Characteristics of interface charges on oil-pressboard insulation and their influence on flashover under polarity reversal voltage

Converter transformer is one of the important apparatus of high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission system. Because of the complex structures and operating conditions, the winding of valve side of converter transformer will withstand DC voltage, combined AC-DC voltage and even polarity reversal voltage, and the insulating properties of which under polarity reversal voltage has drawn great attention. Under the special condition, the interface charge will be accumulated on the oil-pressboard interface, which can directly affect the electric field distribution of the converter transformer dielectric and even decrease the flashover voltage. Therefore, it is necessary to study the characteristics of interface charges and their influence on flashover voltage. The oil-pressboard insulation test platform is designed in this paper, including the interface charge of oil-pressboard insulation measurement platform and polarity reversal test platform. The minimum spatial resolution of interface charge measurement platform is about 1mm2, and its measuring sensitivity can reach 0.129pC/mm2. This paper adopts a needle-plate test model for measurement. The reversal time of the polarity reversal test apparatus is on the level of millisecond that conforms to the actual operation of the converter transformer. The experimental results under polarity reversal voltage indicated that the interfacial charge could greatly reduce the flashover voltage of polarity reversal, and the surface potential produced by charges can be up to 40% of polarization voltage. The changes of oil-pressboard interface charge density before and after the polarity reversal have been measured. It is found that the electric field produced by interface charge can strengthen the maximum synthesis field intensity of the needle electrode after polarity reversal, thus greatly decreases the flashover voltage.