Optical fiber sensor of partial discharges in high voltage DC experiments

A setup simulating High Voltage DC (HVDC) transformers barriers was developed to demonstrate the effectiveness of an optical fiber (OF) sensor in detecting partial discharges (PD) under these peculiar conditions. Different PD detection techniques were compared: electrical methods, and acoustic methods. Standard piezoelectric sensors (R15i-AST) and the above mentioned OF sensors were used for acoustic detection. The OF sensor was able to detect PD acoustically with a sensitivity better than the other detection methods. The multichannel instrumentation system was tested in real HVDC conditions with the aim of analyzing the behavior of the insulation (mineral oil/pressboard).This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under the Project DPI2009-14628-C03-01 and the scholarship FPI BES-2010-042083 and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the visiting researcher grant EEBB-I-2013-07675. C.G. Azcárraga-Ramos gratefully acknowledges the Instituto de Investigaciones Eléctricas for a study leave and the Mexican Science Council (CONACYT) for financially supporting his graduate studies. PD tests have been made in the High Voltage and Material Engineering Laboratory of the University of Bologna