TY - JOUR
T1 - Effects of UV illumination on surface flashover under pulsed excitation
AU - Krile, John T.
AU - Neuber, Andreas A.
AU - Krompholz, Hermann G.
N1 - Funding Information:
Manuscript received September 30, 2007; revised December 21, 2007. This work was supported in part by the Cathode and HPM Breakdown MURI program, funded and managed by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), and in part by Sandia National Laboratories. The authors are with the Center for Pulsed Power and Power Electronics, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409 USA (e-mail: jkrile@ieee.org). Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPS.2008.917512 Fig. 1. Unipolar experimental setup. Dashed lines represent the removable mesh outer conductor inside the chamber. External UV illumination and gas fill lines are not shown [11].
PY - 2008/4
Y1 - 2008/4
N2 - Undesirable surface flashover of high voltage support structures can severely limit the compactness of open air high voltage systems. Only recently, increased effort has been invested in characterizing and quantifying the physical processes involved in surface flashover occurring under atmospheric conditions and under the influence of UV illumination. In this paper, a UV flash lamp and a solid-state UV source, with its much faster turn-off time, were utilized in conjunction with a high temporal resolution testing apparatus. The UV pulse, excitation voltage, discharge current, and flashover self-luminosity were measured with high temporal precision. We relate recent experiments to our experimental findings of surface flashover under atmospheric conditions gained over the past five years. A simple model that describes the observed behavior will be presented. In addition, a more advanced Monte Carlo-type code for electron collision dynamics will be utilized to further analyze the role of UV in surface flashover under atmospheric conditions.
AB - Undesirable surface flashover of high voltage support structures can severely limit the compactness of open air high voltage systems. Only recently, increased effort has been invested in characterizing and quantifying the physical processes involved in surface flashover occurring under atmospheric conditions and under the influence of UV illumination. In this paper, a UV flash lamp and a solid-state UV source, with its much faster turn-off time, were utilized in conjunction with a high temporal resolution testing apparatus. The UV pulse, excitation voltage, discharge current, and flashover self-luminosity were measured with high temporal precision. We relate recent experiments to our experimental findings of surface flashover under atmospheric conditions gained over the past five years. A simple model that describes the observed behavior will be presented. In addition, a more advanced Monte Carlo-type code for electron collision dynamics will be utilized to further analyze the role of UV in surface flashover under atmospheric conditions.
KW - Electrical breakdown
KW - High power microwaves HPMs
KW - Surface discharges
KW - Ultraviolet radiation effects
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=42649136924&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/TPS.2008.917512
DO - 10.1109/TPS.2008.917512
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:42649136924
VL - 36
SP - 332
EP - 340
JO - IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science
JF - IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science
SN - 0093-3813
IS - 2 PART 1
ER -