748 Y.

Zhou et al: Electrical Tree Initiation of Silicone Rubber after Thermal Aging

Electrical Tree Initiation of Silicone Rubber

after Thermal Aging
Yuanxiang Zhou, Yunxiao Zhang, Ling Zhang, Dawei Guo
State Key Lab of Electrical Power System, Department of Electrical Engineering
Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

Xu Zhang
North China Electric Power Research Institute Co, Ltd.
Beijing 100045, China

and Mingyuan Wang

State Grid Jibei Electric Economic Research Institute
Beijing 100045, China

ABSTRACT
Power cables operate at high temperatures over long periods of time, and the
electrical behavior of silicone rubber (SIR) in the new types of extra-high-voltage
prefabricated cable accessories would change as a result of thermal aging. In this study,
tests were conducted to reveal the effects of thermal aging (1000 h at 60–180°C) on the
electrical treeing behavior. It was found that with increasing thermal aging time, the
average electrical tree initiation voltage (ATIV) of SIR initially increases to a peak
value and then decreases, finally becoming stable within 1000 h. Meanwhile, the
probability of pine-like trees decreases at first and then increases, whereas the
probability of bush-like trees initially increases and then decreases. The thermal aging
temperature affects the rate of ATIV following the Arrhenius equation. These results
strongly imply the existence of a thermal aging process that greatly influences the
treeing degradation process. The results obtained using differential scanning
calorimetry (DSC) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) indicate that thermal
oxidation plays a major role in the initial thermal aging process and facilitates
additional crosslinking, which enhances ATIV. With increasing thermal aging time,
thermal degradation and thermal crack reactions play leading roles, resulting in
decreased crystallinity and ATIV. Microcracks are present after long-term thermal
aging, and they are the dominant factor in ATIV stability. ATIV stability also provides
a theoretical basis for the electrical strength design margin for insulating materials.
Index Terms - Silicone rubber, thermal aging, electrical tree, initiation voltage,
thermal oxidation, thermal degradation.

1 INTRODUCTION
SILICONE rubber (SIR) is an advanced internal insulating
material that has been widely used in high-voltage cable
accessories due to its excellent insulating, thermal, and
mechanical performance [1-3]. Occasional breakdown mainly
happens in cable accessories that are one of the weakest
segments in a cable system. Under normal operating conditions,
cables are allowed to operate continuously at 90 °C. When the
cable is overloaded or short-circuited, it may operate at 250 °C.
Manuscript received on 23 July 2015, in final form 14 October 2015,
accepted 14 October 2015.
Cable insulation suffers thermal aging over long periods of time,
which may cause some irreversible damage to the electrical
insulation, leading to insulation degradation or even insulation
breakdown. Studies on the thermal behavior of insulating
materials have been carried out over long years. It is of interest
to understand the mechanisms of electrical behavior after
thermal aging, and this understanding is of practical value in
predicting insulation thermal life. Currently, research work is
mainly aimed at studying the influence of thermal aging on oil-
paper insulation [4-6] and polyethylene insulation [7-9]. There
are also many studies discussing the effects of erosion aging on
SIR for external insulation [10, 11]. However, there are few

DOI: 10.1109/TDEI.2015.005514
IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Vol. 23, No. 2; April 2016 749

studies on the thermal behavior of SIR used in internal
insulation of cables.
Electrical trees are an important reason for insulation failure
in polymeric dielectrics [12-16]. In fact, electrical trees are a
kind of insulation defect that looks like a tree. The breakdown
in cable insulation is mainly due to electrical treeing growth.
Meanwhile, with the development of new types of extra-high-
voltage prefabricated cable accessories, recent studies on the
effect of SIR on electrical treeing behavior have been mainly
focused on the short-term characteristics, such as the influence
of frequency [3], cracks [17], the electrode curvature radius
[18], and temperature [19, 20]. The authors reported the
effects of thermal aging time on electrical tree initiation at 90
°C [21]. However, the electrical treeing behavior of SIR and
the corresponding mechanisms of material changes after
thermal aging at different temperatures are rarely reported.
The goal of this study was to investigate the electrical tree
initiation behavior of SIR after thermal aging at different
temperatures. Different thermal aging samples were prepared
under 0–1000 h aging at temperatures of 60, 90, 120, and 180
°C. Electrical treeing behavior was observed and analyzed.
Additionally, material analyses were performed to study the
changes in SIR materials after thermal aging.
transformer oil to prevent interface flashover. The voltage was
gradually increased at a constant rate of 500 V/s. When a tree
channel with a length of at least 10 μm was initiated at the tip
of the needle, the voltage was recorded as the tree initiation
voltage. The applied voltage was maintained for 1 min and
then removed, and the image of the tree was recorded as the
tree initiation morphology. Each test was repeated using the
same conditions 10–20 times to rule out the influence of
impurities that may have been introduced into the samples
during fabrication. The average tree initiation voltage (ATIV)
was calculated from the electrical tree results. Because
electrical trees may grow into different shapes under the same
experimental conditions [1, 12, 13], the probability of treeing
shape was also calculated from the electrical tree results. All
these processes were observed by a digital image-processing
setup consisting of a microscope, a digital camera, and a
computer with imaging-processing software. The whole
experiment system is shown in Figure 2.

