The influence of the sand-dust environment on air-gap breakdown discharge characteristics of the plate-to-plate electrode

The experiments of plane-plane gap discharge was carried out in an environment of artificial sandstorm. By comparing and analyzing the differences in gap breakdown voltage between the sand & dust environment and clean air, some problems were investigated, such as effects of wind speed and particle concentration on the breakdown voltage, differences of gap discharge characteristics between the dust & sand medium and the clean air medium. The results showed that compared with the clean air environment, the dust & sand environment had a decreased gap breakdown voltage. The longer the gap distance, the greater the voltage drop; the breakdown voltage decreased with the increase of particle concentration in flow. With the increase of wind speed, the breakdown voltage decreased at the beginning and rose afterwards. The results of the paper may helpful for further research regarding the unidentified flashover and external insulation characteristics of the HV power grid in the dust & sand environment.