Reliability of Various Type of Gas-filled Surge Arresters Under DC Discharge

The delay response of Littelfuse gas-filled surge arresters was determined using the time delay method. It is a qualitative method, which can give neither the number densities of ions nor neutral active states in the glow and afterglow, but it can be used for qualitative observation of ions and neutral active states decay in the afterglow to such low concentrations where other methods cannot be applied. It has also enabled the estimation of recombination and de-excitation times of the mentioned particles due to their recombination on the tube walls, electrodes and in gas. Experimental data of mean values of breakdown voltage of these components were obtained for voltage increase rates from 1 to 10 Vs-1 analysed with discretized dynamic method presented in this paper. Besides, an influence of overvoltage values on the dependence of electrical breakdown voltage vs. relaxation time was also been investigated.