Abstract
This paper presents the characteristics of leakage currents flowing through ZinC Oxide(ZnO) surge arrester blocks under mixed direct and 60 Hz alternating voltages. A mixed voltage, in which an alternating voltage is superimposed upon a direct voltage, appears on the HVDC system network. The mixed direct and alternating voltage generator with a peak open-circuit of 10 kV was designed and fabricated. The leakage currents and V-I curves for the fine and used ZnO surge arrester blocks were measured as a function of the voltage ratio k, where the voltage ratio k is defined as the ratio of the peak of alternating voltage to the peak of the mixed voltages. The resistive component in the leakage current in the low conduction region is significantly increased with increasing the voltage ratio k. The V-I characteristic curves for the mixed voltages lies between the direct and alternating characteristics, and the cross-over phenomenon in the high conduction region was appeared.