Switching surge strength of large air gaps: A physical approach

Abstract

A method is introduced for the determination of the sparkover voltage of practically any configuration subjected to switching impulses of any polarity, applied to one or more electrodes When the discharge process is governed by the phenomena occurring at a positively charged electrode. The method is applied to some configurations, especially chosen to show its important features, and the results obtained are compared with actual test results. It is finally shown which are the directions in which the studies on the discharge phenomenon could improve the precision and the applicability of the method.