EE450: High Voltage Engineering

Lecture 23

Farhan Mahmood, PhD

Department of Electrical Engineering
UET, Lahore

January 25, 2017

Outline

Measurement of High Voltages

• Peak Voltage Measurement using Capacitive Voltage Dividers

• Impulse Voltage Measurement using Voltage Dividers
• Voltage Dividers
• Resistive Voltage Divider
• Capacitive Voltage Divider
• Mixed R-C Voltage Divider

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Peak Voltage Measurement using Capacitive Voltage Dividers

• Passive circuits are not very frequently used these days for measurement of the
peak value of a.c or impulse voltages.
• The development of fully integrated operational amplifiers and other electronic
circuits has made it possible to sample and hold such voltages and thus make
measurements and, therefore, have replaced the conventional passive circuits.
• However, it is to be noted that if the passive circuits are designed properly, they
provide simplicity and adequate accuracy and hence a small description of these
circuits is in order.
• Passive circuits are cheap, reliable and have a high order of electromagnetic
compatibility. However, in contrast, the most sophisticated electronic instruments are
expensive and their electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) is low.

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Peak Voltage Measurement using Capacitive Voltage Dividers

• Figure shows a voltage divider circuit with half-

wave rectifier in which
˗ Diode D is used for rectification
˗ Capacitor CS represents the measuring (or
storage capacitance)
• Capacitors C1 and C2 are so selected that a low
voltage V2 (t) appears across C2 with high
voltage at the input.
• Neglecting the losses and diode drop, CS will be
charged to the peak value of the voltage across
the lower arm C2.

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Peak Voltage Measurement using Capacitive Voltage Dividers

• Under this condition,

Vmax = ((C1 + C2)/C1) x Vm
where Vm is the reading of voltmeter
• The limitation of this voltage divider is that the
voltage across CS will remain almost
constant, in case there is a decrease in the
input voltage .
• Thus, CS may be made to discharge
relatively quickly by adding a discharge
resistance Rd.

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Peak Voltage Measurement using Capacitive Voltage Dividers

• Sources of error:
˗ Shape of the voltage across CS is a source of ripples
˗ Mean potential of V2 (t) would contain a negative dc component when the input
voltage is kept constant. Thus, a resistance R2 is required to equalize unipolar
discharge current.
˗ Peak voltage across C2 < Vmax

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Peak Voltage Measurement using Capacitive Voltage Dividers

• Error introduced by the presence of resistance R2 is eliminated by the use of a

second dc branch called the equalizing branch.
• The dc current in the measuring and equalizing branches are opposite in polarity and
equalize each other.

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Impulse Voltage Measurement using Voltage Dividers

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Impulse Voltage Measurement using Voltage Dividers

• If the amplitudes of the impulse voltage is not high and is in the range of a few
kilovolts, it is possible to measure them even when these are of short duration by
using CROs.
• However, if the voltages to be measured are of high magnitude of the order of
magavolts which normally is the case for testing and research purposes, various
problems arise.
• The voltage dividers required are of special design and need a thorough
understanding of the interaction present in these voltage dividing systems.

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Impulse Voltage Measurement using Voltage Dividers

• Measuring system can be represented by a two-port passive (four-terminal) network.

• For the sake of analysis, the response of this two-port network has to be determined
corresponding to full or chopped impulse voltage at the input.
• The response of two-port network can be determined by the application of unit-step
voltage.
• The input voltage of the measuring system is represented by a unit step function,

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Impulse Voltage Measurement using Voltage Dividers

• If input voltage = Ai u (t), then output voltage = Ao w (t),

where w (t) is the response of the circuit to the step function
• The response w (t) could be slowly rising curve reaching the final value, or damped
transient oscillations.
• The response behaviour is defined in terms of response time that measures how
much the output voltage lags behind the input voltage when the input is a linearly
rising voltage. Mathematically,

• For a well designed system, the response time should be as small as possible

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Impulse Voltage Measurement using Voltage Dividers

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Impulse Voltage Measurement using Voltage Dividers

• According to IEC publication No. 60060-1, a maximum overshoot of

˗ 3% is allowed for the full impulse wave
˗ 5% for an impulse wave chopped on the front at times shorter than 1 μs
• In order to fulfill these requirements, the response time of the divider must not
exceed 0.2 μs for full impulse waves 1.2/50 μs or 1.2/5 μs or impulse waves
chopped on the tail.
• If the impulse wave is chopped on the front at time shorter than 1 μs, the response
time must be not greater than 5% of the time to chopping.

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Voltage Dividers

• Voltages dividers for a.c, d.c or impulse voltages may consist of resistors or
capacitors or a combination of these elements.
• Inductors are normally not used as voltage dividing elements because
˗ Pure inductances of proper magnitudes without stray capacitance cannot be built
˗ The inductances would form oscillatory circuit with the inherent capacitance of
the test object. This may lead to inaccuracy in measurement of high voltages in
the measuring circuit.
• The height of a voltage divider depends upon the flashover voltage and this follows
from the rated maximum voltage applied.

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Voltage Dividers

• If the voltage to be measured is V1 and sampled voltage V2, then

• If the impedances are pure resistances, then

• In case pure capacitances are used,

• The voltage V2 is normally only a few hundred volts and hence, the value of Z2 is so
chosen that V2 across it gives sufficient deflection on a CRO.

