Investigation of DC discharge behavior of polluted porcelain post insulator in artificial rain

The surface discharge of natural polluted post insulators in rain is an important factor which affects the external insulation of HVDC converter stations. With the artificial contamination flashover tests in rain for porcelain post insulators, this paper has obtained the flashover process and discharge characteristics of the test samples under artificial rain condition. It has been observed that the discharge of water droplet on the shed edge plays a very important role in the whole process of pollution flashover in rain. When a water droplet hangs on the shed edge, the maximum electric field strength appears in the vicinity of vertices, rather than the lateral area of the water droplet. Thus, the streamer propagates only in the direction of the air gap between sheds. Moreover, the influence of raining conditions including intensity and conductivity on the flashover voltage has been investigated. Test phenomena also indicate that due to the different damp and dry band conditions, surface discharge characteristics of post insulator in rain are different with that in fog, which lead to different flashover voltages. This study provides a new understanding for the HVDC insulator pollution flashover in wet environment.