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Observation on the Diameter of Positive

Discharge Channel near the Anode in a 0.74-m
air gap

Conference Paper · May 2017

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 Observation on the Diameter of Positive Discharge
Channel near the Anode in a 0.74-m air gap
Pei Xiao, Junjia He, Xiangen Zhao, Yongchao Yang

State Key Laboratory of Advanced Electromagnetic Engineering and Technology

Huazhong University of Science and Technology
1037 Luoyu Road, Wuhan, China
d201577331@hust.edu.cn

Abstract source. Two types of waveforms were produced, one was

Discharge channel diameter is an important parameter
to describe the leader formation and development. A
schlieren system was established to observe the diameter
of the positive discharge channel in the vicinity of the
anode. The diameter of the discharge channel is defined
and the characteristics of channel diameter variation are
obtained. The initial values of channel diameter are 1.37
mm and 1.75mm respectively under lightning impulse
with the crest value of 235 kV and 310 kV, while 1.12 mm
and 1.01mm under switching impulse with the crest value
of 135 kV and 265 kV. The relationship between the initial
cross-sectional area of the channel and the average of the
first impulse amplitude is also obtained, and a linear
equation is proposed to describe the relationship.
Keywords: channel diameter, positive pulse, schlieren
system, long air gap
1. Introduction
Streamer-leader transition is one of the key problems
of studying leader formation and development.
Popov has constructed a self-consistent model to
investigate the formation of leader channel in air, and
obtained some parameters such as electron density
distribution, gas density, gas temperature and electric
field[1]. Silva presented an air heating model considering
fasting heating mechanism and vibrational-translational
relaxation, the initial radius of discharge channel in the
model was 0.3 mm[2]. The initial conditions of the models
all include initial radius of discharge channel, which has
great influences on calculation results. While there are few
experimental results about the initial discharge channel
radius for reference.
In this paper, a schlieren system was established.
Experiments in a 0.74-m air gap under positive impulse
voltage was conducted. Discharge channels in the vicinity
of the anode were recorded and discharge current was
measured. According to the schlieren photographs and
current waveforms, the relationship between initial cross-
section of discharge channel and the initial corona current
was established.
standard lightning impulse, and the other was switching
impulse with crest and the half peak time of 160 μs and
2000 μs respectively. The impulse was applied in a point-
plane gap. According to our experimental results, the
point-plane gap has a higher probability to create only one
discharge channel in the vicinity of the anode, which is
more beneficial for the study of this paper. The anode was
hollow with a length of 1.4m, in which the current
measurement device could be accommodated [3]. The plane
was a 2 m×2 m square aluminum sheet, which was well
grounded. The anode was hung 0.74 m above plane.
The discharge channel was observed using a schlieren
system, which included a LED light source, a collimating
lens, a focus lens, a knife edge, and an imaging system.
The imaging system consisted of a camera lens
(FASTCAM SA5). When the temperature of the measured
are varied, the deflection angle of light would be
influenced, which would lead to the change of the image
gray level values [4]. Hence, the area where the temperature
changed from the schlieren photographs could be
distinguished. In order to balance the requirement of time
resolution and space resolution, 200 thousand fps of high
speed camera was set, and the corresponding space
resolution was 70 μm.
All the experiments were carried out in an indoor test
site with temperature of 30 °C, the relative humidity of 48%
and the atmospheric pressure of 1atm. The doors and
windows of the laboratory were kept closed, preventing the
effect of the air convection.

2. Experimental Set-up
The diagram of schlieren observation system is shown
in Fig.1. A 800kV Marx generator was used as the impulse Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the whole experimental setup
The 10th Asia-Pacific International Conference on Lightning (APL2017), Krabi, THAILAND
Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the definition of the discharge
channel diameter
3. Diameter of Discharge Channel
3.1 Definition of Channel Diameter
The schematic diagram of the definition of the
discharge channel diameter is shown in Fig.2, which is also
used to measure the diameter of the leader channel in
literature [5,6].
The flow chart of schlieren photographs processing is
shown in Fig.3. Firstly, the appropriate schlieren
photograph is selected, which means there is only one
discharge channel is the selected case. Secondly, the
schlieren photograph is filtered using wiener filter because
the photograph contains a lot of Gaussian noises. Thirdly,
the gray difference of the chosen cross-section is
calculated. Then, the peak value D1 and trough value D2
are obtained. At last, the channel diameter Φ is calculated
according to the definition shown in Fig. 2.
3.2 Typical results
A typical result under lightning impulse with the crest
value of 235 kV is shown in Fig.4. All statistical results
were obtained from the cross-section which is 0.35 mm (5
pixels) far from the electrode tip, where the yellow dotted
Fig. 3. Flow chart of schlieren photographs processing
(a) Schlieren photographs
(b) Discharge current and channel diameter
Fig. 4. A typical result under lightning impulse
line is painted. Discharge current waveform is shown in
Fig.4(b). The first corona generated at t=0.4 μs and its
amplitude was 3.9 A, then the electric field was suppressed
due to the space charge. Since the voltage rise rate is not
high, there was no more corona generated and the
discharge current vanished, so a long dark period could be
obtained, which is helpful to study the relationship
between channel diameter and time. Channel diameter
varied from 1.45 mm to 1.61 mm within 100 μs. The
channel diameter increases at a faster rate during 20 μs to
30μs than the later period. This is because after current
injection, the temperature inside the discharge channel
increased rapidly and the channel expanded radially. After
that, there is no external energy injected, the temperature
difference between the channel and the environment
decreases gradually with time, and the radial expansion
rate of the channel decreases correspondingly.
(a) Schlieren photographs
(b) Discharge current and channel diameter
Fig. 5. A typical result under switching impulse
The 10th Asia-Pacific International Conference on Lightning (APL2017), Krabi, THAILAND