2 EXPERIMENTAL DETAILS
2.1 TEST SAMPLES
The SIR samples used in this study were made of commercial
two-component high-temperature-vulcanization (HTV) liquid
SIR, which includes nano-SiO2 to strengthen the mechanical and
electric properties. Figure 1a shows the scanning electron
microscope (SEM) image of a cross section of the SIR, which (a)
illustrates that the nano-SiO2 is well dispersed in the SIR. Figure
1b shows the sample configuration with a needle–plate electrode
system simulating electric field distortion caused by defects and
protrusions in cables, where the cone angle of the needle tip is
30° and the electrode curvature radius is 3 μm. The diameter of
the needle electrode is approximately 250 μm and the vertical
distance between the tip and plate is 3 ± 0.1 mm. The needle
electrode is well pre-embedded and fixed in the SIR before
vulcanization during the preparation process so that samples are
free from mechanical destruction, especially near the needle tip.
The samples were prepared under the following conditions:
vulcanization at 165 °C and a pressure of 6 MPa for 10 min. (b)
The vulcanized SIR samples were again heated in high- Figure 1. (a) SEM image of SIR cross section and (b) schematic of an
temperature ovens at 60, 90, 120, and 180 °C to simulate a experiment sample with a needle electrode.
thermal aging process. The thermal aging time of these
samples was from 0 h to 1000 h. For the convenience of
expression, if the samples were aged at 180 °C for 200 h, they
are denoted as the 180°C-200h samples.

2.2 ELECTRICAL TREE INITIATION TESTS

In order to measure the tree initiation behavior, referring to
the methods used to test the breakdown characteristics of solid
materials, a continuously increasing voltage method was
developed to rapidly initiate trees in the SIR.
A sine wave power supply with a frequency of 50 Hz was
used for the experiment. Samples were immersed in Figure 2. Electrical tree observation and image-processing system.
750 Y. Zhou et al: Electrical Tree Initiation of Silicone Rubber after Thermal Aging

2.3 MATERIAL PROPERTIES TESTS
The thermal properties of the composite samples were
determined by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) (DSC
Q2000, TA Instruments, USA). Samples were cooled down at a
rate of 10 °C/min to −90 °C using liquid nitrogen. Then they
were reheated at 10 °C/min to room temperature, and the DSC
thermograms were obtained.
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) is a surface-
sensitive quantitative spectroscopic technique that measures
the elemental composition of a composite. XPS measurements
were performed with a Thermo ESCALAB 250 spectrometer.
XPS data analysis was performed using XPS Peak 41 software.
2.4 MATH STATISTICS
decreasing ATIV (tD). At 180 °C, ATIV increases with
increasing thermal aging time from 0 h to 50 h. The maximum
value is 9.20 kV, which corresponds to an increase of 27.8%.
From 50 h to 200 h, ATIV decreases and starts to level off after
200 h. The ATIV values at 120 and 90 °C are similar to those
at 180 °C. The values of tI and tD are calculated roughly and
shown in Table 1. In Table 1, tI and tD increase, whereas the
increasing amplitude becomes smaller as the thermal aging
temperature decreases.
10 180°C 90°C
120°C 60°C
9

ATIV (kV RMS)

