TEST BENCH AUTOMATION FOR AGING AND PARTIAL DISCHARGE EXPERIMENTS IN HYDROGENERATOR STATORS

Abstract

This paper proposes the automation of a test bench for partial discharges measurement during thermal cycle tests with nominal voltage applied to hydro generator stator windings, allowing the simulation of simultaneous electrical and thermomechanical stresses. To that end, it is mandatory to identify a relationship between the internal and external winding temperatures since the voltage applied makes it impossible to insert sensors directly to the winding. It proposes the online reading of partial discharge during the entire test; in opposition to the common practice of reading the partial discharge data once before and once after the run of accelerated aging tests, such as the thermal cycle.