Electrothermal aging characteristics of epoxy resin under bipolar exponential decay pulse voltage and its insulation life evaluation based on Cole-Cole model

The epoxy resin insulation in saturable reactors in a HVDC transmission converter valve is subjected to a bipolar exponential decay pulse voltages under normal operating conditions and its aging mechanism is still unclear. In this paper, an electrothermal aging experiment of epoxy resin was carried out under bipolar exponential decay pulse voltages at high temperature. The dielectric properties of epoxy resin before and after aging were measured using frequency-domain spectroscopy. To quantitatively study the aging characteristics, the double-relaxation Cole-Cole model was used to fit the dielectric spectra. As a result, an exponential function relationship between the relaxation time constant and the aging time of epoxy resin under various aging conditions was obtained. This relationship can be used as an empirical formula to evaluate the degree of aging. Furthermore, a comparison of the aging life characteristics of epoxy resin under pulse and sinusoidal voltages with the same peak value was performed. The results show that the electrothermal aging rate of epoxy resin under a pulse voltage is lower than under a sinusoidal voltage. The effect of the measurement temperature on the insulation life evaluation of epoxy resin was also analyzed.