8
The breakdown strength of insulation materials under AC
voltage meets the statistical two-parameter Weibull 7
distribution, which reflects the material’s breakdown
probability under a certain field intensity. Electrical tree 6
initiation can be seen as the result of local breakdown failure
5
at the needle tip. The two-parameter Weibull distribution
function is defined as follows: 4
U
F（U ,  , ）=1-exp{-( ) } (1) 0 200 400 600 800 1000
 Thermal Aging Time (h)
where U is the electrical tree initiation voltage, F(U) is the Figure 3. Electrical tree initiation voltage under different aging temperatures
cumulative probability, is the scale parameter that represents and thermal aging times.
the electrical tree initiation voltage at the cumulative
Table 1. Rough tI and tD values and amplitude of increasing ATIV at different
breakdown probability of 63.2%, and is the shape parameter aging temperatures.
that represents the inverse of data scatter.
Thermal Increasing
tI (h) tD (h)
temperature (°C) amplitude (%)
3 RESULTS 180 50 27.8 150
120 100 24.9 400
3.1 ELECTRICAL TREE INITIATION VOLTAGE 90 300 18.3 500
Tests were carried out to measure electrical tree initiation after 60 700 10.0 -
different thermal aging times at different temperatures. Figure 3
shows the average initiation voltage statistically under different 99
thermal aging conditions. As shown in Figure 3, aging time and 180°C- 50 h
90 °C 90°C
temperature have significant effects on the tree initiation voltage. 120°C-100 h
0°C 60°C
We discuss the effects of these two factors separately. 90°C-300 h
Weibull Percentiles

60°C-700 h
3.1.1 EFFECTS OF THERMAL AGING TIME ON ATIV 50

The experimental results show that during thermal aging under

the temperature range we selected, the ATIV of SIR did not
change monotonically as expected. Instead, it initially increased
to a peak value and then decreased, without regard to the aging 10
temperature. The ATIV of the samples aged at 90, 120, and
180 °C were stable within 1000 h, decreasing from 7.2 kV to 5
approximately 4.5 kV, a decrease of approximately 37%. 1000 h 4 6 8 10 12 14
was not long enough for the ATIV of the sample aged at 60 °C to
Tree Initiation Voltage (kV RMS)
stabilize; however, the thermal aging time when the ATIV of the
sample aged at 60 °C decreased to 4.5 kV may be calculated, Figure 4. Two-parameter Weibull plots of the electrical tree initiation
voltages of the curves in Figure 3 at different aging temperatures.
which will be discussed in Section 4.3.
Table 2. α and β values corresponding to Figure 4.
3.1.2 EFFECTS OF THERMAL AGING
TEMPERATURE ON ATIV Conditions  
180 °C- 50h 10.33 9.46
The influence of thermal aging temperature on ATIV is 120 °C- 100h 9.71 5.99
embodied in the interval time of increasing ATIV (tI), the 90 °C- 300h 9.65 4.58
amplitude of increasing ATIV, and the interval time of 60 °C- 700h 8.36 4.37
IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation
Figure 4 shows two-parameter Weibull plots of the
electrical tree initiation voltage for samples after 50 h at
180 °C, after 100 h at 120 °C, after 300 h at 90 °C, and after
700 h at 60 °C, taken from the curves in Figure 3 at different
thermal temperatures. Table 2 presents the scale parameter (α)
and shape parameter (β) values corresponding to Figure 4.
The Weibull plots shift to the left, and it is observed that both
the scale parameter and the shape parameter increase with
increasing thermal temperature. The Weibull tree initiation
voltage for the 180 °C-50h sample was found to be 10.33 kV,
23.6% higher than that for the 60 °C-700h sample, which was
8.36 kV. The shape parameter increased from 4.37 to 9.46,
indicating that the dispersity of the treeing initiation voltage
decreased with increasing thermal temperature.
The thermal aging temperature has a great influence on the
rate of tree initiation changing. The higher the temperature,
the shorter the change of tree initiation voltage and the faster
the voltage reaches peak and tends to be stable. In addition,
the peak values of the ATIV curves increase with increasing
aging temperature, showing another interesting trend.
Figure 5. Typical forms of electrical trees in SIR: (a) branch-like trees; (b)
pine-like trees; (c) bush-like trees.
Vol. 23, No. 2; April 2016 751
80
Branch-like trees
Pine-like trees
Tree Shape Probobility (%)
Bush-like trees
60
40
20
0
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Thermal Aging Time (h)
Figure 6. The probability of electrical trees after different thermal aging times.
3.2 MORPHOLOGY OF ELECTRICAL TREES
After the electrical tree is initiated, the electrical tree growth
and the formation mechanism of every kind of electrical tree
is different from each other, and they can be divided into three
typical types: branch-like trees, pine-like trees, and bush-like
trees [16], as shown in Figure 5. Branch-like trees have only a
few branches, as shown in Figure 5a. The color of the branch
is relatively light, and the channels are sparse. For the pine-
like trees, as shown in Figure 5b, the color is darker. The
speed of electrical tree growth is faster, and the channels are
obviously thick. Many bifurcate branches generate from the
channels; meanwhile, some serried needle-shaped pine leaves
are generated on the bifurcated branches. For bush-like trees,
as shown in Figure 5c, a large number of new channels are
generated near the tip in a short period of time, gathering
around the tip to form dense, bush-type electrical trees. The
pine-like trees develop fast, which may easily lead to
breakdown in a short time, whereas the bush-like trees are
denser, but early breakdown is unlikely [22].
The probability of electrical tree types after different
thermal aging times is shown in Figure 6. It is obvious that the
probability of branch-like trees is fairly low, approximately
10%. With increasing thermal aging time, the probability of
pine-like trees initially decreases from 63.6% to 36.4% and
then increases to 75% at 1000 h, whereas the probability of
bush-like trees initially increases from 27.3% to 54.5% and
then decreases to 16.7% at 1000 h. The thermal aging time at
which this shift happens is 300 h, which corresponds to the
changing point of ATIV of the aging samples at 90°C. Finally,
the probability of bush-like trees decreases to 16.7% and the
probability of pine-like trees increases to 75% when the
thermal aging time reaches 1000 h.
3.3 MATERIAL ANALYSIS
The melting point of the polymer can be obtained through
DSC analysis, and the degree of crystallinity (θ) of the
polymer can be calculated in accordance with the
corresponding formula in order to determine the changes of
the material structure. θ after different thermal aging
conditions could be obtained based on the crystallinity
formula as follows:
752 Y. Zhou et al: Electrical Tree Initiation of Silicone Rubber after Thermal Aging

