamination. All other peak values are smaller than this. On the other hand, in the case of ashover (heavy contamination), the peak values of leakage currents gradually increase with time from the beginning of voltage application. They increase slowly at rst, then rapidly 46 min from the beginning, and nally become

B. Characteristics of Leakage Current Waveforms in the Process of Flashover Characteristics of leakage current waveforms in the process of ashover at test number 10 of heavy contamination are described. Flashover occurs through six stages in Fig. 2 as mentioned below. Stage 1) Leakage current waveforms become sinusoidal at the beginning of voltage application because of resistive current ow. Thus, the 50-Hz fundamental component becomes prominent. The waveforms become triangular or sawtoothlike when faint discharges occur. The odd-order harmonic components become prominent because they are symmetrical waves.

Stage 2)

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Fig. 2. Transition of leakage current waveform (articial contamination test, heavy contamination).

Fig. 3.

Temporal variation of peak leakage current.

maximum of about at test numbers 79 and at test number 10 when ashover occurs. 2) Temporal Variations of the Magnitude of the Prominent Harmonic Components: As mentioned before, leakage current

waveforms become similar to the symmetrical wave when local arcs occur; hence, the intensity of the odd order of harmonic components, e.g., 50, 150, and 250 Hz etc., is high. Figure 4 shows temporal variations of the magnitude of the 150-Hz component as a typical example. When ashover occurs, the magnitude of the 150-Hz component gradually increases from the beginning to ashover occurrence while it tends to increase at the beginning, become a maximum within 20 min, and then gradually decrease when ashover does not occur as also shown in the harmonic contents. This tendency can be seen for three other kinds of prominent components. Furthermore, it is important to point out from this gure that it is possible to distinguish clearly the cases of ashover from those of no ashover from the magnitudes of prominent frequency components. That is, in all the magnitude of 150-Hz component exceeds cases when ashover occurs while it is smaller than this level in all cases when ashover does not occur. The similar levels can for 50 Hz, for 250 Hz, be pointed out; e.g., for the 350-Hz component, respectively. and 3) Temporal Variations of the Harmonic Contents: Next, temporal variations of the harmonic contents of the third, fth,

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Fig. 6. Experimental setup.

Fig. 4.

Temporal variation of 150-Hz component.

Fig. 5. Temporal variation of 150-Hz harmonic content.

and, seventh order of harmonic components of leakage current waveforms were examined. The harmonic content is dened as the ratio of the magnitude of prominent harmonic components to that of the 50-Hz fundamental component (%) [12]. Figure 5 shows the temporal variations of the 150-Hz harmonic content at each test. It is noted from this gure that the 150-Hz harmonic content tends to have maximum values within about 10 min from the start of the test and decrease gradually after that in the case of no ashover. On the other hand, when ashover occurs, the 150-Hz harmonic content gradually increases from the beginning of the test to ashover occurrence. This indicates that the possibility of ashover occurrence becomes higher when the 150-Hz harmonic content increases. However, ashover does not always occur when the 150-Hz harmonic content increases. Therefore, it is claried that it is difcult to determine the threshold by which the occurrence of ashover can be predicted as seen in the case of single insulator [12] because the 150-Hz harmonic contents in the case of no ashover also exceed almost the same level (50%60%) as seen in the case of ashover. Moreover, whether ashover occurs or not cannot be determined from the 250-Hz and 350-Hz harmonic contents because they are nearly at the same level in the case of both

ashover and no ashover, although the data are not shown in this paper. 4) Correlation With the Results of the Single Suspension Insulator [12]: We have already published the results of the single suspension insulator [12]. In this paper, we concluded the following. 1) Leakage current waveforms become similar to the symmetrical wave in the presence of strong local arcs on the surface of an insulator that is heavily contaminated and wetted sufciently. Hence, the intensity of the odd order of harmonic components, e.g., 50, 150, and 250 Hz is high. , distinguishing features 2) In the spectral area in the presence of are shown only at frequencies local arcs. 3) The transition of the leakage current waveforms until ashover is classied into six stages. 4) It is pointed out that a threshold exists; i.e., the possibility of ashover occurrence becomes higher when the magnitudes and harmonic contents of the prominent components exceed a particular level. We compare these results with the above results of the string of the suspension insulators. The results of the string of the suspension insulators are similar to the results of the items 1, 2, and 3. However, for item 4, a threshold does not exist in the harmonic contents of the prominent components of the string of the suspension insulators. This reason is not clear at the present and future work is needed in this study. III. FIELD TEST A. Experimental Setup We began to conduct eld tests in December 1998 and could collect the eld data on February 11, 1999 and March 7, 1999. Figure 6 shows the experimental setup at the Yokosuka eld exposure site of CRIEPI. A string of ve units of 120-kN suspension insulators was used and applied voltage was 77 in order to obtain data near the ashover. Leakage current waveforms were measured with a monitoring system of leakage current waveforms for insulators [13] (Fig. 7). A clip-on-type CT was used as a sensor for leakage currents and leakage current waveforms were measured via optical signal from analog signal. and The measurement range of current is the frequency response is 50 Hz1 kHz in this system.

