Abstract
This paper deals with the dielectric behaviors of $SF_{6}$ gas and prebreakdown growth caused by lightning impulse voltages in inhomogeneous field perturbed with a fixed needle-shaped protrusion on the electrode. The measuring interpretation of the external current induced by moving charges is described. The temporal growth of prebreakdown is obserbed by using a shunt and photomultiplier. The prebreakdown processes are initiated by the first streamer corona at a needle protrustion, the flashover of the main gap in the positive polarity is very sensitive to the local field and propagates into the gap with the leader mechanism. It is found that the dependence of the prebreakdown phenomena on the polarity of applied voltages is caused by the effect of space charges. In addition, the proposed measuring techniques are very useful to perform the measurements of avalanche currents, corona discharges in inhomogeneous fields ad partial discharges in voids.