A Finite Element Analysis and an Improved Induced Charge Concept for Partial Discharge Modeling

Although much work has been done and significant progress has been made on partial discharges (PD) measurement and detection techniques, this is not the case for PD modeling. Four types of internal PD modeling, in sequential order from first to last developed, are three-capacitance (abc), induced charge concept (ICC), finite element analysis (FEA), and Multiphysics models. The abc model is too simple to provide an understanding of the physical phenomena affecting PD. In contrast, Multiphysics models are immature. Multiphysics models require a high number of physical parameters that need to be experimentally determined, which is not a trivial task. Moreover, adjusting the physical parameters to achieve a good agreement between simulation results and measurement results for a specific geometry and dimension may not work for other geometries and dimensions. The FEA model, a relatively recent model, and the ICC model, which fall between the abc and Multiphysics models in terms of modeling complexity, can partly explain mechanisms and physical phenomena associated with internal PD. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is only one paper comparing ICC and FEA models for a case study; thus, further research is needed to elucidate various aspects of these two models. In this paper, 1) an improved ICC and a FEA capable of describing phenomena occurring during PD are developed, 2) both developed models are coded and implemented either in MATLAB or in COMSOL Multiphysics linked with MATLAB, and their simulation results are compared and analyzed, and 3) the influence of different parameters including void shape, void size, and void air pressure on PD parameters are studied.