Measurement of charge distibutions inside of cylindrical alumina insulator with shield rings after repeating AC voltage application

In vacuum devices such as vacuum interrupters (VIs), surface flashover events are one of the obstacles for developing their higher performance. It is believed that such a surface flashover in vacuum has a close relationship with a charging phenomenon on the insulator surface. Therefore, it is important to grasp the charging characteristics on the inner surface of the VI. In this study, we have measured the charge distribution characteristics inside a cylindrical type insulator employed as a model insulator of VI after the AC voltage (50 Hz) application. This cylindrical insulator has shield rings to relax the electric field at triple junction at both ends of the insulator. We investigate the charging characteristics for samples having different gaps between the shield and insulator. As a result, in the case of first AC voltage application to each sample, the vacuum side of the cylindrical insulators were charged to a certain value. As repeating the AC voltage application several times, the amount of electric charge on the insulator surface was gradually reduced in each sample. However the reduction rate of the sample with the narrow clearance is larger than wide one. In addition, the sample with the wide clearance was charged on a larger surface area than that of the narrow clearance.