Study of Electrical Tree Progression in a Dielectric with Addition of Nanofillers

Electrical treeing is one of the most common pre-breakdown degradation mechanisms in polymeric insulating materials. Addition of appropriate quantities of nanoparticles to bulk polymers has been reported to hinder tree progression. A clear understanding of the electrical tree growth mechanism in nanodielectrics would help in their deployment as reliable insulating materials for high voltage apparatus. In the current work, a numerical model based on the Weismann-Zeller model is adapted for application to nanocomposites. The model is used to computationally study the effect of the inclusion of nanoparticles, including the effect of their size and material permittivity.

I. Introduction

Electrical treeing is one of the most common pre-breakdown degradation mechanisms in polymeric insulating materials. Imperfections in the material such as voids or structural irregularities, metallic asperities, and conducting contaminants cause local electric field (E_F) enhancement and might be responsible for electrical tree initiation. A clear understanding of the electrical tree growth mechanism would help in the design and fabrication of reliable insulating materials for high voltage apparatus.