Effect of Step Duration on Breakdown in Needle-

Plane Geometry Under DC Step Voltages

2019 IEEE 4th International Conference on Condition Assessment Techniques in Electrical Systems (CATCON) 978-1-7281-4331-6/20/$31.00 ©2020 IEEE 10.1109/CATCON47128.2019.CN0010

Ajith John Thomas and C C Reddy

High Voltage Laboratory
Indian Institute of Technology Ropar
Punjab, India - 140001
2016eez0007@iitrpr.ac.in, reddy@iitrpr.ac.in

Abstract—In this paper, dc electrical treeing breakdown
experiments are conducted using needle-plane system.
Electrical treeing test can be used for the assessment of life
estimation of the insulating material by estimating the voltage
endurance coefficient and accumulated damage. Damage
equalization method (DEM) is used for estimating the life of the
dielectric material used in HVDC cables. Breakdown
experiments are conducted with progressive voltage steps of
different step size. Interesting new results on the role of different
step size on breakdown voltage is reported which in turn shows
the effect of space charge injection and accumulation. The
results from the space charge distribution in a plane-plane
geometry justify the authors’ results on the effect step size on dc
breakdown in needle-plane geometry. The experimental results
obtained are compared with data available in the literature for
ac electrical treeing tests for different rate of progressive voltage
rise.
Keywords—step stress, damage equalization, space charge, dc
breakdown, electrical treeing, voltage endurance coefficient
breakdown experiments have been conducted for step-stress
tests. Interesting results are presented showing the variation in
the breakdown voltages for different time steps. Voltage
endurance coefficient is obtained through the DEM method
and reported. Space charge measurements have been
conducted for plane-plane geometry at a particular electric
fields which justifies the effect of time step duration on
breakdown.
II. ESTIMATION OF VOLTAGE ENDURANCE COEFFICIENT USING
DAMAGE EQUILIZATION METHOD
Considering the stress exposed to the insulation with
different time steps, if the damage accumulated over r with
time duration , ,… at stresses , ,… , the
general equation for cumulative damage, D is given by:
=∑ (1)
Where

I. INTRODUCTION - Different time steps

In HVDC cables, investigation of the failure and ageing
mechanism has a major role in the cable design and insulation
lifetime estimation. The conductor protrusions or sharp
metallic particles in the insulation are some of the major
causes of electrical breakdown. Electrical treeing can be
considered as prelude to complete insulation failure. In order
to estimate the life and ageing performance, voltage endurance
coefficient plays a promising role through treeing breakdown
experiments. The voltage endurance coefficient for ac is
obtained for ac needle-plane experiments of XLPE specimens
[1, 2].
Damage equalization method (DEM) [3, 4] is a simple and
efficient technique for the lifetime estimation of the insulating
material. The voltage endurance coefficient or power law
exponent n is obtained from this method through step stress
tests. The step stress test provides faster availability of
breakdown data when compared to constant stress which takes
a longer time for breakdown data.
At high dc fields, there will be space charge injection and
accumulation inside the insulation and these charges will also
plays a major role in the ageing mechanism in HVDC cables
[5-7]. The charge injection, accumulation from the electrode-
dielectric interface is a function of applied high dc fields, time
of application, insulating material property etc. Therefore, the
study of dc breakdown assumes importance for the effective
design of the dielectric material.
It is observed from the literature that scanty attention has
been received on the effect of space charge and breakdown in
a needle-plane geometry on dc voltage application for
different step duration. In this paper, electrical treeing and
- Stress applied
r -time for accumulated damage
DEM can be considered as an alternate technique for
calculating n using step-stress test. At least two data of
different step-stress tests is required for using the DEM
method. The DEM basically fits a horizontal line to the critical
damage vs. time to failure [3]. The power law exponent, n is
estimated from known values of step durations , ,…
at stresses , ,… for each sample until its breakdown.
Based on DEM, the cumulative damage at any time instant t,
is given by:
log( ) = log + ( + 1) log (2)
+1
Where
, – Stress step and time step respectively.
III. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
A. Sample Preparation
Silicone rubber is employed as the insulating material for
the present study. Crosslinking is done by the addition of
peroxide agent in two-roll mill. After proper mixing, the
composite is pressed in a hydraulic machine under the
temperature and pressure of 165 °C and 100 bar respectively
for 15 minutes. Thick slab specimens of 14 cm x 14 cm x 4
mm is prepared. All the samples after preparation are post

