Some Properties of Solid Liquid Composite Dielectric Systems Parkman

289
IEEE Trans. Electr. Insul, Vol EI-13 No 4, August 1978
SOME PROPERTIES OF SOLID-LIQUID COMPOSITE

DIELECTRIC SYSTEMS
N. Parkman
ERA Ltd
Leatherhead
Surrey, England
ABSTRACT
The phenomenological aspects of the electrical properties of Solid-liquid
dielectrics are discussed with special relevance to the utilization of
such systems at high electric stresses. The implications of conduction,
dielectric loss and breakdown in the separate phases have been related to
the performance of the solid-liquid system as a whole. The effects of
solid dielectric structure and thickness have been developed and associated with possible breakdown processes for the impregnated dielectric in
practical situations. The use of plastic films, with or without paper,
in impregnated capacitors is treated at some length as a useful device
for developing the criteria which are important in all highly stressed
solid-liquid systems. Considerable attention is given to aging phenomena
and the way in which they may lead to various forms of failure in impregnated systems. Comprehensive data are provided from a summary of the
literature relating to effects of temperature and electric stress applied
singly and in combination. The effects of life-prolonging additives have
been discussed briefly.
CONTENTS
1
INTRODUCTION
LIQUID PROPERTIES
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
3
3.3
3.4
4
290
Conduction
Loss angle in the liquid component of
impregnated insulation
Breakdown in the liquid
The importance of permittivity
293
Paper
Aspects of paper structure of importance in impregnated systems
Plastics materials
The effect of dielectric thickness
MECHANISMS INVOLVING THE COMBINED SOLID

AND LIQUID COMPONENTS
4.1
4.2
289
SOLID PROPERTIES
3.1
3.2
5.2
5.3
5.4
298
Conduction and loss angle

Breakdown
AGING PROCESSES IN SOLID-LIQUID COMPOSITESWITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO CAPACITOR

SYSTEMS
5.1
Page No.
301
Thermal degradation of paper and polypropylene, and of impregnants

Aging of capacitors under a.c. stress
Aging of capacitors under d.c. stress
Life prolonging additives
CONCLUSION
305
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
305
REFERENCES
305
INTRODUCTION
The subject of solid-liquid composite dielectric

systems is so vast that it is not possible to cover any
major portion of the field in a single paper. A full
treatment would require not only a detailed account of
the individual components and the variations in theizt
properties due to various manufacturing parameters, but
also an extensive treatment of the processes, which are
so crucial in their detail, employed to effect a satisfactory solid-liquid impregnated structure. The treatment given here relates particularly to solid-liquid
systems used at relatively high electric stresses and
concentrates on the electrical properties of the system and the way these may be affected by processing and
aging.
It is probably true that all practical dielectric
systems are composite in nature. Systems which are
composed nominally of a single solid or liquid or
gaseous dielectric, will inevitably have some other
phase of matter present. In any practical insulation
system, the solid component will contain gas pockets of
very small dimensions and a liquid or gas will contaifi
adventitious matter nothwithstanding the high level of
care which has been taken in manufacture.
Specially formulated composite dielectrics of one or

another kind are very widely used in electrical apparatus because of the practical difficulties of combining
all the requisite characteristics, electrical and mechanical, in any one material. Among these combinatiohs,P
that of thin sheets of a flexible solid, cellulosic
paper or plastic, together with a mobile impregnating
liquid, naturally occurring or synthetic, is one of the
most important. Provided the application is such that
the liquid component can be contained and also maintained, preferably under hydraulic pressure, free from
all contamination by ions, particles or solution of
gases, it provides an insulation which is not only
relatively cheap and easily applied, but also, under
optimum conditions, has the best practically available
combination of high operating stress, low dielectric
0018-9367/78/0400-0289$00.75
1978
IEEE
290
loss, and slow rate of deterioration in service. These

attributes account for its present widespread use in a
great range of both high and low voltage apparatus:
cables, capacitors, transformers, oil-filled switchgear and their associated bushings.
The desirable properties of this kind of insulation,
however, are not to be obtained, or not to their full
extent, without potential penalty. Owing to the presence of a liquid component, bubbles or cavities will
readily form if gas is available from outside the system, or if gas becomes available locally as a result
of a number of processes, both chemical and physical,
which can occur in a contaminated system. All these
processes, which depend upon the movement of charges,
either ions or charged particles, through the insulation system, are accelerated by the high mobility of
the carriers in the liquid component. The result is
that an impregnated system prepared without sufficient
(and this means very exacting) care against contamination may harbor several mechanisms of very slow deterioration in service, only some of them detectable by
any short-time test which can be performed on the complete apparatus.
This paper is therefore very much concerned with the
microscopic happenings which have been shown over the
past thirty years or so to underlie the less desirable
properties of liquid-solid composite dielectrics and
their constituent parts and also many of the processes
of deterioration which afflict them. It should be remarked that "microscopic" is not here being misused to
imply "molecular" but literally, what can be observed
with microscopes, optical or electronic. The point is
worth emphasizing since the limit of what could be discovered by speculation from the results of purely electrical measurements had been reached, as regards processes of electrical deterioration, by about 1930.
When S. Whitehead [1], in 1932 published the collected
results of some 150 papers on the breakdown of solids,
only a single mechanism of failure (thermal instability) had ciearly emerged. In the ensuing thirty years
there have been added: the so-called "intrinsic"
strength of dielectrics (a subject not yet exhausted);
the role of even microscopic gas discharges in causing
erosion and at the higher field strengths; channel
propagation; electro-mechanical breakdown; and electrochemical deterioration. This "speeding up" in the
rate of discovery was the result of a quite conscious
rejection of the exclusively "ammeter and voltmeter"
approach in favor of applying, in addition, whatever
methods, physical, optical, or chemical, might throw
light on the point under investigation. A similar
approach to the phenomena occurring in dielectric
liquids has taken place in the past decade. It has
already become clear that in liquids, breakdown can be
dominated by, and conduction and gas evolution under
electric stress, much influenced by, the presence of
large numbers of microscopic conducting particles.
Such particles are frequently too small to be removed
by any known techniques of filtration that can be
practically employed. Any consideration of liquidsolid composites must therefore take into account the
presence of such particles and other features which
can produce highly localized effects.
the marked effect produced by the presence of impurities and especially of particulate material in the
liquid, which is relatively easy to calculate. The
effects of particles in the liquid on the life of the
insulation system of complete apparatus are much more
difficult to observe in detail and these are discussed
in a later section.
The ionic component of the conduction is, of course,
well understood in outline and no general discussion
will be given here. However, in ac fields on systems
in which the paths of ions are limited by solid dielectric barriers, it gives rise to characteristic
effects on the loss angle of the dielectric system.
Since these effects are of considerable use as a diagnostic tool, especially in highly stressed systems,
they are discussed in detail in the next section. For
the moment, attention is given only to charge transfer
by particles as treated by Krasucki [2].
When a conducting spherical particle of radius r
makes contact with a plane electrode in a field E and
in a medium of permittivity , the charge transferred
to the sphere is:
2.1
LIQUID PROPERTIES
CONDUCTION
Conduction in pure liquids is not of much direct

practical importance in solid-liquid impregnated systems unless the system becomes seriously contaminated.
However, it is introduced at this stage to indicate
r2E/3
(1)
The charged particle will then experience a pull F=EQ

causing it to move with a final velocity v determined
by Stoke's Law:
v = F/ (6-m-nr)
(2)
where n = viscosity and the transit time T for a distance g is given by:
T =
g/v
(3)
It is assumed that g is small enough that bulk hydrodynamic motion of the liquid can be neglected, but
large enough in relation to the particle size that the
final velocity is reached very early in the transit.
If there are N such particles per unit volume, the

foregoing equations can be combined to give the apparent contribution of particles to the resistivity p
the result being:
=
54(n/7T4) (e RE)2Nr3
(4)
Note the appearance in this of the factor Nr3, which,

for a numerical coefficient, is the total volume of
particles per unit volume. If, as will always be the
case in practice, N and r3 are distributed quantities,
and since their product will appear in the numerator
when working with conductivity, one can directly scan
over the whole distribution (within the restriction
that r is small enough) to obtain the volume concentration v of all sizes.
V
47
Nr3
3 N,r
(5)
Substituting this in (4) gives the resistivity due to
N charged particles in the liquid

p
273c
72(n/73)( wE)2V
(6)
a simple expression in which it is not necessary to

know the nature of the particles but only their volume
concentration. Equation (6) indicates that conductivity due to particles will increase as E2 or current
density as E3.
As a numerical illustration, consider the usual

type of insulating oil required to work in very short
Parkman:
Solid-Liquid Composite Dielectric Systems
gaps at 30 MV/m. One might well specify that its resistivity under these conditions should not fall below
1013 Om. Then, putting the appropriate values into
Equation (6), the volume concentration must not exceed
10-9. Optical detection of their presence at this concentration would be very difficult.
If this state of
subdivision was such as to give more than about one
particle per mm3, it would be impossible except by
techniques of ultra-microscopy.
It might be doubted whether such concentrations of
particles, reaching at least 1010 per m3, are in fact
present in the environment, but many counts in impregnants taken from capacitors, and in nominally clean
town air, showed that down to the smallest size detectable by an optical particle-counter, a value of 1010
per m3 was quite normal and could be very much higher
in apparatus made without sufficient care for the
cleanliness of plant. In air, the number of particles
of a given size was still rising sharply as the size
fell below the limit of detection, so that there is
present a much larger, but unknown, number of particles
below 10-6 m radius. Most of the particles were conducting, and most of those large enough for investigation were metallic, presumably derived from all kinds
of mechanical abrasion of moving parts. This build-up
of large concentrations of small particles in the atmosphere is not surprising, since particles of this
size range cannot settle against even the slightest
convection current, and are therefore removed only
when trapped by some solid or liquid surface.
In addition to the spherical type particles which
are relatively moisture free, filamentary particles
usually of somewhat larger dimensions and frequently
containing significant quantities of moisture can present serious hazards in the performance of solid-liquid
composites. These phenomena are referred to later in
the section dealing with breakdown of composites.
2.2
LOSS ANGLE IN THE LIQUID COMPONENT OF IMPREGNATED

