Investigation of dielectric strength of solid insulating materials

Abstract

The IEC 60243 standard is the most common method of measuring the dielectric strength of dry insulating materials, but the nature of the setup leads to PD ignition at the triple point around the perimeter of the HV electrode. In this article the electric field distributions simulated for various test electrode arrangements are compared. The test electrode size and shape is taken into account, as well as the permittivity of the surrounding media. In order to validate the simulations, results of dielectric strength measurements obtained for a single type of epoxy in two different measurement setups are compared. Weibull statistical analysis is performed for the test results.