The gas insulation switchgear, which is a device for protecting a power system, cannot be supported by the insulation gas itself in a charge unit stored in a metal container. Therefore, molding technology is required to manufacture a gas insulation switch spacer. The APG method injection molding simulation was performed by applying the variables obtained through the physical properties of an epoxy composite used for manufacturing an insulating spacer to a moldflow software. After varying the temperature conditions of heater in the simulation, the thermal characteristics and the degree of hardening of the spacer were analyzed, based on which the optimum process conditions are presented.

Injection molding is used in many industrial fields such as home appliances, vehicle parts, and electronic device parts because various resins can be molded, leading to mass production of complex shapes. Generally, the empirical prediction method is used to set the initial processing conditions of injection molding. However, this approach requires a lot of cost and its presented solution is not accurate. In this paper, injection molding was simulated through the Moldflow^TM in order to manufacture the spacer for gas insulated switch. Through the simulation, the flow of the resin with respect to the diameter of the inlet was analyzed. It was found that the process was possible at a higher resin temperature as the diameter of the inlet increased. In addition, through thermal analysis during injection of the resin, it was confirmed that a stagnation phenomenon occurred at the insert portion during injection molding, and the temperature of the resin was higher than that of the mold. As in this paper, if the spacer is manufactured by optimizing the injection hole and the temperature of the injection process based on simulation, it is expected that the spacer can be manufactured with high productivity.

Electrode systems: a protrusion on conductor (POC), a protrusion on enclosure (POE), a crack in epoxy plate and a free particle (FP) were fabricated to simulate insulation defects in a gas insulated switchgear (GIS). SF6 gas was filled in the electrode systems by 3 bar and/or 5 bar, respectively. Partial discharge (PD) pulses were detected through a 50 Ω non-inductive resistor. A calibration test was carried out according to IEC 60270, and the sensitivity was 0.25 pC/mV. PD pulses were distributed in the phase of 50˚∼135˚ and over 95% of them existed in the phase of 55˚∼120˚ for the POC. PD pulses were distributed in the phase of 230˚～310˚ and over 90% of them existed in phase of 220˚∼300˚ for the POE. PD pulses occurred in the phase of 40˚∼60˚ and 220˚∼300˚ for the crack, and pulse counts were 25%higher in negative polarity than in positive polarity. PD pulses were distributed in every phase unlike to other three electrode systems and the peak magnitude was measured at 118˚ and 260˚ for the FP. As described above, PD pulses were observed in positive polarity for the POC, in negative one for the POE, in both one for the crack and the FP. In conclusion, it is expected that the identification rate of defect type can be improved by considering the polarity ratio of PD pulses on the PRPDA method.