INSULATION
The dielectric loss of pure liquids is well understood and is not considered here. Where loss is critically important in an impregnated structure, the
effects are minimized by using non-polar impregnants
such as mineral oil, or by using polar liquids in the
range of temperature and frequency where the loss angle
is small. When, however, even an initially pure liquid
is used under industrial conditions to impregnate a
porous or laminated solid dielectric, impurities
capable of dissociating into ions are very likely to be
picked up either from some chance sources of impurity
in the impregnating plant or, in some cases, by
leaching from the solid insulation itself. In fact, it
is practically impossible to maintain such a high degree of purity that no ionic loss angle is detectable
in the impregnated condition. If the impurity happens
to be one which dissociates more or less completely in
solution, extremely small concentrations, down to 10-8
(weight fraction), in a polar liquid, will produce a
measurable loss angle. Fortunately, such extremely
active substances are rare, but among them are some
partly oxidized residues of organic materials, e.g.,
bitumen, rosin and oils, and also some size-like products used in "finishing" textiles and pasteboards.
Since these materials are quite likely to be used
somewhere in an electrical factory, great care is
needed to exclude them from all areas concerned with
liquid impregnation.
The most noticeable effect of moderate ionic contamination, in a liquid containing solid insulating
291
barriers, is a high (typically, a maximum) value of

loss angle at a stress much below the working value,
followed by a sharp fall toward a much lower and nearly
constant value toward higher stresses. This behavior
seems to have been first noted by J. B. Whitehead [3],
and ascribed by him probably to limited ionic motion,
about 1935, in an oil-impregnated cable. In a polar
liquid, the effect can be produced more easily, and it
was first investigated under controlled experimental
conditions, and the mathematical theory given, by
Garton [4] in 1941-. Since it has not acquired any
brief electrical name, it is often referred to as the
Garton-effect. The full theory is too long to be
given here, even in abstract, and attention is given
instead to the use of the effect as a diagnostic tool
for determining the characteristics, and so possibly
the origin, of a particular contamination. It is
shown in the original paper [4] that if the stress at
maximum loss tangent (tan 6m) is Em (peak value), with
q as the ionic charge and g the permitted amplitude of
path, then the ionic mobility is:
k
wg/(2Em)
(7)
and the ionic radius is:

r = E mq/(3frwng)
(8)
The equation for the ionic concentration depends upon

the relative mobility of ions of the two signs. If
both are equally mobile, the number of ion-pairs per
unit volume is:
N = c o c E m tan 6
(9)
o
gq
If ions of one sign are immobile, the concentration of
ion-pairs is 2N. These equations are based on measurements made on a thin film of liquid only, between
metallic surfaces (the rate of discharge of ions in an
organic liquid is so slow that this introduces no detectable error). When measurements relate to an impregnated solid, the observed value of maximum loss
angle must be corrected to allow for "dilution" by the
comparatively loss-free component. The gap g becomes
a rather ill-defined quantity, and depends of course
upon the tightness of the winding, but paper is, microscopically, much rougher than it appears to be, and
the gap is not usually less than 10 pm for a calendered
paper, nor less than 30 im for a cable paper. In any
case, one is not interested in great accuracy for diagnostic purposes.
Sometimes the maximum loss angle is not easily

accessible, either because it lies at so low a stress
that available bridges are insensitive, or because
values of g cover too wide a range, and the maximum is
not sharp enough. Krasucki [5] has extended the theory,
and shown that the ionic mobility can still be calculated, without knowing the maximum, provided that the
accessible part of the curve, at higher stresses, is
falling at the theoretical rate of E-3/2. His treatment is too long to quote in detail; it includes also
expressions for correcting the "dilution" effect of
the paper component. The same reference [5] contains
results of applying the theory to an investigation of
impurities migrating from the bulk impregnant within
the case into the capacitor element itself. The
results are worth quoting briefly, as showing how much
information can be obtained from detailed measurements
of loss angle. The samples, 54 in all, nominally
similar but from 7 different manufacturers, were held
at 70C, without applied stress, for periods up to 103
days to allow diffusion of ions to occur. At intervals, the loss angle vs voltage curve was obtained for
each sample. It became evident with time that the
292
ionic behavior, although fairly uniform within the 6

specimens of any one group, could be very different
from one group to another, although the only intentional differences lay in maker, or the use of either
tri- or pentachlorobiphenyl. Five groups showed no
significant change of loss angle throughout the test
period, and were evidently free of contamination; four
groups showed increases averaging 2-fold, but with
reversals in slope of the curve during the period
which were consistent with migration of different ions
into and out of the element, with different mobilities.
Migration into always predominated in the end, in one
case after as long as 850 hours. The 10th group
showed a steady rise throughout, with the exception of
one specimen which had escaped contamination completely. Another single specimen in this group showed the
largest rise in the entire investigation, the loss
increasing 9-fold. The great range in this group,
which otherwise had a very simple behavior, shows
that the contamination was not introduced (as it sometimes can be) by a component of the assembly having an
unsuitable composition, but was randomly introduced
either on the can or on the exterior of the assembled
element.
Calculations on the lines already described showed

that the mobility was nearly independent of the amount
of contamination. For specimens showing 2-fold and
9-fold increases, the calculated mobi-lity varied only
from 2 to 3 x 10-10 m2 V-1 s-1 (in trichlorobiphenyl
at 700C). Using the Nernst-Einstein equation, the
diffusion constant of the ions can be determined from
this, and making reasonable assumptions for the dimension of diffusion paths within the dielectric, the
rate of rise of loss angle can be predicted. The two
diffusion constants varied from 5.5 to 9 x 10-12 m2 s51,
and the predicted rate of rise agreed almost quantitatively with that observed, showing that the phenomena
are indeed understood in detail. A corollary of these
results is that a low loss angle in a newly made
capacitor is no guarantee that this characteristic
will be maintained in service.
The change of loss angle, measured at low enough
stress, can be used quite generally to follow changes
of ionic concentration in the liquid fraction of composite insulation as a result of some treatment to
which the specimen has been subjected, even when the
changes at working stress are small or confused. For
example, Plessner, Shen, et al., [6] used the method
to study transfer of ions between liquid and plastic
in capacitors of that type when much higher ac stresses
had been applied before the measurement. The effect
was to reduce the low-stress loss angle to half or
less of its initial value, most of the change taking
place in the first few hours, but continuing measurably for several hundred hours. The effect is fully
recoverable on removal of stress, but at an even
slower rate. The authors attribute the effect, very
plausibly, to diffusion of ions from the liquid into
the plastic, during alternate half-cycles when they
are held against it, in high concentration, by the
action of the field. More importantly, they point out
that since ions of the other sign will similarly
diffuse in during the other half-cycles, the two may
recombine within the plastic, and if the dissociation
constant there is smaller than in the liquid, there
will in course of time be a bulk transfer of liquid
into the plastic. It is known that water-absorption
by polyethylene is greatly increased in an ac field,
and it may be that the same mechanism is involved.
Among other users of this method, Krasucki [7]

studied the small increases in loss angle which continue for several hundred hours after a brief (15 min)
IEEE Trans. Electr.
Insul, Vol EI-13 No 4, August 1978
episode of discharges at the inception level, in oilpaper capacitors. The discharge intensity at the end
of the 15 min period was about 2000 pC, and after removal of the voltage the loss angle slowly rose over a
period of some 1500 hours as the ionic products of the
discharge slowly diffused throughout the dielectric.
By measuring at only 2.5 MV/m, it was possible to
follow this rise with a resolution better than 10-4 in
loss angle.
The results of successive further exposures to dis-
charges were cumulative, and after three such exposures

the loss angle had risen from 2 to 5 x 10-3. The importance of this result lies not so much in the experimental procedure used to reveal it (such isolated episodes of easily detected discharges are unlikely to
practice) but in the fact that collisions between particulate impurity and the impurity and an
electrode will occur continuously, each adding by the
discharge between them to the ionic content of the dielectric, although the individual events are likely to
be below the level of detection. The ultimate result
could be electro-chemical breakdown, even though no
macroscopic discharges have occurred throughout the
life of the apparatus.
occur in
2.3 BREAKDOWN IN THE LIQUID
In relation to impregnated insulation at its normal

operating stress, distinction between breakdown in one
or the other component is somewhat artificial, since
failure at such stresses is a gradual process dependent
on several processes of slow deterioration, which in
the end affect both components even if they are
initiated in the liquid. Under impulse stresses, however, failure is always initiated in the liquid, and
involves the solid only by channel propagation from
one to the other. It seems better, therefore, to discuss the breakdown of liquids separately, and postpone
the slower mechanisms to the section on solids. This
is the more desirable, in that over the past 15 years
there has been a basic change in opinion regarding the
initiating mechanism of breakdown in liquids. After
the
discovery in the 1940's that improved
experimental
techniques in the breakdown of solids revealed

