Smart Bushings for Prediction of Developing Electric Faults in Switchgears

Arc fault in switchgear not only may result in damage to the equipment and interruption of power supply but
also may create serious safety hazards for the personnel. Depending on fault source, arc faults could occur immediately or slowly. Real time monitoring of the closed compartments in the switchgear for detection of corona and partial discharge in order to predict any internal arc is significantly critical. In this paper, a smart type of bushing is proposed, by which one could predict probable internal arc fault in the closed components. The smart bushing has a precise Rogowski Coil (RC) for acquiring signatures of the slowly developing arc faults. The performance
of the bushing is evaluated using several tes