Tortuous Spark Paths in SF6 Non-uniform Electric Field

The spark paths of SF
₆
are tortuous in non-uniform electric field, for the randomness of gas discharge and the influence by the space charge. Meanwhile, the breakdown voltage appears non-monotonous trend with the variation of pressure. This phenomenon is called as corona stabilization because it is caused by the space charge generated by corona discharge. To illuminate the influence on the spark paths by corona stabilization, we built a spark path observation system by two flat mirrors and a beam splitter to combine two orthogonal images captured by a high speed camera, called the three-dimensional reconstruction method. The computer vision technology is used to process the original image and identify two independent spark paths. The deviation angle of spark paths was used to describe the tortuous degree. The three-dimensional spark path can clarify the relationship between the corona stabilization and the tortuous spark paths and lead the subsequent study.