strengths in the range of 0.5 to 1 GV/m, the so-called
"intrinsic" strength, it was natural to see whether
similar results could be achieved with liquids. Detailed attention to electrode surfaces, de-gassing and
filtration raised the strength of most simple organic
liquids to values in the range 0.1 to 0.2 GV/m, that
is to say l/5th to 1/10th that of good solids. But,
no higher values could be attained, and for a time
those values were accepted as "intrinsic." But, there
were several facts which were not well explained on
this basis: the structure of a liquid is not basically different from that of amorphous solids, e.g.
or glass, and it was difficult to account
polystyrene,
for the difference of 5 or 10 times in strength; also
the dependence of the liquid strength both on time of
application of the voltage and on hydrostatic pressure
was greater than could be expected. The last factor
in particular proved impossible to account for unless
gaseous breakdown figured somewhere in the process;
changes of many percent in stress were caused by quite
moderate hydrostatic pressures which could cause no
appreciable change of molecular volume.
Nothing has yet been said of the earlier stages in
the breakdown of a liquid impregnant which lead to the
formation of the gas phase which can be readily occupied with a gas discharge. It is well known from
experiments with needle electrodes that at a local
stress around 0.1 GV/m charge can easily be exchanged
between the needle point and the liquid, and that the
Parkman: Solid-Liquid Composite Dielectric Systems
293
the charged liquid is then repelled from the point with

copious formation of bubbles. On impregnated structures, although sharp points are usually avoided in
good design, charges are nevertheless frequently present due to some artifact in construction. More
commonly, the presence of particulate impurity in practical impregnated structures will lead to pronounced
field intensification, and Krasucki has intensively
investigated the case for a spherical conducting particle where the field is enhanced by a factor 4.2 at
the pole of the sphere independently of the radius of
the particle.
paper which assists in its impregnation when tightly

wound. This is particularly the case for the high density papers which lack any significant porosity in the
body of the paper. The surface roughness then serves
to assist impregnation by capillary action at the interface between adjoining layers. The disadvantage of
the existence of thin spots in the paper is that the
voltage to cause breakdown at these points will be considerably less than for the thicker parts of the paper.
It has been assumed so far that impregnation has

been sufficient to eliminate any gas pockets within the
liquid impregnant. However, even where this is the
case it is of critical importance that the solid insulation, as well as the particulate impurity, is completely dry otherwise there will be spontaneous bubble
formation at relatively low stresses. For cellulose
materials, it has been shown that a moisture content
of a few parts per thousand can greatly reduce the
stress for bubble formation.
The influence of paper structure on the performance

of impregnated paper power capacitors has been extensively studied by Church and Krasucki [9]. It is
generally accepted that in the manufacture of cellulose
tissue for capacitors the paper pulp is processed so
that in its final form, because of alignment of the
fibrous structure and the heavy calendering, the sheet
forms a substantially continuous film of cellulose.
There are no pores in the sense that there is a free
air volume in good quality capacitor tissue. This is
readily demonstrated by observing: the very low air
permeability, the small oil rise observed when paper is
dipped vertically into oil, and that liquids other than
those by which it is chemically attacked are not able
to penetrate the paper except at points of minor defect where a pinhole exists.
2.4
THE IMPORTANCE OF PERMITTIVITY
It is not the intention to deal extensively here

with the relevance of liquid permittivity in impregnated structures. Generally speaking, for cable dielectrics low permittivity liquids are preferred to
help keep the capacitance per unit length as low as
possible. Similarly, in capacitors high permittivity
impregnants are employed to maximize the stored energy
per unit volume and more importantly, to minimize the
electric field in the liquid especially at the points
of field enhancement already referred to. However,
there are other factors (referred to later) associated
with partial discharge inception and extinction which
may dominate the choice of impregnant.
3
3. 1
SOLID PROPERTIES
PAPERS
In preparing his book on "Impregnated Paper Insulation" in the early 1930's, J. B. Whitehead [8] started
with the statement "Chemically inert in its purest form
and of low inherent electrical conductivity, cellulose
paper lends itself admirably to many types of electric
insulation." Fifty years later, this is still a valid
statement and cellulosic paper (albeit much improved
since the 1930's), is still the most widely used form
of electrical insulation. Later on in his book, he
observed that neither solid nor liquid components let
alone the solid-liquid composite, can be treated with
Maxwell's theory, because of the fact that "the simple
constituent dielectric postulated by Maxwell does not
exist." This turns out to be a recurring theme in the
analysis of impregnated dielectric structures.
The general properties of electrical grade paper

have already been set down in various places, together
with the processes to which it needs to be subjected
to ensure that it is as dry as possible before it is
impregnated with a suitable liquid. However, there are
other important features which can affect the performance of impregnated paper.
Paper is relatively inhomogeneous in thickness
its width. In certain extreme cases, the actual
thickness at given points along a width may vary by as
much as a factor of several times. This variation has
certain advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand,
differences in thickness impart a rough surface to the
across
3. 2
ASPECTS OF PAPER STRUCTURE OF IMPORTANCE IN IMPREGNATED SYSTEMS
Although capacitor paper is in the form of a continuous film with only occasional pinholes, the surface
is highly undulating. Locally, the thickness may vary
by a factor of several times.
Microscopic observation of sections through the

thickness of capacitor tissue confirm that local thickness variations are considerable. Precise estimates
of the extent of the variation are not possible from
the sections because of optical limitations and the
uncertainty of distortion caused by the sectioning.
With high density tissue, nominally 10 pm thick, much
of the cross-section is less than 5 pm thick, and
small areas probably thinner than 2 pm are not uncommon.
Within certain limits of accuracy, it is possible
to observe the thickness variations across the width
of the paper using a mechanical probe to traverse the
paper held on a hard flat substrate. Using apparatus
with a diamond tetrahedral probe rounded at the tip to
2.5 pm radius and loaded with 0.1 g, it is possible to
obtain repeatable results in successive traverses of
the paper width. The accuracy of this method is, of
course, limited by the size of the probe itself which
determines its ability to follow the surface undulations. A typical record is shown in Fig. 1 for a
paper nominally 10 pm thick but having an overall
thickness of 16 pm. One depression having a depth of
approximately half the overall thickness of the tissue
is in this part of the record. With such a large
number of thin spots per unit area, it must be accepted
that two adjoining layers will present coincident thin
spot features in a completely wound structure such as
would arise in a cable or capacitor. From Church and
Krasucki [9], a schematic diagram of a region where
depressions coincide is given in Fig. 2. The importance of such regions in a practical design will depend
on many factors and the breakdown processes will depend,
inter alia, on whether the impregnant is very pure or
contaminated with ionic or particulate matter.
?291
materials, spacers, gaskets, terminals, or on the inside surfaces or in the seams of inadequately cleaned
capacitor cases. Ions arising from these sources may
not have an appreciable effect immediately, but by processes of diffusion they will gradually distribute
themselves throughout the dielectric system from points
of high concentration. Tests made trichlorobiphenyl
(Aroclor) impregnated paper capacitors indicated that
in about 50 per cent of them, ions were diffusing very
slowly into the dielectric from the impregnant outside
the windings, with the diffusion persisting even after
three years at 700C.
cI
-6
E
>
Distonce olong
Fig. 1.
sheet,
Under alternating voltages, the ions of opposite

polarity are separated as indicated in Fig. 2, and at
sufficiently high applied voltage the central region A
is free from ions for most of the time. In this state,
ions from regions B will slowly diffuse towards A and
increase the total number of ions in the cavity. Calculation showsthat, to a first approximation, the number of ions in the cavity will be directly proportional
to time.
microns.
Surface Contour AZong A
Sheet of Capacitor Tissue.
Al
electrodes
IPaper
B-
Fig. 2.
Schematic Diagram of a Region in an

Impregnated Paper Capacitor Where
Thin Spots in Paper Coincide.
Breakdown Sequence with Pure Impregnants

If the liquid impregnant is free from any impurity,
breakdown will occur across the liquid gap at a
sufficiently high electric field. The effect of this
would be that, in the situation represented by Fig. 2,
all the voltage will then be transferred onto the paper
and, if the paper is sufficiently thin for the instantaneous field across it to break it down, total breakdown
will take place. It has therefore been suggested that
in measurements of breakdown strengths of impregnated
paper structures where the coincident thin spot phenomenon occurs, values of breakdown strength will either
correspond to those at which the impregnant breaks down
or to those at which the paper breaks down depending on
the thickness of paper in thin spots. In situations
where breakdown of the solid ensues immediately after
breakdown of the liquid in the gap, clearly the whole
breakdown process will be sensitive to factors influencing the electric strength of the liquid.
Effects Due to
Ions
If mobile ions are present in the schematic system

shown in Fig. 2, they will migrate under the influence
of the applied field and become located on paper surfaces thereby increasing the electric stress locally.
In particular, this will lead to an increase of electric stress on the paper which may cause breakdown in
a short time for high enough stress or otherwise decrease life as indicated in Section 5.
Ionic impurities are usually in very low concentration in dielectric papers and impregnants as supplied,
but as already indicated in 2.2, contamination can
occur during the various processing steps.
Impurities
may also be present in miscellaneous materials employed in capacitor construction, e.g., case lining
As already discussed, for very thin places in the

paper the breakdown voltage for the dielectric system
as a whole will be determined by the breakdown voltage
of the liquid. Arising from this, it can be shown that
since the strength of the liquid will be dependent on
the concentration of ions which have diffused under the
influence of electric stress into the region being considered, then the life of such a system should depend
on the applied voltage magnitude to a high power (3 to
12). Similarly, life will be dependent on temperature
because of the direct effect on ion mobility.
Effects Due to ParticuZate Impurity