 =Hfs / H100 100% (2) (a)

Where ᇞHfs is the fusion heat of the SIR samples and ᇞH100 is
the fusion heat of 100% crystallinity. The ᇞH100 value is 37.4
J/g for SIR.
Figure 7 shows the DSC curves for samples aged at 90 °C

Heat Flow
and 180°C, and Table 3 shows the corresponding θ of the
thermally treated samples. The changes of θ are shown in
Table 3, illustrating that with increasing thermal aging time, θ
tends to initially increase and then decrease. At 90 °C, the Raw Sample
90°C-700 h
aging time corresponding to the turning point of θ is 300 h, 90°C-300 h
90°C-1000 h
where θ is 60.3%. With increasing thermal aging time up to 90°C-500 h
1000 h, θ decreases to 30.4%. Similarly, at 180°C, the turning -60 -50 -40 -30
point is 200 h, where θ is 58.6%. When the time reaches 1000 Temperature (°C)
h, it decreases to 33.5%. The nonmonotonic trend of θ follows
(b)
the distribution of ATIV.
Thermal treatment is performed in air, which leads to thermal
oxidation, thermal degradation, and thermal crack reactions of
the SIR material chain segments. The thermal oxidation, thermal
degradation, and thermal crack reaction are shown respectively

Heat Flow
in equations (3)–(5). In air atmosphere, the side groups of SIR
could be oxidized with the oxygen [as shown in reaction (3)].
Because the Si–O bond has both covalent and ionic
180°C-5 h
characteristics, dissolution of the Si–O structure could lead to 180°C-500 h
180°C-50 h
degradation of SIR under high-temperature conditions [as 180°C-1000 h
shown in equation (4)]. The molecular chain could be broken 180°C-200 h
into small molecules as a result of the thermal crack reaction [as -60 -50 -40 -30
shown in equation (5)]. The thermal crack reaction may happen Temperature (°C)
at higher temperatures and longer aging times than the thermal Figure 7. DSC curves of l samples aged at (a) 90°C and (b) 180 °C.
oxidation and thermal degradation reactions.
Table 3. θ of the corresponding DSC results of Figures 7a and 7b.
Conditions θ Conditions θ
Raw Sample 37.8% 180 °C-5h 38.0%
90 °C-300h 60.3% 180 °C-50h 42.8%
(3) 90 °C-500h 40.0% 180 °C-200h 58.6%
90 °C-700h 33.7% 180 °C-500h 54.7%
90 °C-1000h 30.4% 180 °C-1000h 33.5%