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Figure 1. Schematic diagram showing the electrical treeing experimental
setup.
cured at a temperature of 1000C for 8 hours. Ogura’s steel
needles with a tip radius of 5μm are used for simulating the
needle-plane electrode system. The separation between the
needle tip and the plane electrode is 1.2 0.3mm. Precaution
is taken against any mechanical distortion at the tip.
B. Experimental Setup
Electrical treeing experiments are carried out to find out
the breakdown voltage of the insulating material employed
for the present study. All the experiments were carried out in
a faraday cage to block the external interference. Fig. 1 shows
the schematic diagram for a treeing breakdown setup
consisting of an HVDC setup, a CCD camera and a
microscope for real-time monitoring system and all the
images were recorded. All the experiments are conducted at
room temperature.
A series of step-ramp breakdown experiments have been
conducted for accelerated life testing. Fig. 2 depicts the
applied voltage profile used for step-stress testing. The time
duration of each voltage step application is such that δt1=
δt2= δt3=……= δtr = tstep. The details of step duration (tstep)
is shown in Table 1.
Figure 2. Application of typical step stress test
TABLE I. DETAILS OF STEP STRESS EXPERIMENTS FOR TREEING
BREAKDOWN EXPERIMENTS
Test Type
(min) (kV)
Samples
Step- Stress 1 1 4
Step- Stress 2 5 4
Step- Stress 3 10 4 3
Step- Stress 4 20 4 3
Step- Stress 5 30 4 3
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100
Breakdown Voltage (kV)
70
50
30
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Time Step (min)
Figure 3. Breakdown voltages for different time steps, given in Table I
Space charge measurements are done using pulsed
electroacoustic (PEA) setup [8]. The duration and amplitude
of the voltage pulse used are 3ns and 0.6 kV respectively. The
experiment is conducted for an electric field value of
60kV/mm, for a duration of one hour each, at 298 K
temperature. 70μm LDPE sheet samples are used for all the
space charge experiments mentioned here.
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
A. Step Stress Test Results from Electrical Treeing
Experiments
The breakdown voltage with different time step is shown
in Fig.3. It can be seen from the figure that as the for time
steps up to 10 minutes, the breakdown voltages decrease
when applied time for stressing the insulating material
increases. It has been observed that for a time step of 20 and
30 minutes, the breakdown voltages increases. This shows the
steady accumulation of space charges near the electrode-
dielectric interface.
Fig. 4 shows the breakdown pictures recorded using
image acquisition software in case of dc treeing experiments.
It was noticed that electrical trees were happening at a very
fast rate (less than one frame) and were not visible before
breakdown, whereas in ac case the inception and propagation
are visible in ac case. Further, it has to be emphasized that the
breakdown occurs only after a finite time after the rise in the
voltage step. Therefore, it is referred to as ‘breakdown’ rather
than tree inception here.
B. Estimation of accumulated damage and voltage
endurance coefficient,n
The coefficient n is determined through the DEM method
which will give the accumulated damage. Only the first three
test types are used for the estimation by DEM. The
intersection of curve in the horizontal axis i.e. the slope is
zero will give the value n and is given in Fig. 5. The
accumulated damage is also shown in the same figure. The
value of n and the cumulative damage/accumulated damage
(DCR) is given in Table 2.
C. Space Charge Density at the Electrode interface
No.of Fig. 6 gives the space charge distribution in LDPE
samples. From the figure, it can be inferred that homocharges
3 are accumulating at the anode-dielectric interface. The peak
3 charge observed near the anode interface is observed and
given in Fig. 7. The charges from the anode surface vary with
time at high electric field indicates the faster movement of
space charges into the dielectric causing a reduction in the
charges at the electrode surface with the increasing values of
applied field.
 45
60kV/mm

40

Charge Density (C/m3)

Elecrode Surface
35

30

25

20

15
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000
Time (secs)

(a) (b) (c) Figure 7. Variation in peak charge magnitude at electrode interface with
Figure 4. (a) Figure shows the needle tip just one frame before the respect to time.
breakdown. (b) The instant of breakdown in treeing experiment. (c) AC
treeing propagation. D. Comparison with AC treeing with step stress test
x 10
14 Reference [5] gives the voltage endurance coefficient for
ac electrical treeing by using residual voltage method. The
2

1.5
tree inception voltage and the average rate of rise of voltage
Accumulated Damage

1 data available in [5] are used to compare with the authors’

0.5 experimental data. Fig. 8 shows the comparison in BDV with
0
different rate of voltage rise from both ac and dc treeing
experiments. It can be seen from the figure as the rate of
voltage rise increases, the tree initiation voltage for ac voltage
-0.5

-1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 increases. In dc case, after some progressive voltage rate of
Voltage Endurance Coefficient, n
rise, the breakdown voltage increases. The breakdown
Figure 5. Variation of cumulative damage at breakdown with respect to n voltage is at a higher rate in dc when compared to ac, the
reason already explained in previous sections. At larger time
The maximum electric field stress ( ) at the needle tip steps, the space charge will be settled and accumulated
electrode, according to Mason’s equation, can be determined largely such that the breakdown voltages will be very high.
as: 80
DC Electrical Treeing
2 70 AC Electrical Treeing
Breakdown Voltage (kV)

= (3)
4 60
log 1 + 50

40
Where
30

V - Applied Voltage 20

R - Radius of curvature of the needle tip 10

d - pin-plane distance 0 0 1 2
10 10 10

The electric field calculated using Mason’s equation does Average Rate (V/sec)

not consider the space charge accumulated during dc voltage
application. Therefore the values obtained will be very high
values more than the intrinsic values of the insulating material.
As the applied voltage increases, more space charge will be
accumulated near the dielectric interface and same will be
reduced at the electrode interface as shown in Fig.7.
Figure 6. Space charge distribution at a field of 60kV/mm
TABLE II. VALUES OF ENDURANCE COEFFICIENT AND CUMULATIVE
DAMAGE
Material DCR
Silicone Rubber 10.9 1.67x10^14
Figure 8. Treeing voltages with different rate of progressive voltage rise (log
scale).
V. CONCLUSIONS
Damage Equalization Method (DEM) is applied to obtain
the voltage endurance coefficient using step-stress
breakdown tests with different time steps in a needle-plane
electrode system. The accumulated damage is also calculated
which gives the life estimation of the insulating material used.
Using DEM method, a fast calculation of voltage endurance
coefficient n is possible with reasonable accuracy when
compared to conventional method.
From the experimental observations, it has to be
emphasized that on the application of dc voltages for larger
time steps, the breakdown voltage increases. This trend seems
to be interesting where the space charge steady accumulation
takes place at higher constant step times which needs to be
further investigated. From the space charge experiments, it is
seen that during high fields, charges will be moving from the
electrode interface to dielectric causing distortion in the
electric field near the electrode-dielectric interface. This may
be a cause for the change in breakdown voltages in needle-
plane system at different time steps.

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