The experimental investigation and numerical simulation of self-healing in metallized film capacitors

Metallized film capacitors have an ability to withstand the breakdown of dielectric film due to a “self-healing” feature. The optimal design of metallized electrodes' patterns guarantees high reliability of metallized film capacitors. This paper presents the results of numerical simulation of the intersegment gate current destruction during self-healing by means of COMSOL Multiphysics software. The model takes into consideration the heat flow from metal layer to polymer film since it has significant influence on destruction process dynamics. The simulation results were shown to be in good agreement with the experimental data.

I. Introduction

Metal film capacitors (MFC) are the important components of modern pulse power applications and power electronics [1], [2]. The reliability of this equipment depends on many factors including characteristics of above-mentioned capacitors. The state-of-the-art MFCs possess relatively high specific energy and reliability characteristics due to a self-healing (SH). SH is an ability to withstand the capacitor polymer film breakdown with only a small decrease of capacitance.