Physical Crosslinking
(Phase C)

(4)

(5)
Nano‐SiO2

As shown in Figure 8, the structure of SIR can be seen as a

combination of phases A, B, and C. Phase A is the molecular
chain of SIR, which is not adsorbed by nano-SiO2; phase B is
the chemical cross-linked structure of the polysiloxane
molecular chain, whereas phase C is the physical cross-linked
structure of nano-SiO2 and the polysiloxane molecular chain,
which is the microcrystalline structure of SIR. As for SIR,
which is an amorphous viscoelastic body, the crystallinity
zone corresponds to the arranged places, mainly of the high
intensity area near the nano-SiO2 filler material (phase C) and
the chemical cross-linked structures (phase B).
Free Molecules
Chemical Crosslinking (Phase A)
(Phase B)
Figure 8. Schematic of structure of SiO2-filled rubber.
During the initial thermal reaction, the pendant group of
SIR is oxidized first, resulting in silicon hydroxyls (Si–OH).
There is a polycondensation reaction with the silicon
hydroxyls, which forms new crosslinking points and enhances
IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Vol. 23, No. 2; April 2016 753

the hardness of SIR. In addition, Si–OH will connect with the
SiO2, generating new physical crosslinking [as shown in
reaction (3)]. The further crosslinking process could be called
“secondary vulcanization”. That is why θ increases as the
thermal aging time goes initially. However, with increasing
thermal aging time, the redundant Si–OH could cause thermal
degradation [as shown in reaction (4)]. Because of the thermal
degradation, SIR molecules degraded to some small molecule
chains. Meanwhile, the thermal crack reaction may also
happen in this process [as shown in reaction (5)]. Both
reactions break down phases B and C in SIR leading to a
decrease of crystallinity.
(a) Raw Sample
Raw Intensity
Peak Sum
Intensity (a.u.)
The XPS results give direct evidence to support the
materials changes described above. Several groups of samples
after thermal aging were tested and showed similar trends.
The raw sample and the 180 °C-1000h sample were selected
in order to discuss the changes in SIR after thermal aging.
Figure 9 shows the Si-scanning XPS results of the raw sample
and the 180 °C-1000h sample. There are three chemical
environments of Si in siloxane materials: SiO2C2, SiO3C, and
SiO4, with corresponding binding energies of 102.0, 102.8,
and 103.6 eV, respectively [23]. Chemical shifts happen for
the different chemical environments, and so the results should
be analyzed by peak separation using XPS peak software. The
contents of these three chemical environments were calculated
and are shown in Table 4.
SiO2C2
The results show that the contents of SiO3C and SiO4
102.0 eV
increase, which means that heat oxygen aging happens in
silicone rubber materials, which is consistent with the above

analysis. Table 5 shows the content of Si, O, and C at full

spectrum scanning. The content of C decreases after aging,
whereas the proportion of Si and O increases. The thermal
103.6 eV oxidation [as shown in reaction (3)] leads to an increasing
102.8 eV
SiO4 SiO3C proportion of O. After thermal degradation, the oligomer
diffuses outwards, which causes the proportion of Si to
increase. These changes in the element contents further
illustrate the material changes under thermal aging.
106 104 102 100
Binding Energy (eV)
4 DISCUSSION
4.1 ELECTRICAL TREE BEHAVIOR AFTER
THERMAL AGING
(b) 180 -1000 h 102.0 eV The XPS results showed that the thermal oxidation and
SiO2C2 thermal degradation reactions happen during the thermal
Raw Intensity aging process. Meanwhile, θ initially increases and then
Peak Sum decreases. Combining the XPS and DSC results, we found
Intensity (a.u.)

