2012 The Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan.

1
A
IEEJ Transactions on Fundamentals and Materials
Vol.132 No.11 pp.- DOI: 10.1541/ieejfms.132.



Breakdown of Air-Polymer Composite Insulation due to Partial Discharge
and Influence of Thermal Insulation

Eka Putra Waldi
a)
Non-member, Yoshinobu Murakami

Member
Naohiro Hozumi

Senior Member, Masayuki Nagao

Senior Member

(Manuscript received Sep. 2, 2011, revised May 17, 2012)

Breakdown characteristics of air-polymer composite insulation under repetition of partial discharge have been studied using
needle-plane electrode system. The purpose of this study is to clarify the effect of repetitive partial discharges and thermal
properties of polymer on breakdown mechanism of air-polymer composite insulation under the application of pulse voltage. The
experiments were also performed by inserting a thermal insulation film (TI) between an electrical insulating film for breakdown
and the plane electrode. The number of pulse voltage up to breakdown (N
BD
) was measured with variation of pulse frequency.
With increasing the pulse frequency, the sudden drop of the N
BD
appeared over a threshold of pulse frequency. The threshold
frequency became lower by inserting TI. The results observed with thermograph show that surface temperature was increased
with increasing pulse frequency and increased more remarkably around the threshold frequency. With insertion of the TI, the
surface temperature rise appeared at lower frequency. These results on the breakdown characteristic and the thermal characteristic
were successfully explained based on the numerical analysis of the thermal circuit.

Keywords : breakdown, partial discharge, polyethylene, repetitive pulse voltage, thermal property

1. Introduction
Polymers such as polyethylene are widely used as insulation
material in many electrical apparatuses and devices because of
their excellent electrical and mechanical properties. Usually
polymers are used together with other insulating material in
practical high voltage insulation, such as air-polymer composite
insulation. As the dielectric strength of the air is less than that of
polymer, discharge activity will start within the air and partially
bridges the insulation between conductors with increasing the
applied voltage. It is given name by partial discharge (PD). The
PD causes the progressive deterioration of polymer surface,
ultimately leading to electrical breakdown.
In order to localize the point where the PD takes place, a
needle-plane electrode system is adopted in this work where an
insulation film put on the plane electrode and the needle electrode
is put above the film with a certain distance. To control the PD
activity, a pulse voltage was used. Furthermore, PD repetition can
be controlled by changing pulse frequency.
The influence of PD on the breakdown of LDPE film under
pulse voltage was studied by some of authors
(1)(2)
. The number of
pulse voltage up to breakdown (N
BD
) was measured under
different condition. Increasing the voltage amplitude under the
same frequency will decrease the N
BD
. However, the PD cannot be
considered as the only factor which can decrease the N
BD
, because
at the same time the electric field was also increased with
increasing the voltage. One way to show the influence of PD on
breakdown of polymer film is the increase of repetition of PD by
increasing the voltage frequency. Two regions of N
BD
were
obtained with parameters of the repetition rate of PD and applied
electric field. The first was obtained when the breakdown occurred
at the higher electric field. The repetition rate of PD little affected
the N
BD
. The second was obtained when the breakdown occurred
at the lower electric field. The high repetition rate of PD gave a
lower N
BD
.
In this second region, we simultaneously observed the surface
temperature rise until the breakdown due to PD activity using
thermograph. A good agreement existed between the breakdown
characteristics and surface temperature with different repetition of
PD
(2)
. The surface temperature increased due to the pulse heat
brought by the PD and decreased depending on the heat time
constant of insulation system. If the period of repetition of pulse
voltage was smaller than the heat time constant of the insulation
system, the heat on the insulation surface accumulated and then
the surface temperature increased significantly, consequently the
insulation led to breakdown in smaller number of pulse voltage.
However, the temperature rise due to repetition of pulse voltage
was scarcely investigated. It is very important to understand the
breakdown phenomena due to repetition of PD under pulse
voltage in different thermal properties of polymer.
On the other hand, for industrial applications, pulse voltage is
used in the inverter to control the speed of motors by changing
pulse frequency
(3)
. This pulse voltage can stress on the electrical
insulation system and may give rise to the initiation of PD and
ultimately leads to breakdown. It is necessary to investigate the
destruction of the insulation system due to PD under pulse voltage.
In this paper, the electrical breakdown due to repetition of PD
under pulse voltage in air gap and the influence of thermal
properties of polymer were studied. Moreover, the mechanism of
a) Correspondence to: Eka Putra Waldi. E-mail: ekawaldi2@yahoo.com

Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Toyohashi

University of Technology
1-1, Hibarigaoka, Tempaku-cho, Toyohashi 441-8580, Japan

Intl Cooperation Center for Engineering Education Development/

Dept. Electrical & Electronic Information Engineering, Toyohashi
University of Technology
1-1, Hibarigaoka, Tempaku-cho, Toyohashi 441-8580, Japan
Paper
Breakdown of Air-Polymer Composite Insulation due to Partial Discharge (Eka Putra Waldi et al.)
2 IEEJ Trans. FM, Vol.132, No.11, 2012
breakdown with repetition of PD involved by the surface
temperature rise was discussed based on the numerical analysis for
different thermal conditions of the insulation system.
2. Experimental Method
2.1 Electrode and Specimen Configuration The
electrode system is shown in Fig. 1. The specimen for breakdown
test was a low density polyethylene (LDPE) film with a thickness
of 20 m. The bottom surface of the film was evaporated with
gold in the vacuum chamber as the ground electrode. For TI, the
same kind of polymer film was put between the specimen for
breakdown test and the aluminum plane electrode which was
connected to the ground electrode evaporated on the LDPE film
for breakdown test and the ground. The experiment was carried
out with or without insertion of the TI, being denoted as with TI
and without TI respectively. A stainless steel needle with a radius
tip of 10 m was set to make the air gap distance of 0.5 mm.
2.2 Partial Discharge Measurement System The
schematic diagram of experimental setup is shown in Fig. 2. The
square pulse high voltage amplifier was derived by function
generator and totally controlled by a PC via general purpose
interface bus (GPIB) under Labview software. The high voltage
amplifier was able to generate a voltage of 20 kV with duty
cycle from 5 to 95 % and frequency from 0 to 10 kHz. In this
research, we used a square wave pulse voltage of 8 kV with
positive polarity having duty cycle of 50 % and the frequency
from 10 to 1000 Hz
(1)
. The number of pulse voltage up to
breakdown (N
BD
) was calculated by the multiplication of time
duration to breakdown and pulse voltage frequency.
Figure 3 shows the waveform of PD current measured with a
50 resistor and a digital oscilloscope (TDS5052B, Tektronix,
500 MHz, 500 GS/s). The magnitudes
(5)
are recorded using fast
frame function of the oscilloscope. Width of half of PD magnitude
can represent.
2.3 Surface Temperature Measurement Surface
temperature rise of insulation material due to the PD exposure was
measured using thermograph (TH210, Nihon Denki Sanei Co.
Ltd.). The configuration of experimental setup is shown in Fig. 2.
The thermal image is transmitted to PC with 1 frame in one second
by GPIB interface. All the measurement was performed at 20C.
3. Results and Discussion
Figure 4 shows the relation between the number of pulse
voltage up to breakdown (N
BD
) and the frequency of applied pulse
voltage. In the figure, each point represents an average of N
BD

with 10 specimens and the error bar represents the standard
deviation. N
BD
curves tend to decrease drastically with increasing
the frequency. The frequency value at which N
BD
begins to
decrease is defined as the threshold frequency. The threshold
frequency becomes lower when the TI is inserted between the
sample film for breakdown test and the aluminum plate. These
results indicate that the heat transfer from the film to the
aluminum plate could become worse by the insertion of TI and
then its heat accumulation inside the film could lead the
breakdown more easily.
Figure 5 Shows the magnitude of PD as a function of frequency
of applied voltage. PD magnitudes were obtained from first 50 PD
pulses when pulse voltage was applied. The PD magnitudes in the
different condition of TI and frequency were almost the same.
Figure 6 shows the half pulse width of PD waveform at various
frequencies of applied voltage. Pulse width of PD were obtained
from first 50 PD pulses when pulse voltage was applied. The half
pulse width in the different condition of TI and frequency were
almost the same.
These results (Fig. 5 and Fig. 6) suggest that the conditions of
PD exposure on the sepcimen are almost the same at any
experimental conditions in this experiment because the magnitude


