Experimental Investigation of Breakdown Voltage and Electrical Breakdown Time Delay of Commercial Gas Discharge Tubes

Abstract

This article presents the experimental results of DC dynamic breakdown voltage U b for small voltage increase rates and electrical breakdown time delay t d of commercial gas discharge tubes. It was shown that U b is a stochastic value with Gauss distribution for voltage increase rates ≥2 V/s. In order to determine the static breakdown voltage U s as a deterministic quantity, the mean values of the dynamic breakdown voltage U b as a function of voltage increase rate k were extrapolated until the intersection with U b axis using linear fit. The intersection point (for k = 0) correspond to U s value. Additional experiments were performed in order to verify the temperature stability of these components over the wide temperature range from 25 to 250 °C. The experimental results of electrical breakdown time delay are also presented in the paper. Electrical breakdown time delay if often refereed as delay response and it is also very important parameter of gas filled devices. It was shown when the voltage higher then 310 V is applied to those components, the mean value of electrical breakdown time delay t d insignificantly varies to the value of relaxation time τ≈1 s, while the breakdown probability is close to one for the voltages higher then 380 V. These facts show that the commercial gas discharge tubes are very reliable for the protection for voltages higher then 380 V.

Breakdown voltage reliability improvement in gas-discharge tube surge protectors employing graphite field emitters

“…Time delay t d decreases with increasing U w as expected. 21,22 So-called "memory curves" of t d versus idle time at given U w were found to exhibit saturation at t d $ 10-100 s for large idle times. The onset of the saturation plateau heavily depends on the type of gas and its pressure, however up to idle time of $10 4 s all memory curves become saturated.…”

Test circuit of impulse spark‐over voltage with different rates of rise for gas discharge tubes

“…Spark‐over test waveform defined in ITU‐T K.12 . T 1 and T 2 correspond to the instants when the impulse is 20 and 100% of the peak value, U max .…”

“…ITU‐T K.12 and IEC 61643‐311 provide a circuit to produce a voltage impulse with an RoR of 1 kV/ μ s, but no more information is given for different RoRs. Recently, some special attention has also been devoted to the impulse voltage with much higher RoR whose magnitude is on the order of kilovolts per nanoseconds (kV/ns) (e.g., ).…”

Experimental investigations of time delay distributions inside a commercial gas tube

“…This process is of crucial significance for understanding the characteristics of gases, processes in them, as well as to describe the main working principles of many gas discharge components [1]. The most frequently used gas discharge components are: gas arresters [2,3], gas switchgear [4], GM (Geiger Muller) tubes [5], and starters [6]. These gas discharge components are in different regimes.…”

“…This experimental procedure gives significant information about the electrical breakdown, the conditions on cathode through the discharges, the concentration of charged particles, and about neutral active particles during the time interval following the interruption of current through the gas [7,8]. In addition, the time delay measuring method can give useful data on reliability of used commercial gas discharge components [2,6] which may be significant for applications.…”