Negative corona in air using a point/cup electrode system

Calculations and simulations of potential and charged-particle distributions have been made by various workers for single pulses along the axis of point/plane electrode systems but not for the overall current. The difficult geometry makes this inevitable. In this paper the authors describe measurements of corona currents in air using a high-symmetry `point/cup' electrode system comprising a hemispherical-tipped point which is concentric with a concave hemispherical electrode; and simulations based on a spherically symmetric geometry. The simulations assumed avalanches to originate from the random release of electrons in the inter-electrode gap. The predicted onset voltages and the shape of the experimental curves for corona current vs. Voltage were in good agreement with the experimental results over a range of point-tip radii (0.5 to 3 mm) and pressures (0.02 to 0.10 MPa). Space charge effects were not included in the simulation so it follows that the accumulation of space charge is negligible at the onset voltage in air, although it is likely that it will have an increasing effect as the voltage increases