Needle
Aluminum plane
Gold evaporated
LDPE film for breakdown
Thermal Insulation film (TI)
0.5 mm
Ground wire

Fig. 1. Electrode configuration


Thermograph

Oscilloscope
Function generator

High voltage amplifier
Shielding room
Z

LAN cable
GPIB cable
Thermo tracer

45
Personal computer

Fig. 2. Experimental setup


Time
Half of magnitude of PD
Width of half of PD magnitude
M
a
g
n
i
t
u
d
e

o
f

P
D


Fig. 3. Pulse waveform illustration of PD

Breakdown of Air-Polymer Composite Insulation due to Partial Discharge (Eka Putra Waldi et al.)
3 IEEJ Trans. FM, Vol.132, No.11, 2012
Fig. 6. Half width of PD function of frequency of pulse
Fig. 4. Frequency dependence of NBD at 8 kV
10
2
10
3

10
4

10
5

N
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

p
u
l
s
e

u
p

t
o

b
r
e
a
k
d
o
w
n

(
N
B
D
)

100 1000
Frequency (Hz)
10
Without TI
With TI
Fig. 5. Frequency dependence of discharge magnitude
Without TI
With TI
100 1000
Frequency (Hz)
10
16
4
8
12
0
M
a
g
n
i
t
u
d
e

o
f

d
i
s
c
h
a
r
g
e

(
1
0
0
0

p
C
)

16
4
8
12
0
Frequency (Hz)
H
a
l
f

w
i
d
t
h

o
f

P
D

(
n
s
)

10 1000 100
Without TI
With TI
(a) With TI
(b) Without TI
Fig. 7. Temperature profile with TI (a) and without TI (b) under
positive polarity of 8 kV with pulse frequency of 200 Hz
o
C
D= 1 mm
o
C
Fig. 8. Surface temperature from thermograph in various
frequencies
20

40
60
80
Frequency (Hz)
10 1000 100
S
u
r
f
a
c
e

t
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r
e


[
o
C
]

Without TI
With TI
and the half pulse width of PD pulse did not change significantly,
that is the PD did not change the aging prosess due to the
electrification
(4)
which did not appear in this experiment.
Figure 7 shows the infrared images at 1 second after the voltage
application with a frequency of 200 Hz without or with TI. These
images show the temperature profiles on the surface due to PD
exposure. These figures indicated that the hot spot appeared on the
area where the PDs were taken place. From these figures, we
confirmed that the surface temperature of the hot spot with TI (see
Fig. 7(a)) was higher than that without TI (see Fig. 7(b)).
Figure 8 shows the surface temperature of the hot spot due to
PD exposure at 1 second after the voltage application, which is
detected automatically from the thermal image in Fig. 7 using
Labview program. With increase of frequency, the surface
Breakdown of Air-Polymer Composite Insulation due to Partial Discharge (Eka Putra Waldi et al.)
4 IEEJ Trans. FM, Vol.132, No.11, 2012
Radiation resistivity
10 divisions
Thermal insulation film (TI)

10 divisions
LDPE film for breakdown
Surface resistivity
Heat resistivity
Pulse energy
T1
T2
T3
T11
T12
T13
T20
T0
T0
T0
Heat capacity
Fig. 9. One-dimensional model for heat caused by partial
discharge mechanism
0 0.05 0.1
Time (s)
T
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r
e

[
o
C
]

20
60
40
80
T
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r
e

[
o
C
]

20
60
40
80
0 0.05 0.1
Time (s)
(a) Frequency = 100 Hz, without TI (b) Frequency = 200 Hz, without TI
0 0.05 0.1
Time (s)
T
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r
e

[
o
C
]

20
60
40
80
0 0.05 0.1
Time (s)
T
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r
e

[
o
C
]

