Fundación para el Fomento de la Innovación Industrial (FFII) has obtained a new patent about a Partial Discharge (PD) reference generation system. This system includes a new method for evaluation and qualification of commercial PD measuring systems for high voltage insulation diagnosis. The patent has been published in the official bulletin of intellectual property.

The reference system can generate series of PD pulses of different representative defects that appears in high voltage equipment and materials and it can also superimpose them by means of electromagnetic coupling, varying the charge amplitude (picocoulombs, pC). Furthermore, this system can superimpose electrical noise with amplitude variable. For that reason, this reference system can characterize the commercial PD measuring systems in working real condition.

0) PD measuring system under evaluation, 1) High Voltage generator, 6 kV, 2) Box where probes with different representative defects are disposed, 3) Electrical noise generator and mixer, 4) Synthetic generator of PD pulses.

This system consists of a PD generator for analysing capabilities of commercial PD instruments for non-conventional PD measurements. This commercial system has 2 approaches:
- A high voltage generator (1) and probes with representative insulation defects, which PD signals are mixed with electrical noise.
- An arbitrary waveform generator working as synthetic PD generator that it can superimpose different PD sources with electrical noise.
This instrument is led to laboratories, non-conventional PD measuring instruments users, universities and any other institution interested in knowing the real capabilities of non-conventional PD measuring instruments.
Nowadays this patent is in process of formalizing the commercialization trough DIAEL, specialists in non-conventional PD measurements and instrumentation distributor (https://diael.com/en/)

More information: Jorge Rovira jrovira@ffii.es