Contribution to the study of the appearance and development of corona discharges on a surface of ice

The investigations undertaken in this article are aimed at exploring the fundamental physical processes of electric discharges on a surface of ice. The understanding of these phenomena could allow a better design of equipment adapted to icy atmospheric conditions and thus increase the reliability of transmission networks in cold regions. The ultra high speed photographic techniques are used to observe and analyse the first nanoseconds of development of the discharge on the ice surface. The shape of the insulators is complex, a simple physical geometry model (stem-plan), with different radii of curvature, is used. The appearance of streamers and their propagation speed and thus the processes of creation of space charge on the ice surface are studied. The results are compared with those obtained in the air gaps.