Assessing the severity of partial discharges in aerospace applications

Current standards base the evaluation of partial discharge (PD) harmfulness on their amplitude and repetition rate. This work shows how, on the contrary, the non conventional environmental conditions introduced by aerospace applications (i.e. low-pressure atmosphere, higher frequency supplies) lead respectively to lower or unchanged PD apparent charges, which are however characterized by different mean energies, hence destructive potential, in a counter intuitive manner.