Partial discharge (PD) measurement provides early warning information for
assessing the condition of high voltage (HV) power equipment insulation systems,
so maintenance can be taken to prevent service interruption due to isolation failures.
Many methods and sensors have been tried and developed to detect PD. PD
produces electromagnetic waves that can be detected using transient earth voltage
(TEV) sensors. The TEV sensor is small, and it can be easily used by attaching the
sensor to the metal casing of power equipment in several positions. This paper
presents the optimization of TEV sensor by electromagnetic wave propagation
simulation using three-dimension finite difference time domain (FDTD) modeling.
The structure of the newly proposed TEV sensor is optimized for partial discharge
measurement in terms of a more compact physical construction and simpler to
manufacture. The TEV sensor structure was developed and optimized using the
FDTD software domain before the physical sensor was tested. The approach in this
paper will help to make TEV sensor designs more compact in certain applications
in the future.