Application of Weibull distribution for high temperature breakdown data

Abstract

The breakdown electric field strength of high temperature polymer materials depends upon several factors, the measured values exhibiting a statistical distribution. To apply statistical methods the population size of breakdown data has to be sufficiently large. Though studies have been conducted on breakdown field strength of polymers at room temperature, yielding a large number of data, such studies at high temperatures are relatively few due to practical limitations. This study is devoted to the investigation of breakdown field strength of a number of polymer films at high temperatures using a new experimental set up in which large population data is obtained in a relatively short time.