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Fig. 7. Transition of leakage current waveforms on February 11, 1999.

B. Insulator Contamination Condition and Meteorological Condition The ESDD of the bottom surface of the insulator ranged from 0.1 to 0.2 on February 11, 1999, and was estimated as heavy contamination. The ESDD of the bottom surface of , that is, the insulator was estimated to be less than 0.1 intermediate contamination, on March 7, 1999. On February 11, 1999, it began to rain at about 10:25 and continued to rain until about 19:00. The temperature was about and relative humidity was over 90%. Wind direction was 3 northeast and wind speed was about 4 m/s. Rain was heavy at 12:00 and from 14:00 to 16:00. On March 7, 1999, it began to rain at about 12:50 and continued to rain until 3:00 the next day. The temperature was about and relative humidity was over 90%. A wind of about 5 m/s 7 and in the northeast direction blew, and it rained constantly from 14:00 to 18:00.

C. Characteristics of the Leakage Current Waveforms Characteristics of the leakage current waveforms on February 11 when ashover was imminent are described. Leakage current waveforms varied through six stages, as follows.

Stage 1) Sinusoidal and ohmic leakage currents ow because no discharge occurs due to the slightly wet surface condition at the beginning of rainfall; hence, the 50-Hz fundamental component becomes prominent. Stage 2) Faint discharges occur and leakage current waveforms become sawtoothlike. Stage 3) The tips of the sawtoothlike waveforms observed at stage 2 become longer intermittently. Stage 4) The intermittent extension which began at stage 3 becomes larger. Stage 5) The pulse groups having larger peak values occur intermittently. Stage 6) The peak values of intermittent pulse groups become higher when ashover is imminent. The odd-order harmonic components up to 250 Hz become prominent because the waveforms are symmetrical waves stages 2 through 6. After stage 6, the peak values of the leakage current become smaller and smaller because the discharges decrease gradually and salt accumulated on the surface of the insulators is washed out due to the continuous rain. The transition of the leakage current waveforms on March 7 when no ashover occurred is similar to that mentioned above. However, it is different in that stage 2 and stage 3 occur simul-

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Fig. 8.

Temporal variation of peak leakage current.

Fig. 9. Temporal variation of 150-Hz harmonic component.

taneously and that the pulse groups having the large peak values at stage 6 do not appear. D. Characteristics of the Prominent Frequency Components of Leakage Current Waveforms 1) Temporal Variations of Peak Leakage Currents: Figure 8 shows the temporal variations of peak leakage currents on both February 11, 1999 and March 7, 1999. This gure shows the temporal variations from 10:28 February 11 and those from 13:00 March 7, almost the same time as when it began to rain. It is clear from this gure that peak leakage currents are high from 1 h 20 min to 2 h and 40 min after the beginning of the rain on . February 11. The maximum peak leakage current was is maintained for 3 h and 10 min The value of about from 1 h and 20 min to 4 h and 20 min after the beginning of the rain on March 7. The maximum peak leakage current is low, . Thus, it is pointed out that the magnitude of the peak leakage current differs greatly between the case where ashover is imminent and the case where ashover does not occur. It can be available as one method of contamination management for insulators to x a threshold level of the peak leakage current beyond which the possibility of the occurrence of ashover becomes higher. This result corresponds to those of the articial contamination tests. 2) Temporal Variations of the Magnitude of the Prominent Harmonic Components: Figure 9 shows the temporal variations of the magnitude of the 150-Hz prominent harmonic component on both February 11, 1999 and March 7, 1999. They agree well with the temporal variations of the magnitude of the peak leakage current shown in Fig. 8. It is clear from this gure that it is possible to x a threshold level beyond which the possibility of the occurrence of ashover becomes higher; that is, for 50 Hz (not shown here), for 150 Hz, for 250 Hz (not shown here), and for 350 for 150 Hz equals Hz (not shown here). (The value of that obtained in the articial contamination tests and shown in Fig. 4.) These results correspond to those of the articial contamination tests.

Fig. 10.