When the impregnant is contaminated with significant
quantities of particulate impurity, this impurity can
diffuse under the influence of an applied electric

field and accumulate in the cavities between layers of
paper as already described for ions, and this can lead
to breakdown at very low stresses. The presence of
such particles have already been referred to in Section
2.1. Investigations made at the ERA on impregnated
paper capacitors produced by nine different manufacturers showed that the capacitors contained solid particles of less than 20 vm diameter in their windings.
They were situated between layers of paper in concentrations of more than one per cm2 of the dielectric.
These particles have been shown by X-ray probe measurements to be mainly metallic or carbonaceous in origin.
The presence of a conducting particle in the liquid
enhances the electric field in the immediate vicinity
of the particle to a degree depending on the shape of
the particle, as discussed in Section 2.3. The particles will tend to be trapped in a feature like that
shown in Fig. 2, and gradually increase in concentration due to diffusion processes which proceed over a
long period before they have any significant effect.
These particles will be only weakly attracted into the
trap by the electric field, but any process leading to
movement of the liquid, e.g., contractions and expansions of the liquid resulting from changes in temperature or changes in applied voltage, will help to fill
up the region with particles. When the number of particles in the region is such that, in the applied
field, the particles link up to form bridges across
the depressions, then the electric field across the
thin layers of paper will be higher than the average
field by a factor approximately equal to the ratio of
the nominal thickness of paper to the thickness of
paper in the thin spot, if the particles can be thought
of as continuous and conducting. In 10 vim thick paper
where thin spots of 2 vm thickness are present, the
Parkman: Solid-Liquid Composite Dielectric Systems
factor by which the field is enhanced may be higher

than 5. Under the tonditions, breakdown of the liquidpaper dielectric could take place even at the rated
stress of at least at small over-voltages. Some
measurements made of breakdown strengths at room temperature using direct voltages, and of times to breakdown at 80C, on trichlorobiphenyl (Aroclor) impregnated capacitors of six different makes, showed that
capacitors of one make which had abnormally high concentrations of particles in their dielectrics had the
lowest breakdown voltages and the shortest times to
breakdown. The results of these tests could not be
correlated with any other electrical characteristics
of the capacitors and, therefore, they are taken to
indicate that presence of particulate impurities in the
dielectric lowers its breakdown strength.
EZectrochemicaZ Effects
All the processes referred to so far which take
place at adjoining thin spots in paper lead to breakdown by a process of build-up of the electric stress
until the strength of the solid is exceeded locally.
The fact that an analytical treatment of these processes leads to relationships between voltage and life
which are in line with service experience is evidence
for the importance of these mechanisms Qf failure.
However, in the longer term, the increased local
stress, although not leading to short term failure,
will enhance the current through the solid dielectric
and this maintained over long periods can lead to
electrochemical failure. The electrochemical effects
are likely to be dominant when ion concentrations are
high and/or ion mobility itself is high. Such a combination would occur typically in a paper dielectric
insufficiently dried and operating at a high ambient
temperature. In this case also, the effect would be
quite local and generally not observable by any macroscopic test which could be made on completed apparatus.
This section emphasizes once more the need for the
utmost care in manufacture of impregnated structures
to avoid the possibility of contamination by ionic
and particulate matter.
There are also other very important effects produced by contamination, notably reduction in partial
discharge inception voltage, but these have not been
covered here.
3.3
PLASTICS MATERIALS
Plastics materials have been suggested as replacement for paper in impregnated structures for a number
of years. Perhaps the earliest significant paper on
this wqs by de Vos and Vermeer [64] in 1958 in
connection with the possible use of the then known
plastics as power cable dielectrics. The fact that
the plastic materials have low permittivities and low
losses was a great attraction in that it held the
promise of being able to work the relevant impregnated
system at considerably higher stresses than would be
possible for impregnated paper. Similar ventures have
taken place involving transformer dieleptric systems,
but it is only in the power capacitor field that there
has been a widespread acceptance of the use of plastic
films to replace in part or totally the original
paper system.
PZastics in Capacitors
In the design of power capacitors, two electrical
features dominate the operating voltage or permissible
electric stress. Dissipation of energy as heat within
295
the capacitor must not produce thermal runaway, and the

operating voltage must be well below that at which electrical discharges would occur within the dielectric system. The thermal runaway condition dictates the use of
a dielectric combination (i.e., solid dielectric and
liquid impregnant) with the lowest possible dielectric
loss, while the need for a high discharge inception
voltage requires, inter alia, that the impregnant shall
have as high a permittivity as possible consistent with
maintaining a sufficiently low overall dielectric loss
for the capacitor.
Over a period of many years, a continual improvement
in the quality of capacitor paper has allowed the electrical stress at which it can be operated to be significantly increased while still avoiding dangers due to
thermal runaway. On the other hand, the gradual introduction in most countries of the high permittivity
chlorobiphenyl (askarel) impregnants, especially over
the period since the mid 1950's, has enabled higher
discharge inception voltages to be attained. Despite
the success of this paper-askarel combination in power
capacitors, pressures have increased in recent years to
replace both of the constituents in total or in part.
The pressure has arisen for two reasons - one economic
and the other ecological.
The discovery of stereoregular polypropylene and its

subsequent availability in thin film form provided a
possible capacitor dielectric which had been demonstrated to be compatible with present-day impregnants including askarels. Polypropylene has considerably lower
dielectric loss than the best capacitor papers, and has
a higher electric strength, so that it can be operated
at very much higher electric stresses than paper without fear of producing thermal runaway. It is thus
possible to design much smaller capacitors for a given
KVAR rating with consequent savings in production costs
and operating costs.
Properties of PoZypropyZene Film

Polypropylene possesses the necessary physical properties in all its available film thicknesses to allow
for ease of manufacture of capacitor windings.
Relative Permittivity
(r)
and Dielectric Loss
o r has a value of 2.25 to 2.26, largely independent

of frequency certainly up to 106 Hz. This value, although only about half of that of capacitor paper, is
still sufficient to give an improved energy storage
capacity because of the much higher electric stresses
at which the film can be operated. The value of Er
for polypropylene is dependent on temperature only to
the extent to be expected from a change in its density
with change of temperature. Thus, the absolute effect
of temperature is to vary the permittivity only by
about 200 parts per million over the temperature range
likely to be of interest for power capacitors.
Polypropylene is a very low dielectric loss material
with tan6 values typically around 2 x 10-4 or less at
room temperature. As such, it is about an order of
magnitude better than high quality, low loss capacitor
paper. As a result, it is possible to operate with
polypropylene dielectric at a stress several times
greater than the limiting stress for paper, that gives
much larger KVAR per unit volume, this stress for
paper being about 20 V/pm in the applications being
considered.
296
EZectric Strength
The electric strength of film dielectrics is usually
determined by the presence of defects - especially the
presence of pinholes or conducting inclusions. These
two defects are of prime importance in the case of capacitor paper, but for polymeric films such as those
made from polypropylene there are additional defects
due to the presence of blisters within the film or
deep scratches on the surface. Blisters in polypropylene film, apart from reducing the short term electric
strength, may have a long term effect if they are not
completely impregnated in the completed capacitor.
Ultimately, it is the number of defects per unit area
which is important in determining the electric strength
and it is here that polypropylene shows up as a remarkably uniform material relative to capacitor paper. It
is usual to test for defects by passing the dielectric
film between mercury electrodes which have a voltage
across them and to count the number of breakdowns as a
function of area passed between the electrodes. Results obtained are presented in Fig. 3, which gives the
dependence of the number of breakdowns per square meter
of the films on the voltage difference on the mercury
electrodes (1.2 cm2 area). Figure 3 also contains the
best results obtainable with capacitor papers of 10 and
15 micron thickness. It will be seen that for the polypropylene films tested the total number of defects per
unit area is very much less than for capacitor paper,
and the slope of the curves also indicates clearly a
smaller dependence of defect count on voltage for the
polypropylene films. It is worthwhile noting, however,
that there is a significant difference between polypropylene film of make A and make B. Closer examination
of individual breakdown results allowed the histograms
given in Fig. 4 to be constructed. It will be seen
from this figure that each make of film has its own
distribution of breakdown strengths with make C exhibiting the narrowest distribution indicating a very
.a (i
MAKE A (10-5
tm)
ow
c
CT
.1
D
cl
~D
E~
1I
MAKE B
Fig. 3.
MAKE C
Defects Detected Using Mercury EZectrode

Test in Capacitor Tissue Papers and in
PolypropyZene Films of Makes A & B
-,
(12 5 Rm)
__L____
Applied voltoge, kV
.I
-7
10pm copacitor paper

values
- 5pm capacitor paperj EBest
(105,pm)
make
A
film
Polypropylene
ot
-Q---<6
Polypropylene film of moke 6 (12 5pm)
--
TI
(13 rm)
MAKE D
I-
(12 pm)
30p-
'D
-I
20
-0
.0
D
z
1O0-
0^1
Fig.
'li
4.
--I-
I3
8~~~~-
flfn l
'l
II
.. I .
-1
8)3
,1
0S-
IL
-,
4 5 6
7
7 8
8 9
3 4 5 6
Breakdown voltage, kV
Breakdown Distribution Histograms for PoZypropylene Films of Makes A, B, C and
Tested Between Mercury EZectrodes of 1.2 cm2 Area
Parkman:
uniform field. Many of the polypropylene films examined

to date have such a low defect count that it becomes
feasible to consider the construction of capacitors
using only a single layer dielectric - something which
would be out of the question for power capacitors using
paper dielectric.
Capacitor Construction using PoZypropyZene FiZm

There are three generic types of construction in
general use involving the new dielectric polypropylene
film, either on its own or in combination with other
solid dielectric - predominantly paper. In principle,
the forms of construction would be equally suitable for
other low loss polymeric films such as polystyrene,
polyethylene, etc., provided that their long term compatibility with the impregnant is established.
29 7
can be maintained over the life of a capacitor subject,
inter alia, to considerable changes in ambient temperature, it is necessary to give close attention to winding
tension and impregnating temperatures. Capacitors not
designed and manufactured correctly will, notwithstanding good initial values of discharge inception voltage
Vi, undergo a catastrophic fall in the value of Vi when
the ambient temperature is cycled. Figure 5 shows up
this defect very clearly for a batch of capacitors in
which the winding tension was too great.
Askare Z-impregnated Mixed PoZypropylene-Paper DieZectric

