Partial discharge（PD） is one of the most important phenomenon in high voltage insulations. In most cases, the appearance of partial discharges is related to insulation defects. Understanding partial discharges is important for diagnosis on insulation condition. Corona discharges appear when extremely high electric field appears on the conductor surface exceeding the electric field strength of the gas. The high electric field may occur at around protrusion with very sharp tip. This paper reported a holistic approach of corona discharge investigation. The needle--plane electrode system was used. The medium between the electrodes was air. The needle was made from steel with radius of curvature of 3 μm （Ogura needle）. Sinusoidal as well as triangular applied voltages were used. The waveform of the corona discharges was measured using a digital oscilloscope. The corona discharge pulses were measured using a phase--re- solved PD measurement system. The system was able to measure the magnitude （q） and phase angle position （9） of each PD pulses, as well as the number of discharge pulses （n）. The role of applied voltage was investigated using phase--resolved analysis of corona discharge pulses through pulse sequence, pulse magnitude and pulse number analy- sis. Experimental results indicated that corona discharge current waveform was an impulse with rise time of about several ns and the impulse width of about 100 ns. The Fast Fourier Transform analysis indicated that the corona discharge current waveform had several spectrum peaks at frequency of 7.8 MHz, 85.9 MHz, 109.4 MHz and 195.3 MHz. The experimental results also showed that discharge pulses were concentrated around the peak of applied voltage for both sinusoidal and triangular voltages. The discharge magnitude, as well as its probability of occurrence, was strongly dependent on the instantaneous applied voltage. The shape of φn, as well as φ-q-n PD patterns, were strongly reflected by the shape of applied voltage. In order to get deep understanding of the corona discharge, by utili- zing results of the phase--resolved analysis, electrical equivalent circuits of corona discharges were proposed. The electrical equivalent circuit contained capacitances and a spark gap. For deeply understanding of PD phenomenon, computer simulation was done by using the proposed electrical equivalent circuits. The similarity of the measured and simulated PD patterns was assessed by comparing measured and simulated the φ-q-n and φn PD patterns. The results indicated that simulated PD patterns similar to those obtained from experiment.