Investigation of void erosion on partial discharge activity using simulation

Models of partial discharge (PD) activity have been widely used to investigate PD activity in cylindrical and spherical voids within insulation material. PD activity is known to alter void geometry due to the erosion of insulation material from the deployed charge. In this work, a PD model is produced to investigate the impact of void erosion on PD activity. The model is validated by reproducing measured phase resolved PD (PRPD) patterns for a spherical void in a homogeneous dielectric material. The impact of void erosion is then investigated by running the model with different void geometries. The results from the model show that the PRPD patterns depend heavily on the level of erosion due to the impact of the erosion on the electric field at the void surface