The dielectric in commercial designs frequently consists of two layers of 12.5 micron thick polypropylene
film with a thin layer of low density (low loss) paper
sandwiched between them, and the whole impregnated with
askarel impregnant. The advantages of this form of construction are that:
2 5
1. Impregnation is made easy because the rough surfaces of the paper allow easy penetration of the impregnant into the paper-polypropylene interface. (Impregnating polypropylene-polypropylene interfaces is
relatively difficult if one uses conventional techniques.)
i
~~
Trne
2. The capacitor will have lower dielectric loss

than the all-paper construction.
3. Even with three layers, the total dielectric
thickness is still quite small so that high discharge
inception voltage stresses can be obtained.
4. Because paper has a much higher permittivity

than polypropylene, it is possible to work the combined dielectric at an economically high stress while
applying less stress to the paper layer than would be
the case in an all-paper capacitor. Thus, if the design stress in the polypropylene layer is about 40
volts per micron, the stress in the paper layer will be
about 18 volts per micron.
5. As an example of the resulting decrease in size,

dielectric systems of this kind allow the construction
of 150 KVAR capacitors in the same dimensions as those
for 100 KVAR conventional all-paper capacitor.
Askarel-impregnated PoZypropyZene (OnZy) DieZectric

The main reason for introducing the composite dielectric discussed was that impregnation of the interface between two polypropylene films can be difficult
unless suitable precautions are taken. However, using
an all-polypropylene dielectric, it is possible to produce high-voltage capacitors with discharge inception
voltages in excess of 100 V/pm, which makes it possible
to have working stresses in the dielectric of about
50 V/im.
This increase in working stress (compared with

around 15 V/pm for askarel-paper capacitors) would
allow the dielectric volume to be reduced by about
four times for the same KVAR rating, giving a reduction
in overall capacitor volume of some three times with
concomitant cost reduction.
In order to achieve successful impregnation which
Fig.
5.
Variation of Discharge Inception VoZtage of

Trichlorodipheny Z-Impregnated Po Zypropylene Film Capacitors from Batch 1 with
Time of CooZing from 850C to Room
12
Temperature
After impregnation of all-polypropylene capacitors,

it is normal to allow several days for the discharge
inception voltage to reach its maximum value. The
time taken will depend not only on the winding tension,
but on the temperature of the impregnant. Maintaining
a higher temperature so as to keep the viscosity of
the askarel as low as possible, is an accepted method
for expediting impregnation of paper capacitors, but
elevated temperatures have to be used very judiciously
with all-polypropylene dielectric systems, since polypropylene rapidly becomes swollen in hot askarel so
that the ends of windings may be sealed before complete impregnation has occurred. In any case, it is
likely that such capacitors, which were overheated,
would behave badly on thermal cycling tests.
MineraZ n0iZ-impregnated PoZypropyZene DieZectric with

?l.etaZZized Paper EZectrodes
In this system, the dielectric typically consists
of a single layer of 6 pm thick polypropylene film,
ILEE Traris. Flectr. Insul;
298
with electrodes of paper 9 jim thick and metallized with
aluminum on both sides. Because of the use of metallized paper, it is necessary to use mineral oil impregnant. The construction of the capacitor allows a single layer dielectric to be used since the metallized
electrodes will be "self-clearing" in the event of a
pinhole or other defect failure in the polypropylene
film. Again, because the surfaces of the metallized
paper will be naturally uneven, impregnation is relatively easy. These capacitors operate at stresses
three times those for paper dielectric types, and are
typically half the size of the latter for a given KVAR
rating.
tI-13
No 4,
AuIgtist
1978
W W
Ifi
0C
0
ow
3.4 THE EFFECT OF DIELECTRIC THICKNESS

There is substantial evidence to indicate that in
correctly impregnated structures partial discharges
first arise at the electrode edges when the voltage is
raised to discharge inception [10-12]. As might be
expected, the voltage required to initiate discharges,
Vj increases with increase in dielectric thickness but
the effect is not linear and various experiments have
indicated that the calculated uniform stress at discharge inception actually decreases with increase in
dielectric thickness. It must therefore be assumed
that discharges occur at a constant stress Ei, at the
electrode edges in any given structure and Clowes [13]
has developed an expression for the variation of the
stress at the electrode edges with dielectric thickness.
Vol
0
q.0
V0
'O
4)
iz
V
C
2
E
0
.c
Fig. 7.
Variation of EZectric Field at the Edge of

EZectrode FoiZ with DieZectric Thickness
an
E.
l
0.58 kV/m
3.6(t)
d
(11)
where td is in mm and covers the range 0.03 to 1.0.

Kutchinsky worked with 10 pm thick electrodes and if we
substitute this value into the expression derived by
Clowes we have:
1
(12)
0.0025/td
E1 Btd
where B is a constant. This approximates, for the

values of td used by Kutchinsky, to
E.
EZectrode Arrangement Used in Studies of

the Dependence of Discharge Inception
Dielectric Thickness
Using the model shown in Fig. 6 and assuming that the
permittivities of solid and liquid are equal, so that
the stress distribution becomes a function of geometry
alone, Clowes obtained the results shown in Fig. 7.
He examined the dielectric to electrode thickness
ratios in the range 1.5 to 19.5 and found that the
field at the electrode edge E is related to the calculated uniform field Ei in the liquid gap according
Stress
on
to:
Bt
-0.5
(13)
d
This is an interesting result since Clowes had derived
his formula on the basis of identical permittivities
for solid and liquid in the impregnated structure whereas the results in Fig. 8 refer to oil (s = 2) and paper
( 5). This expression may be generally applicable
to dielectric systems in present use. It must be emphasized, of course, that the discharge inception
stress at the electrode edge determined in this way
refers to breakdown in the liquid in correctly dried
and impregnated structures. In systems which have been
insufficiently dried or contain cavities, discharge inception will be determined mainly by breakdown of the
gas pockets included or generated under stress,
1
Fig. 6.
smail
4.
MECHANISMS INVOLVING THE COMBIND SOLID AND
LIQUID COMPONENTS
EB
AE
T -a)
where A is a dimensionless constant which is different

for different values of y, but can be taken as independent of td/te.
Kutchinsky, et al., [14] has measured Ei as a function of te/td and their results are shown in Fig. 8
and can be represented by the empirical formula:
Little or nothing will be said in this section regarding the properties of the dry solids, usually paper
and/or plastic, before impregnation with a liquid.
Most of these properties are well known, and their investigation is comparatively simple. Attention is concentrated mainly on those phenomena which occur in the
combination of solid, liquid and particle content of
the latter, and especially on those which lead to slow
deterioration of the complex as a whole,
Parkman:
Solid-Liquid Composite Dielectric Systens
299
kV
mm
20
Fig. 8.
4.1
Dependence of InitiaZ PartiaZ Discharge Gradient on DieZectric Thickness:

X Cable Paper
* Capacitor Paper
CONDUCTION AND LOSS ANGLE
(Kutchinsky)
with respect to capacitors, but similar effects may