3.3 Influence of the Peak Value of First Impulse

In order to obtain the different discharge current of
first corona, different voltage waveforms were applied,
and the characteristics of channel diameter variation were
also analyzed.
The statistical results of the average of first impulse
under lightning impulse with the crest value of 235 kV and
310 kV are shown in Fig.6. The former had an average
value of 3.79 A with a standard deviation of 0.23 A, while
the latter had an average value of 7.48 A with a standard
deviation of 0.67 A.
The variation of the channel diameter with time under
lightning impulse with two different crest value are shown (b) 310 kV
in Fig.7. The same statistical work was done under Fig. 7. Variation of the channel diameter with time under lightning
switching impulse with the crest value of 135 kV and 265 impulse
kV, and the results are shown in Fig.8 and Fig.9
respectively. The former had an average of 1.14 A, and a impulse, the initial values are 1.12 mm and 1.01mm which
standard deviation of 0.40 A, the latter had an average of could be obtained from Fig.9(a) and Fig.9(b).
0.80 A with a standard deviation of 0.12 A. The discharge channel is approximately a cylinder.
Compared with the diameter or radius, the cross-sectional
4. Initial Diameter of the Channel area could better reflect the geometric information of the
In this paper, the initial value for the channel diameter current distribution. Therefore, based on the results in
is defined as follows. Linear fitting is applied to the section 3.3, the relationship between the initial cross-
statistical results of channel diameter in the first 20 μs, and sectional area of the channel and the average of the first
the intersection of the fitting curve and the line t = 0 μs is impulse amplitude is shown in Fig.10.
the initial diameter of the channel. According to the According to the results in Fig.10, there is a linear
definition, the initial diameters of Fig.7(a) and Fig.7(b) are relationship between the initial cross-sectional area of the
1.37 mm and 1.75mm, respectively. As for switching channel and the average peak value of the first corona
current.

Fig. 6. Statistical results of the average of first impulse under

lightning impulse Fig. 8. Statistical results of the average of first impulse under
switching impulse

(a) 235 kV (a) 135 kV

 The 10th Asia-Pacific International Conference on Lightning (APL2017), Krabi, THAILAND

amplitude is given by equation (1) for the condition 0.8 A

≤ I ≤ 7.5 A.
In the future, more experiments are needed to prove
whether the proposed equation is applicable in more cases.

References
[1] Popov N A, “Formation and development of a leader channel in air,”
Plasma Physics Reports, vol. 29, no. 8, pp. 695-708, 2003.
[2] Da Silva C L, Pasko V P, “Dynamics of streamer-to-leader
transition at reduced air densities and its implications for
propagation of lightning leaders and gigantic jets,” Journal of
Geophysical Research Atmospheres, vol. 118, no .24, pp. 513-561,
2013.
[3] Y. Yue and J. He, “Digital time-resolved optical measurement of
discharge currents in long air gaps,” Review of Scientific
(b) 265 kV Instruments, vol. 84, no. 8, p. 085107,2013.
Fig. 9. Variation of the channel diameter with time under [4] C Alvarez-Herrera, D Moreno-Hernández, B Barrientos-García and
switching impulse J A Guerrero-Viramontes, “Temperature measurement of the air
convection using a Schlieren system,” Optics & Laser Technology,
vol. 41, no. 3, pp. 233–240, 2009.
[5] Domens P, Gibert A, Dupuy J, et al, “Leader filament study near
the anode in a rod plane gap,” Journal of Physics D: Applied
Physics, vol.24, no. 7, pp. 1088-1097, 1991.
[6] Domens P, Dupuy J, Gibert A, et al, “Large air-gap discharge and
Schlieren techniques,” Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics,
vol.21, no. 11, pp. 1613-1623, 2000.

Fig. 10. Relationship between the initial cross-sectional area of the

channel and the average of the first impulse amplitude

 r 2  0.2319  I  0.65139  0.8A  I  7.5A  (1)

Where r is the radius of the channel in mm, and I the
peak value of the first corona current in A.
As the experiments carried out in this paper only
obtained the results under current range of 0.8A~7.5A,
equation (1) may only apply to the condition 0.8 A ≤ I ≤
7.5 A. Whether the equation can apply to more conditions
need more experiments to prove.

5. Conclusion
In this paper, a schlieren system was established to
observe the diameter of the positive discharge channel near
the anode in a 0.74-m air gap. Typical results under
lightning impulse and switching impulse are obtained. The
diameter of the discharge channel is defined in Section 3.1,
variation of the channel diameter with time were analyzed
based on the definition. Through linear fitting, the initial
values of diameter are 1.37 mm and 1.75mm respectively
according to the statistical results of channel diameter
under lightning impulse with the crest value of 235 kV and
310 kV. The initial values are 1.12 mm and 1.01mm under
switching impulse with the crest value of 135 kV and 265
kV. The relationship between the initial cross-sectional
area of the channel and the average of the first impulse

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