Temporal variation of 150-Hz harmonic content.

3) Temporal Variations of the Harmonic Contents: Figure 10 shows the temporal variations of the harmonic contents on both February 11, 1999 and March 7, 1999. It is clear from this gure that one cannot distinguish the data for February 11 from those for March 7 with respect to the harmonic contents because they are almost the same. This result corresponds to those of the articial contamination tests. IV. CONCLUSIONS Leakage current waveforms and their frequency characteristics for a string of 120-kN suspension insulators were investigated by means of articial contamination tests and eld exposure tests in order to develop a monitoring and diagnosis system for contaminated insulators. The main results are as follows. 1) Leakage current waveforms become nearly the symmetrical wave when local arcs occur; hence, the intensity of the odd order of harmonic components is high.

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2) The thresholds by which the occurrence of ashover can be predicted exist in the peak leakage currents and the magnitude of the odd order of harmonic components. Thus, these parameters show promise for use in monitoring systems. 3) However, the threshold by which the occurrence of ashover can be predicted does not exist in the magnitude of the prominent harmonic contents while it exists in the single suspension insulator.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT The author is grateful to Dr. T. Shindo, K. Takasu, Dr. K. Izumi, and T. Takahashi of CRIEPI for providing important suggestions and support.

REFERENCES
[1] Insulation Pollution Monitoring, CIGRE TF 33.04.03, ELECTRA no. 152, Paris, France, 1994. [2] A. G. Kanashiro and G. F. Burani, Leakage current monitoring of insulators exposed to marine and industrial pollution, in Conf. Rec. 1996 IEEE Int. Symp. Electrical Insulation, Montreal, QC, Canada, 1996, pp. 271274. [3] I. Ramirez-Vazquez and J. L. Fierro-Chavez, Criteria for the diagnostic of polluted ceramic insulators based on the leakage current monitoring technique, in 1999 Annu. Report Conf. Electrical Insulation and Dielectric Phenomena, Austin, TX, pp. 715718. [4] M. P. Verma and W. Petrusch, Results of pollution tests on insulators in the 1100 kV range and necessity of testing in the future, IEEE Trans. Elect. Insulation, vol. EI-16, no. 3, pp. 199208, 1981. [5] F. A. M. Rizk and D. H. Nguyen, AC source-insulator interaction in HV pollution tests, IEEE Trans. Power App. Syst., vol. PAS-103, no. 4, pp. 723732, 1984.

[6] G. G. Karady, F. Amarh, and R. Sundararajan, Dynamic modeling of AC insulator ashover characteristics, in Proc. 11th Int. Symp. High-Voltage Engineering, London, U.K., 1999, Paper 467, pp. 4.107.S254.110.S25. [7] M. A. R. Fernando and S. M. Gubanski, Leakage current patterns on contaminated polymeric surfaces, IEEE Trans. Elect. Insulation, vol. 6, no. 5, pp. 688694, Oct. 1999. [8] A. H. El-Hag, S. Jayaram, and E. A. Cherney, Low frequency harmonic components of leakage current as a diagnostic tool to study aging of silicone rubber insulators, in 2001 Annu. Report Conf. Electrical Insulation Dielectric Phenomena, pp. 597600. [9] K. Naito, S. Kunieda, and Y. Hasegawa, DC contamination performance of station insulators, IEEE Trans. Elect. Insulation, vol. 23, no. 6, pp. 3745, 1988. [10] T. Suda, Frequency analysis for leakage current wave forms of polluted insulators, in Proc. 9th Int. Symp. High Voltage Engineering, Graz, Austria, 1995, pp. 3212-13. [11] Articial Pollution Test on High Voltage Insulators to be Used an A.C. Systems, IEC 507, 1991. [12] T. Suda, Frequency characteristics of leakage current waveforms of an articially polluted suspension insulator, IEEE Trans. Dielect. Elect. Insul., vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 705709, Aug. 2001. [13] T. Suda and Y. Imano, View and Research Subjects on Monitoring Systems for Overhead Transmission Lines, (in Japanese), CRIEPI Rep. T92060, 1993.

Tomotaka Suda (M89SM92) was born in Nagano Prefecture, Japan, on October 30, 1950. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan in 1973 and 1976, respectively, and the D.Eng. degree in electrical engineering from Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan, in 1994. In 1976, he joined the Central Research Institute, Electric Power Industry, Tokyo, Japan, where his work focuses on the study of ion-ow electrication phenomena on HVdc transmission lines, insulator contamination, and lightning phenomena. Dr. Suda is a member of the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan and the Society of Atmospheric Electricity of Japan.