occur in any impregnated insulation.
On electronic conduction little need be said, because in all practical systems it is swamped by the
Ionic contaminants are easily introduced into the imcurrents due to ions and the movement of particles. In pregnant outside the insulation proper by components not
papers and in plastics (at least those of the polyoleintended to have any very good dielectric properties,
fin type, which alone have been carefully investigated)
e.g., spacers, supports for internal fuses, case linings,
the electronic component can be isolated, but only
etc. These have been known sometimes to contain devasunder laboratory conditions of purity and of extreme
tating quantities of highly dissociable materials, added
drying in vacuo. Under these conditions, the electronic perhaps for some quite non-electrical reason such as
conduction current in both materials increases rapidly,
surface finish. All materials, in however small quanbut rather less than exponentially, with increasing
tity, which enter an impregnated system, should be
stress. In paper, owing to its porous structure, this
checked for such effects. It is quite unsafe to rely on
increase cannot be followed to very high stresses, but
detecting this trouble by any brief test on the comfor polyethylene Garton and Parkman [15] have followed
pleted product. If the impurity chances to have a low
it up to "intrinsic" breakdown at 0.55 GV/m, where the
diffusion constant, it may be a year or more at operaresistivity was still as high as 3 x 1014 Qm. At the
ting temperature before enough has entered the dielecoperating stress in capacitors, it would be about
tric to cause any large change in loss angle.
1018 Qm. These values relate to a temperature of 460C,
the lowest at which accurate measurement is possible,
Ionic impurities may obviously also be introduced
owing to the excessive time (many days) required to
with components of the actual dielectric system, alattain equilibrium currents after any change of stress
though in recent years manufacturers of component
at lower temperatures. It may be mentioned, as a bymaterials have become more aware of the need for rigid
product of this work, that "intrinsic" breakdown at
control of purity. Impurities may also, of course, be
0.55 GV/m is certainly not a result of thermal instapicked up in the course of manufacture: paper will abbility, since the conduction loss at that stress imsorb polar vapors during storage; impregnating liquids
mediately before failure was only 10-3 W/cm3.
will dissolve any organic residues that may be left on
metallic parts such as capacitor cans, cable cores or
Ionic conduction, on the other hand, is one of the
sheaths. The standard test mentioned in the last paramost important mechanisms of slow deterioration at
graph is equally useful for checking the purity or
working stresses, indeed, the most important if thermal
cleanliness of components mentioned here.
instability and the presence of gaseous discharges can
be excluded. This does not, normally, depend upon the
Finally, ions are generated by decomposition of either
initial ionic conductivity of the dielectrics used, besolid or liquid dielectrics under the action of discause it is easy to exclude any showing this defect.
charges. While this is obvious and well recognized as
Rather, it depends upon a variety of ways in which the
regards gaseous discharges which occur in voids and can
ionic content of the dielectric may increase slowly but
be measured with a discharge detector, it may not be so
steadily throughout its life, until either thermal inwell known that there is a similar but very much slower
stability occurs (possibly only locally) or, if anypart effect of the same kind from microscopic arcs between
of the process produces a gas, until discharges occupy
particles or a particle and electrode. Since particles
the resultant bubbles. The next three paragraphs descan never be wholly excluded, their presence will ulticribe briefly the main mechanisms involved, usually
mately set a limit to life, even if no quicker mechanism
IEEE Trans. Electr.
300
is present.
Nothing has yet been said of the role of the solid
component of the dielectric in resisting free ionic
transport. Comparison between the conductivity of the
free impregnant, and that of the impregnated dielectric
using it, shows that, irrespective of the porosity
(within limits) of the solid component, it offers the
main impedance to the transport of ions. This is to be
expected for a dielectric involving sheets of plastic,
and is not very surprising for a high-density capacitor
tissue, since investigations have shown, both by a dying technique and by electron transmission microscopy,
that although a poorly made tissue may have numerous
thin areas which appear to be holes when examined with
less care, they are in fact almost invariably closed by
a film, which may be as thin as 10-4 cm, of amorphous
cellulose. It is more difficult to interpret the fact
that even a fairly porous cable-paper forms an efficient barrier, but measurements made by the "Gartoneffect" technique of Sec. 3 show that, in fact, ionic
movements are mainly limited to the dimensions of the
irregularities between adjacent sheets of paper. A
clue to the reason for this has been obtained by following the diffusion rate of an ionic impurity into the
dielectric from an external source, with and without an
The diffusion is much faster in
ac field superposed.
the absence of a field. The reason would appear to be
that an ion which wanders, by purely thermal diffusion,
into a cul-de-sac in the paper structure, will soon
diffuse out again. In the presence of an ac field,
however, it may be driven deeper into the solid structure of the fibers, from where it can only emerge after
much slower diffusion and during some half-waves of
opposite polarity. That ions do migrate into and
through organic materials is well established.
No discussion of ionic conduction would be complete
without mention of the essential difference between it
and electronic conduction. The latter involves no
material interaction with the substance in which it
flows, and therefore can continue indefinitely without
causing deterioration. The reverse is true of ionic
conduction; since it inherently involves transport of
material to the electrodes, it must change the chemical
nature of the dielectric so long as any ions are available. The materials normally used, if ideally pure,
will not dissociate at any measurable rate below some
limiting temperature, so that discussion may be limited
to ions derived from four sources: ions due directly
to some dissociable impurity which is present; the substances which these form when transported to the electrode (and may be more or less dissociable than their
parent substance); attack upon the materials of the dielectric near the electrodes by these electrolytically
formed products; and finally ions formed in the body of
the dielectric by microscopic arcs between e.g., colliding charged particles or a particle and electrode.
The chemical details and the rate of all these reactions depend greatly upon the individual substances
used in the dielectric, and it would be impracticable
to pursue the subject further in a single paper. The
interested reader is referred to the classic papers by
Dakin, et al., [17-20, 22], which deal with the general
approach to all such problems. The important concept
is that, if no quicker mechanism causes failure, some
electrochemical mechanism will always, ultimately, do
so.
The third of these reactions, in the form of attack

by nascent hydrogen upon chlorinated impregnants, was
demonstrated as long ago as 1946, by Egerton and McLean
[16]. It has since been realized that electrochemical
failures of insulation are extremely common, and by no
Insul, Vol EI-13 No 4 August 1978
confined to impregnated, nor even to organic, insulation. But the chemical details are often so complicated that they have to be separately considered for
every type of failure.
means
4.2
BREAKDOWN
Breakdown in liquids has already been considered in

Sec. 3.2. Logic would suggest that the present section
should deal with solids alone, but in respect of impregnated systems this is not a useful division. The fact
that any complete breakdown channel must, in the course
of its development, transfer several (perhaps many)
times from liquid to solid and vice versa, implies that
both components must be considered together. Consider
first the simplest case, when the solid component has
little or no porosity, say a winding of plastic tape or
film, or the denser kinds of capacitor tissue. Limit
the discussion also to impulse breakdowns only, so that
macroscopic deterioration and gas-production may be ignored. Then it is known that a discharge in a gas or
liquid will not (quickly) initiate a breakdown channel
in a solid until the stress in the solid, at the tip of
the impinging discharge, rises to the "intrinsic"
strength of the solid. This is likely to be around 0.5
GV/m, against 0.1 to 0.15 GV/m for normal impregnants.
Breakdown will therefore always be initiated in the
liquid phase, but unfortunately from the practical point
of view will require only an intensification of the
stress at its tip by a factor of five to enable it to
propagate. Since this degree of intensification needs
only a very short length of discharge path, say 10 or
20 iam, it is impracticable to construct a system of any
size in which it is not exceeded at some points. This
conclusion agrees with experience, that the impulse
strength is never very different from the "short-gap"
strength of the impregnant alone.
When the solid component has
more or
less "macro-
scopic" porosity, as in the less dense papers used in

high-voltage cables, the considerations of the last
paragraph cannot apply, since the initial discharge
channel in the liquid need not, essentially, enter the
solid at all. Yet it is obvious from experience that
the solid plays some important part, since an equal gap
filled with the liquid alone has a much lower strength.

major part of the difference is explained by the obvious mechanical exclusion of large "particles," e.g.,
conducting fibers, from positions in mid-gap where their
individual incipient breakdown channels can readily link
together to form a complete breakdown path. This effect
has been understood and used, for example, in the provision of "barrier insulation" in large oil-immersed,
high-voltage transformers, almost from the beginning of
their design. However, this simple mechanism cannot be
the complete explanation, since it is well known that
the impulse strength depends appreciably on much finer
details of the paper structure.
Some light is thrown on the nature of this second

mechanism (unreported) results of work by ERA, although
it would be experimentally impractical to confirm this
by direct experiments upon paper. The work in question
was originally directed toward obtaining a long impulse
breakdown channel in an optically clear plastic (polystyrene) which could afterwards be easily sectioned for
close microscopic examination. (Obviously, high magnification cannot be used on deeply embedded objects.)
With this in view, thick samples were built up from individually thin (one or two mm) sheets, which could
either be cemented together, "adhered" with an insulating oil, or merely held together with an intervening
air-film. The direction of breakdown was normal to
these sheets. The results, quite unexpectedly at the
time, showed that the impulse strength of the composite
Parkman:
301
sheet was much higher than that of an equivalent solid

block, and was even higher with poor contact between
sheets. The work was re-oriented to investigate this
effect, and it became clear that the factor involved was
a loss of energy from the discharge channel at each interface. In fact,the channel could not enter the next
layer of plastic until an area of the interface, centered on the channel, had been charged to some potential
comparable with that of the channel at the level in
question. Based on this, it was predicted that a still
higher strength would be obtained by increasing the
specific surface area of the interfaces by grinding, before assembling them merely in contact without adhesive.
The prediction was fully confirmed; in fact it became
difficult to produce a complete breakdown at all, the
channel tending to wander away along an interface, and,
if the voltage were raised sufficiently, perhaps entering the next layer at a point remote from the original
axis of the channel. Once the effect was understood, it
could be demonstrated very easily without need, either
for impulse voltages or a breakdown channel. An extensive sheet of plastic, with small electrodes at its
center, and subjected to an ac voltage sufficient to
produce abundant surface "streamers" in air, showed that
the area so affected was very dependent on the degree of
surface polish, diminishing by a factor of two (in the
radius) as surface polish was removed.
The relevance of these findings to the impulse

strength of impregnated paper will be obvious. It has
long been a matter of observation that discharge channels in high-voltage cables tend to wander along interfaces, often for relatively long distances, in order to
gain access to the next layer via a butt-space, rather
than penetrate a very much shorter path directly through
paper. This parallels exactly the effect observed with
roughened plastic surfaces. While the structure of
paper is subject to many other limitations involved in
its manufacture, it would evidently be an advantage,
other properties remaining equal, to have as high as
possible specific area in the fibrous structure of the
paper. The damage done by partial impulse breakdown
paths will, of course, remain, but the shorter these
paths can be made, the longer should be the effective
life of the insulation. This mechanism is more relevant to the thick insulation of cables than to capacitor
elements.
5*
Fig. 9.
(3)
Time for a total evolution of 5 cc (-5 mg) of gas

per g of paper under vacuum, this volume being
the effective quantity of N.T.P. (dotted line AA').
75% of this gas by volume is water vapor and the
remainder mostly a mixture of CO2 and CO.
(4)
For unstressed vacuum-impregnated askarel-paper

capacitors, the time after which tan6 starts to
rise precipitously (presumably due to production
of water). Change of tan6 in early life, that is
due to diffusion of ionic impurities initially
present and eventually becomes small, is disre-
5.1 THERMAL DEGRADATION OF PAPER AND POLYPROPYLENE,

AND OF IMPREGNANTS
Paper
garded.
(5)
Available data on the thermal degradation of paper

with no electric stress applied are presented in Fig. 9
which relates mean "life" to temperature. The number
adjacent to the data indicates the source reference of
the data.
Life is defined there in various terms
by the symbol used in plotting:
as
indicated
(1)
Mean time for mechanical (tensile) strength to

fall by 50%.
(2)
Mean time for degree of polymerization (D.P.) of
at Various Temperatures
Without AppZied Stress

the paper to fall to 50% of the initial value.
AGING PROCESSES IN SOLID/LIQUID COMPOSITES WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO CAPACITOR SYSTEIS
A large amount of information is available in the

literature concerning degradation processes in impregnated structures. These were summarized by the late H.
F. Church and the following is an account of his unpublished work in this field.
Degradation of Paper and Impregnated-Paper
For impregnated paper capacitors aged without
applied voltage, the minimum time when growing

discharges appear if the capacitors are subsequently tested at rated ac voltage (presumably due
to gas evolution as a result of thermal decomposition of the cellulose).
In Fig. 9, the scale used for plotting temperature

is a linear one for 1/T where T is absolute temperature and that for life, L, logarithmic. The slope
represents the activation energy of the aging process
in accordance with the Arrhenius equation.
Most of the results plotted in Fig. 9 are for dry
302
paper in oxygen-free oil or askarel but a few of the

results for mechanical strength and degree of polymerization are for paper samples aged in dry air or in a
moist state in the absence of air as indicated in the
figure.
therefore likely to be set by mechanical properties

