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high voltage steep-front impulses Voltage Test
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Generation of high voltage steep-front impulses Voltage Test

In the field of high voltage testing, the generation and use of steep-front impulses having  large amplitudes (tens or hundreds of kV) become mandatory due to the existence of several industrial tests recommended by different standards, such as puncture test in air on glass and ceramic insulators according to IEC61211, or steep-front tests for composite insulators high voltage test stipulated by IEC 62217 standard. A second use of steep-front impulses was related to the occurrence of new equipment such as gas insulated substations-GIS, or gas insulated lines-GIL which produces very fast transients.
Insulator Impulse Generator Steep Wave Test

In the electromagnetic compatibility field, steep-front transient voltages are used to simulate electrostatic discharges or high altitude electromagnetic pulses.

Steep Front Impulse voltage test waveform

In recent years, an important number of research studies addressed the generation of high voltages with steep-front and the development of suitable measuring instrumentations and  procedures. We conducted test in the High Voltage Laboratory in order to obtain high voltage steep-front impulses, using different solutions.

If the required slope of the impulse is not very high (for example up to 1000 kV/µs), high  voltage steep-front impulses can be obtained using the conventional Marx generators. An alternative solution consists in the use of the Marx generator as a basic source, supplemented with some dedicated shaping/peaking circuits, such as sphere gaps or different single stage shaping circuits connected to the basic generator by  multiple  spark  gaps  (MSG).  Each  of these solutions is able to produce output voltages with slopes in the range of 2500 kV/µs...5000 kV/µs or even more. 
Steep Front Impulse voltage testing