Silicone Rubber Nanocomposites filled with Silicone Nitride and Silicone Dioxide Nanofillers: Comparison of Electrical Treeing and Partial Discharge Characteristics

Abstract

This paper presents comparative study on electrical treeing with its associated partial discharge (PD) grown in silicone rubber (SiR) samples having different concentration of silicon dioxide (SiO2) and silicon nitride (Si3N4) nanofillers. Despite many studies on electrical treeing in SiR with SiO2 nanofillers, none of the publication have reported on Si3N4 nanofillers for the purpose of the electrical tree growth suppression. By applying a fixed AC voltage of 12 kV at power frequency of 50 Hz, the treeing experiments were conducted on unfilled SiR, SiR/SiO2, and SiR/Si3N4 nanocomposites with 1, 3, and 5 weight percentages (wt%) of filler weight concentration and the treeing parameters were observed together with its correlated PD patterns. This study found that among the samples of SiR, SiR/SiO2 and SiR/Si3N4, the best nanocomposites to suppress the electrical tree growth is SiR/Si3N4. Moreover, when the electrical treeing progresses, the PD activity shows increment thus indicating correlation in both parameters which can be a key tool for monitoring unseen treeing in opaque samples.