that the changes to the structure during thermal aging of SIR

can be divided into two stages: At the beginning of thermal
103.6 eV
aging, further vulcanization (secondary vulcanization) takes
SiO4 102.8 eV place at high temperatures due to the thermal oxidation which
SiO3C leads to increasing θ. In the latter part of the thermal aging
process, deterioration happens. The thermal degradation
reaction and thermal crack reaction are dominant in the
thermal aging process, which leads to a decrease in the
106 104 102 100 material strength and a decrease of θ.
Binding Energy (eV) Subjected to thermal aging effects, θ of SIR could change.
That is, the content of phases A, B, and C of SIR could
Figure 9. Si-scanning XPS results of the (a) raw sample and the change. The electrical tree growth in SIR generally happens at
(b) 180 °C-1000h sample.
an internal weak physical area. In the samples with larger θ,
Table 4. Contents of the three chemical environments. there is less of a weak physical zone. The probability of
Chemical
electrical tree initiation under certain AC voltages is
Raw sample 180 °C -1000h correspondingly lower. Therefore, ATIV would increase. As
environment
SiO2C2 77.05% 59.72% for the effects of electrical tree morphology, SIR with a less
SiO3C 13.14% 15.75% weak physical area may not form a larger discharge capacity.
SiO4 9.81% 24.53% Many small discharge channels grow from the tip, which is
Table 5. Contents of C, Si, and O at full spectrum scanning more likely to be seen as bush-like trees under the microscope.
With a lower degree of crystallinity of the SIR sample, the
Chemical
environment
Raw sample 180 °C-1000h physical zone of weakness is larger, where ATIV would
C 49.44% 47.22% decrease and a larger discharge can easily form, resulting in
Si 23.68% 25.19% larger discharge channels. Therefore, the electrical tree is
O 26.88% 27.59% more likely to be pine-like.
754 Y. Zhou et al: Electrical Tree Initiation of Silicone Rubber after Thermal Aging

Thermal aging causes a change in the crystallinity in SIR, Because k is proportional to 1/t, where t is the thermal aging
which causes a change in the electrical tree behavior. At the time, 1/tI and 1/tD could be considered as the rates at which
beginning of the thermal aging process, the crystallinity ATIV increases and decreases, respectively (tI and tD are shown
increases, which leads to increasing ATIV and the probability in Table 2). In reaction 7, lnk is the linear function of 1/T; that
of bush-like trees. In the latter part of the thermal aging is, ln(1/tI) and ln(1/tD) are both linear functions of 1/T. The
process, the crystallinity and ATIV decrease and the fitting results are shown in Figure 12, where the R-square (r1) of
probability of pine-like trees increases. ln(1/tI) and 1/T is 0.95 and the R-square (r2) of ln(1/tD) and 1/T
is 0.99. These results basically satisfy the linear relationship,
4.2 STABLE BEHAVIOR OF ATIV AFTER LONG- which means that the temperatures on the reaction rate follows
TERM THERMAL AGING the Arrhenius equation, indicating that the thermal aging
Another phenomenon is that cracks could be seen under the process is a consistent reaction at different temperatures.
microscope in some SIR samples after long-term thermal aging. As mentioned in Section 3.1.1, 1000 h is not long enough
Although the samples we selected for electrical tree initiation for ATIV at 60 °C to be stable. According to Figure 12, we
tests were intact, meaning that we could not see cracks under the can calculate that it will take approximately 2700 h before
microscope, some internal microcracks may have been present ATIV at 60 °C decreases to 4.5 kV, which is far beyond our
after long-term thermal aging process. The needle tip is experimental aging time
surrounded by microcracks, resulting in mechanical damage and
stress concentration at the needle tip. Mechanical damage causes
tear strength of SIR become lower leading the ATIV becomes (a)
lower compared with that of raw sample [17].
Figure 10 shows a sample with cracks at the needle tip
(selected from the failed 180 °C-1000h samples) and the
corresponding electrical tree initiation morphology. Figure 11
compares the ATIV of three different types of samples: raw
samples without thermal aging, 180 °C-1000h samples, and
samples with cracks. The ATIV of the raw sample is 7.2 kV
and that of the 180 °C-1000h samples is 4.5 kV, whereas that
of the samples with cracks is 4.3 kV, which is close to that of
the 180 °C-1000h samples. This indicates that when
microcracks exist, especially around the needle tip, the ATIV
is stable to approximately 4.5 kV in our test conditions. That
is, when samples are subject to the latter thermal aging
process, aging microcracks become the dominant factor of
ATIV behavior, where the ATIV becomes to be stable after
long-term thermal aging.