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Voltage Dividers

• Voltage dividers are classified into three categories:

˗ Resistive voltage dividers
˗ Capacitive voltage dividers
˗ Mixed voltage dividers

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Resistive Potential Dividers

• Resistive dividers are used for the measurement of steep impulse voltages.
• A resistive divider has distributed stray capacitance to ground that may affect the
accuracy of high frequency measurements.
• This stray capacitance will vary according to the distance of a point on the length of
the resistor from earth.

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Resistive Potential Dividers

• The average value of this capacitance Ce, will be located approximately at the centre
of the resistive column.
• It can be shown that Ce=⅔ CT where CT is the total capacitance to earth.
• Since, R1 >> R2, the point where the effect of stray capacitance to earth is averaged,
divides the total R1 into two identical resistances each having a value of R1 /2, and
the parallel combination of these resistances gives an equivalent resistance of R1 /4.
• The time constant of the divider becomes,

• Since, Ce=⅔ CT

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Resistive Potential Dividers

Design of resistive voltage divider

• Design a resistive voltage divider for 1 MV, 1.2/50 μs impulse voltage using standard
resistors available, for a 2 m high vertical cylinderical divider with a distributed
capacitance to ground of 15 pF/m height, with T = 50 ns.

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Resistive Potential Dividers

• In a resistance potential divider, R1 and R2 are considered as resistors of small

dimensions.
• For voltages above 100 kV, R1 is no longer small in dimension and is usually made
of a number of sections.
• Hence, the divider is no longer a small resistor of lumped parameters, but has to be
considered as an equivalent distributed network with its terminal to ground
capacitances and inter-sectional series capacitances as shown in figure.
• The total series resistance R1 is made of n resistors of value R1' and R = nR1'
Cg is the terminal to ground capacitance of each of the resistor elements R1'
CS is the capacitance between the terminals of each section.

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Resistive Potential Dividers

1.6 μs 2.4 μs

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Resistive Potential Dividers

• The inductance of each element is usually small compared to the other elements.
• This type of divider produces a non-linear voltage distribution along its length and
also acts like an R-C filter for applied voltages.
• By arranging guard rings at various elemental points, the equivalent circuit can be
modified where Ch, represents the stray capacitance introduced between the high
voltage lead and the guard elements. This reduces the distortion introduced by the
original divider.

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Resistive Potential Dividers

0.3 μs

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Resistive Potential Dividers

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Capacitive Potential Dividers

• Capacitance voltage dividers are ideal for measurement of fast rising voltages and
pulses.
• The capacitance ratio is independent of the frequency, if their leakage resistance is
high enough to be neglected.
• Usually, the dividers are connected to the source voltage through long leads which
introduce lead inductances and residual resistances.
• Also, the capacitance used for very high voltage work is not small in dimension and
hence cannot be considered as a lumped element.
• Therefore, the output of the divider for high frequencies and impulses is distorted as
in the case of resistance dividers.

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Capacitive Potential Dividers

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Capacitive Potential Dividers

• Another type of design frequently used is to make C1 to consist of a number of

capacitors C1' in series for the given voltage V1.
• In such cases, the equivalent circuit is similar to that of a string insulator unit used in
transmission lines.
• The voltage distribution along the capacitor chain is non-linear and hence causes
distribution of the output wave.
• But the ratio error is constant and is independent on frequency as compared to
resistance dividers.
• A simplified equivalent circuit is shown in figure, which can be used if C1 << C2, and
Cg << C1.

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Capacitive Potential Dividers

• The voltage ratio is,

• This ratio is constant and gives an error of less than 5% when C1 = 3Cg. This
equivalent circuit is quite satisfactory up to 1 MHz.

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Capacitive Potential Dividers

Design of capacitive voltage divider

• Select a capacitor required for the low voltage arm of a capacitive voltage divider to
provide a peak voltage of 200 V on the oscilloscope when the high voltage arm of
the divider has capacitance of 1 nF and the voltage of 1 MV peak is to be measured.
Neglect the surge impedance of the delay cable.

• Design a capacitive voltage divider for a voltage of up to 100 kV (RMS) to be

measured with a conventional low voltage voltmeter to give a full-scale deflection of
200 V for the maximum RMS voltage to be measured.

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Mixed R-C Potential Dividers

• Mixed potential dividers use R-C elements in series or in

parallel.
• Mixed voltage dividers are classified into two categories:
˗ Compensated resistor voltage divider
˗ Damped capacitive voltage divider
• In compensated resistor dividers, the capacitance is
connected in parallel with each R1' element to reduce the
effect of stray capacitances to ground Cg.
• This is successfully employed for voltage dividers of rating
2 MV and above.

Compensated Resistor Divider

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Mixed R-C Potential Dividers

• In the damped capacitive voltage divider, a damping

resistor is inserted in series with the individual element
of capacitive divider.
• This kind of damped voltage divider acts as:
˗ Resisitve divider for high frequencies
˗ Capacitive divider for low frequencies
• Such dividers are made for 5 MV with response times
less than 30 ns.

Damped Capacitive Divider

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Measurement of High Voltages

Next Lecture:

• Delay Cables
• Measuring Instruments

Page 32
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION