Streamer Inception Voltage Simulation and Validation

The streamer inception voltage simulation method is described as implemented in the post processing of Ansys Maxwell electrostatic solver. Physical model-based streamer simulation demands tremendous simulation time and is hard to apply for real engineering cases. The streamer criteria approach described here provides a fast, accurate and easy to use method to evaluate the streamer inception voltage for gas insulation. The simulation is based on electrostatic simulation for 2D/3D models. From the electrostatic simulation results, the electric field line tracing is performed from defined starting points. Field line tracing has two methods: 1) insulation gas space 2) along the solid insulator surface. Based on the electric field value along this field line and the streamer inception criteria, the streamer inception voltage can be calculated, which is influenced by effective ionization coefficient properties of insulation gas, the streamer constant, the electric field distribution, the pressure of the insulation gas. Three validation simulations, Plate/Plate, Rod/Plate and Sphere/Sphere are made and compare the results from literature, all have good agreement with the results from literature. Apart from the above-mentioned three configurations, two industry application examples were simulated and compared with test results, the simulated and test results agreed with each other. It provides an easy accurate and fast way to calculate the streamer inception voltage which can support the design of high voltage devices in general.