20
60
40
80
(c) Frequency = 100 Hz, with TI (d) Frequency = 200 Hz, with TI
Fig. 10. Time dependence of simulation of surface temperature
(a) & (b) without and (c) & (d) with TI (frequency of repetition
wave pulses: 100 Hz and 200 Hz)
temperature at the hot spot tends to increase only slightly at first,
but above a certain frequency (threshold frequency) its increase
become drastically. The surface temperature of the specimen with
TI was higher than that without TI from 10 to 1000 Hz. With TI
the threshold frequency appeared at lower frequency than that
without TI.
In order to understand the breakdown mechanism caused by the
PD exposure, we investigated this phenomenon using pulse heat
dynamics. The surface temperature of the specimen could increase
due to the heat of PD and could decrease due to the heat transfer
of insulation system as a function of time. This phenomenon has a
duality with a parallel electric circuit of capacitor and resistor
under the repetition of charging and discharging. Here, the voltage
was deal with the temperature and the current was deal with the
heat caused by the PD exposure.
As shown in Fig. 7, surface temperature rise due to PD
exposure was clearly observed with the area of about 1 mm in
diameter just below the needle electrode. This area is very large
compared with the thickness of LDPE film, therefore the
simulation of surface temperature rise can be made based on the
one dimensional analysis. The method of calculation used here is
similar to the work of some of the authors
(1)
as shown in Fig. 9. In
the numerical calculation, we divided the thickness of LDPE film
for breakdown test into 10 divisions and also the time between
successive PDs into 10 divisions. The effect of the insertion of the
additional TI between the LDPE film for breakdown and the
alumunium plate was simulated by adding the additional 10
divisions of TI layer below the sample film for breakdown test.
Figure 10 shows calculation results of the temparature rise
caused by PD exposure. At the same frequency of voltage,
temperature rise without TI is lower than that with TI (comparing
Fig. 10(a) and 10(c)). In the case of calculation without TI (see
Fig. 10(a)), the pulse heat of the specimen brought by the PD
exposure was absorbed directly by an aluminum plate, which
made the residual temperature rise very small. On the other hand,
when TI was inserted (see Fig. 10(c)), the pulse heat of specimen
brought by PD exposure was retained by TI. Consequently, the
residual temperature rise would be summed up by the successive
PD. The residual temperature rise after PD exposure was
correlated with thermal time constant of the electrical insulation
system. In the calculation, the thermal time constant will become
larger value by the insertion of TI. With large time constant, the
decrement of temperature rise as a function of time became
smaller. Therefore, the residual temperature rises after PD
exposure at the same frequency become larger. As the result, the
residual temperature rise due to PD exposure would be summed
up by the successive discharges.
The thermograph is calibrated by assuming that the target is
placed under uniform distribution of temperature. The heat
radiation from unit area of the plastic plate with infinite thickness
is described as
4 4
0
0
( )exp( )
p B
I k T T x dx

.................................
(1)
Where I is the heat radiation from unite area,
p
is the heat
radiation constant of polymer, k
B
is the Stephan-Boltzman
constant, T is the temperature of the target, T
0
is the temperature
of the infrared sensor, is the attenuation constant, and x is the
depth from the surface. As for polyethylene, the attenuation
constant is known as to be 0.095 /mm. The heat radiation constant
of the system is defined as
4 4
0
0
4 4
0 0
( )exp( )
( )
p B
B
k T T x dx
I
I k T T

= =

........................
(2)
This heat radiation constant can be obtained by comparing the
heat radiation of plastic plate with a sufficient thickness and black
body, both of them being placed at the same temperature T. The
temperature of plastic film can be calculated as
1/ 4
4
0
B
I
T T
k
| |
= +
|
\ .

.........................................................
(3)
In fact, however, the film exposed to the discharge has a
temperature distribution along the depth. In this case, the heat
Breakdown of Air-Polymer Composite Insulation due to Partial Discharge (Eka Putra Waldi et al.)
5 IEEJ Trans. FM, Vol.132, No.11, 2012
Fig. 12. Correlation between NBD and surface temperature in
various frequencies
10
2

10
3

10
4

10 1000
Frequency (Hz)
100
10
5

N
B
D

80
60
40
20
S
u
r
f
a
c
e

t
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r
e

[
o
C
]

Without TI
With TI
Fig. 11. Surface temperature from thermograph and simulation
in various frequencies
20

