Portable Acoustic Flashover Location Detector for Gas Insulated Switchgears at a Fraction of Cost

This document gives a brief description about how low cost Sound detectors can be used for detecting the location of flashover in High Voltage testing of Gas Insulated Switchgear (GIS) at factory or at site during commissioning and Are high accuracy sensors really needed The detection of flashover location inside a metal enclosed GIS insulated by dielectric gas (e. g. SF6) has always been a very difficult and tedious task. At present, this issue is tackled by means of thermal/acoustic cameras and arc sensors. The method proposed in this document incorporates acoustic sensors at various locations which help in determining exact location of fault in GIS. This document suggests that the primary need is to know the location of fault and thus there is no requirement for any analysis after the fault has happened during testing. Because mostly the faults during testing of gas insulated switchgear happen due to presence of particle inside the compartments which can be rectified by cleaning. Thus, this paper postulates the most compact method to locate fault in different compartments in GIS. Further, the need of a separate analyzing kit is eliminated and thus making it more compact and mobile. Experiments were conducted in this direction, with acoustic sensors applied to the 245 kV GIS product. The observations bolstered the principle incorporated and the exact modules which encountered flashovers were identified accurately.