(softening) and compatibility with the impregnant, and
not by chemical degradation. It is important that air
is not present when polypropylene is heated in contact
with askarels [52].
Almost all the results for paper or impregnated

paper, in the dry state and in the absence of oxygen,
lie within the band enclosed by the lines BB' and CC'
which also include the line AA'. This shows that life
as indicated by the particular property represented, is
very temperature dependent, (activation energy is of the
order 34 to 39 k cal/mol, see [56]. For example, increasing the aging temperature from 1200C to 1500C decreases life about 20 times.
Mixed PoZypropyZene-paper
For dry paper samples in air, the life test results

lie close to the line DD' showing that the presence of
oxygen shortens life at a given temperature by several
times. When water is present, even in the absence of
oxygen, lives are shorter still, as shown.
Impregnants
With mixed polypropylene-paper capacitors for high

voltage use, the maximum long-term operating temperature will probably be dictated by the characteristic
chemical instability of the paper. Slow gas evolution
will eventually cause the initiation of discharges at
operating temperatures of 110 to 1200C or higher, as in
the case of conventional impregnated paper capacitors.
In the absence of oxygen, the refined mineral oils

used in capacitors are quite stable at 120C, although
in air oxidation is rapid at this temperature.
The spread of results within the band enclosed by

the lines BB', CC' is probably due to variations in
test methods employed and perhaps in the purity of the
cellulose used. If the heating takes place in small
sealed containers, the water evolved by the paper speciIn large
men may itself influence subsequent aging.
containers or under continuous vacuum, the products of
aging may be quickly removed from the neighborhood of
the sample and have little influence on the aging rate.
Chlorinated biphenyls are outstandingly stable thermally and are said to undergo no decomposition at 1750C
and do not react with oxygen or moisture. There is
slight sensitivity to ultra-violet light.
In impregnated-paper capacitors, changes in mechanical properties of the paper at elevated temperatures

resulting from depolymerization of the cellulose are
probably of little importance at least in the early
stages of aging. What matters from the point of view
of use of the capacitor are the gaseous and ionic products of thermal degradation. When gas is evolved in
sufficient quantity, discharges will be initiated if
the applied voltage is high enough, tan6 will simultaneously increase and life will be seriously curtailed.
Irrmpregnated Paper Capacitors
These conclusions are confirmed by the work of Baumlein [30] who has shown that capacitors with satisfactory electrical quality can be made from thermally degraded paper provided the volatile products of the degradation are removed under vacuum before impregnation
of the paper. Capacitor windings were heated in an air
oven at 1800C for 16 hours, after which time the paper
They
was dark brown in color and mechanically weak.
were then vacuum impregnated at room temperature with
trichlorobiphenyl. The loss angle-temperature curve
and the rate of breakdown in an artificial aging test
(24 V/pm at 850C) were identical with those obtained
with capacitors having normal drying and impregnation.
Po Zypropy Zene
The chemical stability of polypropylene at elevated

temperature in vacuo is very much higher than that of
cellulose. Thermal degradation, as judged by the evolution of gas, is less than one hundredth of that experienced by cellulose at the same temperature [56],
provided low molecular weight fractions of polypropylene are removed during manufacture and thermally unstable additives are not present. No water or oxides
of carbon, the main products of thermal degradation of
paper, are of course evolved, the products in the case
of polypropylene being largely paraffin and olefin hydrocarbons, notably butane, pentane, hexane, butene,
pentene and hexene, all of which are readily soluble in
capacitor impregnants.
The high-temperature limitations of polypropylene is
Both types of impregnant decompose under the action

of gaseous discharges.
5.2
AGING OF CAPACITORS UNDER AC STRESS
Because of inherent dipolar dielectric loss in

cellulose, some temperature rise of paper capacitors
inevitably occurs under ac stress and, in order to
avoid temperature instability, the working stress of
large impregnated paper power capacitors in service is
strictly limited. In the ac life tests described here,
the size of the capacitors or the conditions of operation were such that temperature instability did not
occur.
Discharges Present Initially

When discharges are occurring within the dielectric
of a paper capacitor under ac stress, life is relatively limited and very stress-dependent.
In graphs A, B and C of Fig. 10, the effect of
stress on mean life is shown for groups of capacitors
in which discharges occurred. In graph A (oil-impregnated paper, 4 x 10 vm dielectric, 0.5 pF, room temperature), discharges were deliberately started by applying the discharge inception voltage for one minute and
then lowering the voltage to the test stress [47]. All
capacitors in graph B (model oil-impregnated paper
capacitors, 80 vm dielectric) were operating above
their discharge inception stress of 12 to 13 V/pm [51].
In graph C (pentachlorobiphenyl-impregnated paper,
4 x 10 vm dielectric, 0.25 pF, room temperature), all
samples were operating above their discharge inception
voltages [48]. In order to avoid thermal instability
during these tests, the high test voltage used was
applied intermittently: 1 second on, 59 seconds off.
If the best straight line is drawn through each set

of points, making the assumption that life is inversely
proportional to the nth power of the applied stress,
then for these samples n = 5 to 7.
Even at a stress as low as 20 V/vim (rms, 50 Hz), it
is concluded that mean life is not likely to exceed
1000 hours i-f discharges are occurring.
303
Parkman:
IZ
x
l
1-T
._l
Ws
I?
<)
100
Mean
Fig. 10.
1000
life
10000
hours
Effect of AC Stress on Life of Capacitors
Discharges Absent InitiaZly

When discharges are not present initially within the
dielectric of an impregnated paper capacitor, life
under ac stress is considerably longer than in the presence of discharges, the difference being greater the
lower the working stress.
Graphs D, E and F of Fig. 10 show the effect of

stress on the life of askarel-impregnated paper capacitors for capacitors in which discharges were known not
to be present initially. In Graph D (trichlorobiphenylimpregnated paper, 2 x 12.3 pm dielectric, 1 pF, 230C)
mean life test results are given for ten capacitors
tested at each of six stress levels from 29 to 39 V/pm
[50]. The temperature rise under constant stress was
not high, e.g., at 30 V/pm, 6.50C: at 35 V/pm, 8C. In
Graph E (pentachlorobiphenyl-impregnated paper,
4 x 10 pm dielectric, 0.25 uF, 750C), results are given
for well-impregnated capacitors in the manufacture of
which vacuum impregnation followed vacuum drying treatment at 2 x 10- Torr for 10 days at 95C [48]. With
poor vacuum, the same authors found that the lives of
similar units were much shorter. Graph F shows average
results for lots of capacitors made with different
quality papers and using different methods of impregnation [49]. All were 4.5 pF units with 2 x 9 pm dielectric impregnated with pentachlorobiphenyl. Operating
temperature under stress ranged between 32 and 39C.
The best lot, which was only tested at the highest
stress, had more than ten times longer life than that
shown in this graph.
It can be seen that life in the absence of discharges
initially is much more stress dependent than when discharges are present at the start of the life test,
whether the discharges are due to the use of a test
stress above discharge inception or to the deliberate
initiation of discharges by momentary over-stressing.
In fact, the power n for Graphs D, E and F ranges from
11 to 21 compared with 5 to 7 for Graphs A, B and C.
The investigator who reported the results given in

Graph E found that even when discharges are not presqnt
initially they do appear eventually under continuous ac
stress. The remaining life is then short: it varied
from an average of 80 to 250 hours for various capacitors depending upon the magnitude of the applied stress.
At the end of the life tests, the paper had aged
seriously as judged by measurements of degree of polymerization, the aging being greater the higher the
applied stress. In these tests, the life test temperature used (75C) was not high enough to cause appreciable aging in the absepce of the stress.
Effects of Temperature
In Fig. 11, median lives are plotted against temperature for well-impregnated paper capacitors continuously
stressed (50 Hz) at 15 V/pm and above, the applied
stress being in all cases below the initial discharge
inception stress. The temperatures plotted are those
attained at the center of the capacitor winding.
For each plotted point, the applied stress in V/pm is

indicated. The other number to each point refers to the
bibliography at the end of the report.
A family of curves (unbroken lines) is drawn through
these points showing the probable mean relationship between life of well-made capacitors and temperature at
various fixed ac stresses. The assumption is made in
drawing these curves that from room temperature up to
about 900C, temperature has no appreciable effect on
life; there is no evidence in the data presented to
suggest otherwise. Above 90C, the evidence suggests
that life decreases very rapidly with increase in temperature; this is due to thermal degradation of the
paper resulting in rapid evolution of gas, including
water vapor, which initiates internal discharges and
causes increase of tan6.
3EFF
304
Trans. Electr. Insul, Vol ET- 13' No 4,
Augu,*it
1978
This is because the discharge inception stress for

these capacitors is higher than that for impregnated
paper and because with paper capacitors, even if
initially they are free from discharges, damaging ionization starts in time under ac stress. With the impregnated plastic film capacitors, this does not occur even
after several years of continuous operation at constant
and steady temperature.
With polypropylene film, higher discharge inception
stress is obtained with the high permittivity
liquid
trichlorobiphenyl than with non-polar mineral oil and
the former combination is expected to give the better
life performance.
No life tests on impregnated low-loss film capacitors

have been reported at elevated temperature gr with thermal cycling.
Capacitors with Mixed PolypropyZene-Paper Dielectric

