Failure Prediction of Metal Oxide Varistor Using Nonlinear Surge Look-up Table Based on Experimental Data

The metal oxide varistor (MOV) is a major component of the surge protection devices (SPDs) currently in use. The device is judged to be faulty when fatigue caused by the continuous inflow of lightning accumulates and reaches the damage limit. In many cases, induced lightning resulting from lightning strikes flows in to the device several times per second in succession. Therefore, the frequency or the rate at which the SPD is actually exposed to stress, called a surge, is outside the range of human perception. For this reason, the protective device should be replaced if it actually approaches the end of its life even though it is not faulty at present, currently no basis exists for making the judgment of remaining lifetime. Up to now, the life of an MOV has been predicted solely based on the number of inflow surges, irrespective of the magnitude of the surge current or the amount of energy that has flowed through the device. In this study, nonlinear data that shows the damage to an MOV depending on the count of surge and the amount of input current were collected through a high-voltage test. Then, a failure prediction algorithm was proposed by preparing a look-up table using the results of the test. The proposed method was experimentally verified using an impulse surge generator