Validation Of A Novel Electrode System To Study The Surface Flashover Behavior of Insulators

A novel electrode system is designed and validated to facilitate time- coordinated electrical and optical measurements of surface discharges a insulators. The investigation is performed on polycrystalline Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/ and single crystal quartz by employing the new electrode and the conventional parallel plane electrode systems. The results obtained by using the two electrode systems are compared and discussed. The single crystal quartz specimens found to exhibit higher breakdown strengths (-350 KV/cm) compared to polycrystalline alumina (-230 kV/cm).