Monitoramento de para-raios de óxido de zinco em campo.

Abstract

Nowadays the reliability and continuity in the electricity supply are increasingly required. The surge arresters has an important function in this process, which is to protect the other utility equipment against lightning and switching surges. When they fail, usually causing the shutdown of transmission lines or transformers, severely penalizing the power utility for the unavailability or regulator fines. As any important equipment for the electrical system, surge arresters need effective monitoring techniques. In the literature and industry several techniques, procedures or equipment for their monitoring can be found. All procedures or devices have their limitations, advantages and disadvantages, whether technical, economic or operational. Aiming to overcome some of the limitations in existing techniques and procedures commonly employed in the electrical industry, a methodology for analyzing the surge arrester operational condition based on measurements of total leakage current is proposed in this paper. With this methodology is intended to minimize operational difficulties associated with monitoring activities, since it will only measure the total leakage current unlike the usual techniques and procedures, which require the measurement of the applied voltage, too. A database of leakage currents with measurements performed in five (05) power substations was obtained. Measurements were grouped by arresters model/manufacturer and operation time. The measuring instrument used consists of a clamp type ammeter and a portable digital oscilloscope. The process of field measurement was effective and practical due to the ease of handling of the used instrument. Laboratory tests were performed to evaluate the methodology and measuring instruments. From the database produced, it was possible through the use of techniques of signal processing and statistical observe the Gaussian behavior of the data and the average increase of the 3rd harmonic component of the total current as a function of operating time, which highlights thus, the correlation between the increase of the leakage current and the decrease of the lifetime of the surge arrester.