4.3 EFFECTS OF THERMAL AGING TEMPERATURE

To examine the impact of thermal aging temperature on the
electrical tree initiation during thermal aging, the secondary
vulcanization process and deterioration process of SIR are set
as two separate processes.
In terms of the general chemical reaction, temperature
directly affects the molecular motion. Higher temperatures Figure 10. A sample with cracks and its electrical treeing morphology.
could cause a higher collision probability, further accelerating
the rate of the reaction. The relationship between the rate of 8
reaction and temperature follows the Arrhenius equation:
Ea 6
k  Aa exp(  ), (6)
ATIV (kV RMS)

RT
4
in which k is the chemical reaction rate, Aa and Ea are the
pre-exponential factor of chemical reactions and activation
energy, respectively, R is the universal gas constant, and T is 2
the temperature at which the reaction is carried out. Taking the
logarithm, equation (6) is transformed into
0
Raw 180°C-1000h Cracks
E 1
ln k  ln Aa  a  (7) Sample type
R T Figure 11. ATIV of three different samples.
IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation
-4
Increasing Stage
Decreasing Stage
r1=0.95
-5
90°C
ln(1/t)
-6 r2=0.99
180°C 120°C
-7
0.0022 0.0024 0.0026 0.0028 0.0030
1/T
Figure 12. Linear fitting curves of Arrhenius equation.
Further, from the Weibull distribution shown in Figure 4,
over the short term, the higher the thermal aging temperature,
the higher the peak voltage of the electrical tree initiation.
This illustrates that the higher the thermal aging temperature
during the initial aging process, the more fully oxidation
reactions take place, which increases ATIV. This phenomenon
is similar to the electrical tree initiation of room-temperature
vulcanized silicone rubber (RTV) [19]. A fully crosslinking
reaction also improves the distribution of the crosslinking
network, which decreases the dispersity of the electrical tree
initiation voltage. However, ATIV decreases and tends to
stabilize after the long-term thermal aging process. Secondary
vulcanization has a short-term positive effect on the
enhancement of ATIV; however, after long-term thermal
aging, ATIV is still lower than that of the raw samples.
The fact that ATIV first increases and then decreases, as
well as its tendency to stabilize with increasing thermal aging
time, is of great practical significance. Although SIR has good
thermal performance, the ATIV of SIR decreases after long-
term thermal aging, which makes it difficult for materials to
resist the electrical tree growth. The tendency of ATIV to
stabilize provides a theoretical basis for the electrical strength
design margin for insulating materials used for cable
accessories insulation.
5 CONCLUSION
This paper reports the effects of long-term thermal aging on
electrical trees in SIR. The electrical tree initiation voltage and
morphology were analyzed. Based on changes to the materials
according to DSC and XPS results, the electrical tree initiation
behavior was discussed, and the effects of thermal aging
temperature were analyzed. The conclusions are as follows:
(1) With increasing thermal aging time, ATIV did not show a
monotonic change; it initially increased to a peak value and
then decreased, without regard to the aging temperature.
ATIV for the samples at 90, 120, and 180°C was stable within
1000 h at 4.5 kV.
(2) The thermal aging temperature had a significant influence
on the rate of change of tree initiation. The higher the
temperature, the shorter the change in the tree initiation
voltage and the faster the voltage reached a peak value and
Vol. 23, No. 2; April 2016 755
stabilized. The results conformed to the Arrhenius equation. In
addition, the tree initiation voltage at the peak increased with
increasing temperature.
(3) At 90°C, with increasing thermal aging time, the
probability of pine-like trees decreases at first and then
60°C increases, whereas the probability of bush-like trees initially
increases and then decreases.
(4) According to the DSC and XPS results, thermal oxidation
played a major role in the initial thermal aging process. A
polycondensation reaction occurred with the silicon hydroxyls,
which formed new crosslinking points and facilitated
secondary vulcanization in SIR. With increasing thermal
aging time, thermal degradation and thermal crack reactions
played a leading role, which leads to a decrease of crystallinity
and ATIV.
(5) Secondary vulcanization had a short-term, positive effect
on ATIV. However, ATIV after long-term thermal aging
decreased below than that of the raw samples.
(6) When SIR suffers from thermal aging at the latter process,
microcracks are the dominant factor in ATIV behavior, where
the ATIV becomes stable after long-term thermal aging. The
stabilization of ATIV provides a theoretical basis for the
electrical strength design margin for insulating materials used
for cable accessories insulation.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors are very grateful to the Special Fund of the
National Priority Basic Research of China under Grant
2014CB239501, and supported by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (NSFC 51377089) and the
Science and Technology Project of State Grid of China.
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Mingyuan Wang was born in Shanxi Province,

China, in 1989. He received the B. E. degree in
electrical engineering in 2013 and a Master degree in
in 2015 from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. He
is now an engineer in State Grid Jibei Electric
Economic Research Institute. His research field is
partial discharge tests.