Development of a microcontroller-based phase-resolved partial discharge measurement system with application to the monitoring of flash sintering discharge patterns

Having been for a long time a mainstay of industrial insulator material defect detection, the measurement of partial discharge patterns has recently been shown to also consist in a reliable tool helping with the monitoring of flash sintering. The goal of this work is to develop a bespoke, portable phase-resolved partial discharge (PRPD) measurement system based on microcontroller technology that can monitor partial discharge (PD) activity during the application of growing electrical voltage to a sample that is to be sintered. The system was tested on a custom experimental setup and shown to be able to measure PD pulses from 20 pC to 1000 pC, with a repetition rate of up to 100 ksamples/s above 50 pC and a reduced repetition rate under 50 pC, down to 25 ksamples/s for 20 pC charges. Phase-amplitude-occurrence discharge patterns can be recorded with a phase resolution of up to 1°. When applied to the measurement of PRPD patterns arising in a porous zinc oxide (ZnO) sample subjected to increasing electrical 50 Hz AC voltages from 500 to 2000 V at room temperature, the bespoke system was shown to be able to acquire characteristic patterns matching with those obtained using a comparable commercial system, proving its adequacy for PD monitoring in the context of flash sintering with increased flexibility and at a fraction of the price.