Partial discharge in elastomeric high voltage insulations is a major reason for device failure. The special challenges of the high voltage environment limit the use of conventional acoustic emission sensors. Fibre-optic sensors can cope with these challenges thanks to their optical sensing principle and the use of all-dielectric materials. In this contribution, improvements to a previously introduced design of ultrasonic fibre-optic acoustic partial discharge sensors for elastomeric insulations are presented. The improved performance of fibre-optic acoustic sensors in detecting AC partial discharge is demonstrated. Furthermore, their ability to detect low-level damage processes in elastomeric insulation under DC dielectric stress is shown to outperform the highly sensitive electrical detection method.

Date Published: 2 June 2014
PDF: 4 pages
Proc. SPIE 9157, 23rd International Conference on Optical Fibre Sensors, 91571J (2 June 2014); doi: 10.1117/12.2059489

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9157:
23rd International Conference on Optical Fibre Sensors
José M. López-Higuera; Julian D. C. Jones; Manuel López-Amo; José Luis Santos, Editor(s)