Testing Partial Discharges in Laminated Busbar for Electrified Transportation: An Innovative Approach

This paper shows how to approach properly partial discharge, PD, measurements in laminated busbars for electrified transportation. The goal is to locate and identify the type of partial discharges, PD, occurring in the busbar under AC sinusoidal voltage, as well as the intensity and inception and extinction voltage level. An innovative PD detector having the capability to test and identify the source generating PD automatically, which was employed for testing, is used and described. The need of carrying out PD measurements pinpointing the type of defect generation PD and rejecting noise effectively is raised in the paper, as the basis for any action of design improvement or condition monitoring and condition-based maintenance.