According to Ref. [57], many accelerated life tests
have been performed on triQhlorobiphenyl impregnated
polypropylene-paper capacitors, in some cases for over
six years. Life times to failure are stated to be
longer than would be experienced with paper capacitors
under the same conditions. No actual values of lives
are given. In Ref. [58], alsQ a greater life expectancy
is said to be obtained with the polypropylene film-paperaskarel system than with askarel-paper.
As indicated above, lives at high operating temperatures are expected to be limited by the thermal stability of the paper part of the dielectric.
25 50
40
50
60 70
60 90 100
120
Temperoturg ot center of capacitor
140
160
ISO C
Askarel iorpregnant
* OiZ impregnart
Life of We ZZ-impregnated Paper Capacitors
at Various AC Stress and Temperatures
Fig. 11.
Below 900C, ultimate failure may be due to the

gradual development of major discharges by growth under
ac stress of microdischarges which, although present
initially, are not detectable in the early stages of
the life test. The gas produced by such microdischarges may at first dissolve in the impregnant and not
form bubbles until such time as local saturation of the
liquid with gas occurs.
In Ref. [41], life tests performed at elevated temperatures and moderate ac stress on some 300 chlorobiphenyl-impregnated paper capacitors are described. Results were considerably scattered because of variations
in the quality of the materials and in manufacturing
conditions, but it is of interest that steeply-falling
average log life-temperature graphs similar to those of
Fig. 11 above 70C were given. These authors state
that at a stress of 15 V/pm and at temperatures below
85'C life is greater than 50 years. At the same stress
but at temperature of 1300C, the mean life was only a
few days (cf. upper graph of Fig. 11).
Impregnated PZastic FiZm Capacitors

Capacitors made with low loss plastic film dielectric (polypropylepe or polystyrene) and a compatible
liquid impregnant have lives at room temperature which
are far in excess of those with impregnated paper dielectric at the same stress (see plotted values in
Fig. l, [52].
5.3
AGIPNG OF CAPACITORS UNDER DC ST4?ESS
Impregnated Paper Capacitors

At room temperature, impregnated paper capacitors are
able to withstand for long times much higher stresses on
dc than on ac. This is because on ac, life is determined
by the resistance of the dielectric to oft-repeated
discharges whereas on dc, even when operating above the
discharge level, the discharge repetition rate is sTmall
and determined by the leakage resistance of the insulation and the frequency of switching operations.
Life of paper capacitors at dc and higher temperatures is much less than at room temperature partly because the discharge repetition rate, if discharges are
present, is increased due to the increased dc leakage
current, but mainly because of increased electrolytic
deterioration arising from the increased current through
the dielectric.
Figure 12 summarizes the life test results which have

been obtained by various authors when dc stresses are
applied to paper capacitors impregnated with oil or
askarels.
There is a tendency for lives on dc to be somewhat
shorter with chlorinated impregnants than with straight
hydrocarbons such as mineral oils. This is due to increased electrochemical deterioration, which can be corrected to some extent by the addition of stabilizers.
Impregnated PZastic FiZm or "Mixed" Plastic FilZm-Paper

Capacitors
Published information is not available on the dc
life of impregnated polypropylene film or "mixed" polypropylene film-paper capacitors. However, in both
cases, lives under stress are expected to be very long.
Leakage current will be low because of the high dc re-
Parkman:
305
Another development was that of alumina-loaded capacitor papers which are claimed to impart lower losses
and give somewhat longer lives than unloaded papers
when impregnated with askarels [46]. Their beneficial
action is said to be due to the absorption of impurity
ions by the alumina.
Ito
Mineol oil impregont

Ashorel imprenanit
K)
I1
\60
10 - * IOOV/4u
5
\
46
0
25V/#m
6. CONCLUSION
151\\\
2
45
V/r
-120VIAn
04
The reader is reminded that the title of this paper

referred only to "some" aspects of solid-liquid composite dielectrics. Space has not permitted the treatment of large parts of relevant theory and practice of
solid-liquid systems. The objective has been to take
the more all-pervading aspects of the dielectric system
and treat these properties, for they will appear in mwh
the same form in many different kinds of electrical apparatus containing an impregnated dielectric system.
160 V/pm
110 - .k
9r
20
11
30
40
50
60
Temperoture
t0
00
90
100
IIOc
Effects of DC Stress and Temperaturs

on the Life of I7pregnated Paper
Capacitors
sistance of the polypropylene which will limit electrochemical deterioration and, even when the applied stres
exceeds discharge inception, failure due to discharges
is likely to be relatively gradual on dc because of the
slow repetition rate of the discharges.
Fig. 12.
5.4
Recently, "scavengers" in the form of certain epoxy

resins have been developed for use with ac power capacitors having askarel and other impregnants. These
substances can cause a considerable prolongation of
life of capacitors operating at high temperature and
high stress. The action is said to be due to the
neutralization of acid formed during life, perhaps as
a result of discharges. Mean extension of life from
twice to several hundreds of times have been reported,
under various conditions of operation, for askarelpaper capacitors at 50 Hz. According to Ref. [57],
both all-paper dielectric capacitors and "mixed" paperpolypropylene capacitors gave times to failure in
accelerated life tests using stabilized askarels which
were two to five times greater than when unstabilized
askarel was used.
LIFE-PROLONGING ADDITIVES
A considerable time ago [59, 61, 62], and again more

recently [44], the use of additives such as anthraquinone, benzoquinone and azobenzene to extend dc life
of paper capacitors containing chlorinated hydrocarbon
impregnants was studied experimentally. With kraft
papers, extensions of life at elevated temperature of
up to 10 times were obtained with as little as 2% of
the additive.
The actions of these stabilizers, all of which are
hydrogen-acceptors, is thought to be due to the suppression of cathodic electrochemical deterioration. Nascent
cathodic hydrogen, which in the absence of stabilizer
would attack the impregnant and release corrosive
materials, harmlessly combines instead with the additive
[62], e.g., anthraquinone is reduced to oxanthranol at
the cathode in the case of the stabilizing action in
askarels.
Azobenzene has been shown to have some stabilizing

action under ac stress also but this is probably due to
suppression of internal discharges by absorbing hydrogen which would otherwise form gas bubbles [62].
7.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The 4nformation reported here has been drawn very

largely from ERA reports, published and unpublished,
prepared over the past twenty to thirty years. Apart
from reports of original ERA researches, I have been
helped greatly by the existence of summaries of published papers prepared by my colleagues or in association with them. I am grateful to Mr. C. G. Garton for
his help, particularly in connection with Sections 2
and 4 of the paper.
Thanks are due to the Directorate of ERA for
mission to publish the results.
8.
per-
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Some Properties of Solid Liquid Composite Dielectric Systems Parkman

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289

IEEE Trans. Electr. Insul, Vol EI-13 No 4, August 1978

SOME PROPERTIES OF SOLID-LIQUID COMPOSITE

MECHANISMS INVOLVING THE COMBINED SOLID

Conduction and loss angle

AGING PROCESSES IN SOLID-LIQUID COMPOSITESWITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO CAPACITOR

Thermal degradation of paper and polypropylene, and of impregnants

The subject of solid-liquid composite dielectric

Specially formulated composite dielectrics of one or

IEEE Trans. Electr. Insul, Vol EI-13 No 4, August 1978

loss, and slow rate of deterioration in service. These

Conduction in pure liquids is not of much direct

However, it is introduced at this stage to indicate

The charged particle will then experience a pull F=EQ

If there are N such particles per unit volume, the

Note the appearance in this of the factor Nr3, which,

Substituting this in (4) gives the resistivity due to

N charged particles in the liquid

a simple expression in which it is not necessary to

As a numerical illustration, consider the usual

Solid-Liquid Composite Dielectric Systems

LOSS ANGLE IN THE LIQUID COMPONENT OF IMPREGNATED

barriers, is a high (typically, a maximum) value of

and the ionic radius is:

The equation for the ionic concentration depends upon

Sometimes the maximum loss angle is not easily

ionic behavior, although fairly uniform within the 6

Calculations on the lines already described showed

Among other users of this method, Krasucki [7]

IEEE Trans. Electr.

Insul, Vol EI-13 No 4, August 1978

The results of successive further exposures to dis-

charges were cumulative, and after three such exposures

2.3 BREAKDOWN IN THE LIQUID

In relation to impregnated insulation at its normal

discovery in the 1940's that improved

techniques in the breakdown of solids revealed

Parkman: Solid-Liquid Composite Dielectric Systems

the charged liquid is then repelled from the point with

paper which assists in its impregnation when tightly

It has been assumed so far that impregnation has

The influence of paper structure on the performance

THE IMPORTANCE OF PERMITTIVITY

It is not the intention to deal extensively here

The general properties of electrical grade paper

ASPECTS OF PAPER STRUCTURE OF IMPORTANCE IN IMPREGNATED SYSTEMS

Microscopic observation of sections through the

IEEE Trans. Electr. Insul, Vol EI-13 No 4, August 1978

Under alternating voltages, the ions of opposite

Surface Contour AZong A

Sheet of Capacitor Tissue.

Schematic Diagram of a Region in an

Breakdown Sequence with Pure Impregnants

If mobile ions are present in the schematic system

As already discussed, for very thin places in the

Effects Due to ParticuZate Impurity

diffuse under the influence of an applied electric

Parkman: Solid-Liquid Composite Dielectric Systems

factor by which the field is enhanced may be higher

the capacitor must not produce thermal runaway, and the

The discovery of stereoregular polypropylene and its

Properties of PoZypropyZene Film

and Dielectric Loss

o r has a value of 2.25 to 2.26, largely independent