Partial discharge Partial discharge In electrical engineering, partial discharge (PD) is a localized dielectric breakdown (DB) of a small portion of a solid or fluid electrical insulation (EI) system under high voltage (HV) stress, which does not bridge the space between two conductors. While a corona discharge (CD) is usually revealed by a relatively steady glow or brush discharge (BD) in air, partial discharges within solid insulation system are not visible. PD can occur in a gaseous, liquid or solid insulating medium. It often starts within gas voids, such as voids in solid epoxy insulation or bubbles in transformer oil. Protracted partial
Electric discharge in gases the tube, either as a separate piece of material (e.g. nickel-63 in krytrons) or as addition to the alloy of the electrodes (e.g. thorium), to preionize the gas and increase the reliability of electrical breakdown and glow or arc discharge ignition. A gaseous radioactive isotope, e.g. krypton-85, can also be used. Ignition electrodes and keepalive discharge electrodes can also be employed. The E/N ratio between the electric field E and the concentration of neutral particles N is often used, because the mean energy of electrons (and therefore many other properties of discharge) is a function of E/N. Increasing the electric