Development of short pulsed corona on two-wire transmission line

Propagation of short high-voltage pulses along a 6-m-long twin line was studied in the presence of corona discharge. The experimental setup included a twin-line arrangement, a 100-kV, 5-ns pulse generator, voltage and current probes, and photomultipliers. The dependencies on line geometry and wire conductivity and on pulse voltage and polarity have been studied. PSpice and electrostatic simulations are presented; the latter are compared to still photos of corona discharge. Of most interest was the finding that the discharge was very much asymmetric when one of the pulser's terminals was grounded, even when the line height was much greater than the distance between the wires. This effect will be pronounced to heights of hundreds of meters. Pulsed corona study on NiCr resistive wires revealed intense pulse decay: only 1% of the launched energy reaches the end.