Pressure Relief Design and Performance of Metal Oxide Surge Arresters

Surge arresters with porcelain housing must not have explosive breakage of the housing to minimize damage to other equipment when subjected to internal high short circuit currents. Also, arrester porcelain housings are generally susceptible to undesirable thermal shock. As a solution, this paper describes pressure relief design and performance of arresters equipped with a fiber reinforced plastic tube and an optimum pressure relief nozzle. The arresters showed satisfactory performance during a newly developed synthetic pressure relief test using a 25 kA symmetrical rms current with the first half-cycle fully offset.