Radio frequency(RF) measurement has become a hot issue for partial discharge detection.However,its application is hampered by the difficulty to establish a relationship between the RF measurements data and apparent discharge quantity.In this paper,on the basis of an experimental model of metal protrusion,the relationship between the results of RF measurement and pulse current method(IEC 60270) was investigated.The energy,double integration,peak voltage,peak-peak voltage and the area of RF signals were plotted versus either the apparent discharge quantity or the square of the apparent discharge quantity in order to evaluate the optimal regression curve.At the same time,the impact of voltage and the distance between protrusion and plate were also investigated.The results indicate that the optimal match to a linear regression curve can be gained by plotting the RF signal energy versus the square of the apparent discharge quantity.The variation of voltage has no significant impact on the regression curve;that is,data from different voltages match one line.However,when the distance between protrusion and plate is changed,the slope of the regression curve changes accordingly;the same energy corresponds to a bigger discharge quantity.The results are significant enough to be applied in the estimation of the discharge quantity by measuring RF partial discharge signals.