Portable Non-Destructive Insulation Tester

Fastwatt LLC, in collaboration with GE Research, proposes to develop a novel non-destructive insulation tester that is compact, portable and provides multiple functions. It can be used as a part of design validation or qualification tests for components such as laminated busbars, cables and transformer/ machine windings. The tester consists of a voltage source pulser which can output medium voltage DC, AC or PWM, including multi-level waveshapes. The tester will be built with a scalable stack of high-frequency MOSFET power bridges. For typical test loads such as laminated busbars, transformer insulation, and machine winding samples, the load capacitance and hence the tester power requirements will be sufficiently small to allow operation from a 120 V, 15 A input. The tester will be designed to act as a power amplifier that follows an input signal from a benchtop function generator - this will allow insulation testing at a variety of DC, AC or mixed waveforms. Partial discharge sensing and measurement of capacitance and dissipation changes will be incorporated to detect insulation defects or onset of failure. Fast protection will be incorporagted in the tester to prevent damage in case of failure of the insulation test samples. During the Phase 1 Base program, we have worked on improving the packaging of the tester, incoroporated protection for output short circuits and improved the startup sequence of the tester.