40
60
80
10 1000
Frequency (Hz)
100
S
u
r
f
a
c
e

t
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r
e

[
o
C
]

Measurement result
Simulation result
Without TI
With TI
radiation from the film with a thickness d can be described as
( )
( )
4 4
0
0
4 4
0
( ) exp( )
( ) exp( )
d
p B
g B
I k T x T x dx
k T d T d


=
+

Where T(x) is the temperature distributed along the depth of
plastic, T(d) is the temperature of gold and
g
is the heat radiation
from a unit area of gold. The second term is negligible, since the
radiation from gold attenuates in the plastic plate and becomes
very small compared to that from the plastic plate. When the
temperature distribution changes periodically in time with a period
of t
p
, the average heat radiation can be described as
( )
4 4
0
0 0
1
( , ) exp( )
p
t d
p B
p
I k T x t T x dxdt
t
=


.............
(5)
As the thermograph assumed that temperature distribution is
uniform throughout the film, it indicates temperature T in Eq. (3)
that gives the same radiation as Eq. (5). The apparent temperature
(
ap
T ) indicated by the thermograph is subsequently represented as
( )
1/ 4
4 4
0
0 0
4
0
0
1
( , ) exp( )
exp( )
p
t d
p
ap
T x t T x dxdt
t
T T
x dx

= +
`


)

............................................
(6)
We can compare the simulation of the temperature distribution
and the experimental data acquired by the thermograph.
Figure 11 shows the surface temperature due to PD exposure as
function of pulse frequency with and without TI. The thin curves
indicate the simulation results of mean surface temperature when
the specimen was exposed to the repetitive PD as function of pulse
frequency. They agree with the measurement results (bold curves)
of which the curve moves to lower frequency by inserting TI.
Figure 12 shows correlation between N
BD
and the simulation
results of mean surface temperature as function of pulse frequency
with and without TI. In the case of without TI and with TI, the
threshold frequency are 100 Hz and 200 Hz, respectively. In both
without TI and with TI cases, the significant decrease of N
BD

change is seen when the frequency exceeds in these threshold.
These sudden drop of N
BD
similar was brought by the cumulative
temperature rise due to PD exposure because threshold frequency
of N
BD
and surface temperature was almost the same. The
temperature rise may accelerate the chemical reactions of polymer
that lead to degradation, and at the same time, reduce the dielectric
strength. It is therefore considerable that the shift of the
frequency-N
BD
curve corresponds with the shift of the
frequency-temperature curve. As the conclusion, it should be
recognized that the life time represented by the N
BD
can
significantly be reduced when the repetition rate of the partial
discharge exceeds a threshold, above which the interval of
repetition of PD be came smaller than the thermal time constant of
the insulation system.
4. Conclusions
The effect of TI on breakdown phenomenon of air-polymer
composite insulation system under repetitive pulse voltage
application was studied. The sudden drop in the number of pulses
to breakdown (N
BD
) was correlated with the cumulative
temperature rise at the film surface exposed to the discharge. The
cumulative temperature rise may accelerate the chemical reactions
that lead to degradation, and at the same time, reduce the dielectric
strength. It should be recognized that the life characteristic
represented by the N
BD
can significantly be reduced when the
repetition rate of the partial discharge exceeds a threshold, above
which the interval is smaller than the thermal time constant of the
insulation system. Furthermore, this phenomenon was
successfully explained by numerical analysis using an equivalent
thermal circuit.

..................................
(4)
Breakdown of Air-Polymer Composite Insulation due to Partial Discharge (Eka Putra Waldi et al.)
6 IEEJ Trans. FM, Vol.132, No.11, 2012
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Eka Putra Waldi (Non-member) was born in Padang, Indonesia on
December 20, 1972. He received his B.Eng. degree
from Sriwijaya University Indonesia in 1997 and M.Eng.
degrees from Toyohashi University of Technology,
Japan in 2003. He is now working towards his D.Eng.
degree in the Department of Electronic and Information
Engineering at Toyohashi University of Technology. He
has been working as a lecturer at Andalas University
since 1999. His research interests are in the areas of high voltage engineering.
He is a student member of IEEE.
Yoshinobu Murakami (Member) was born in Japan on April 19, 1974. He was
worked as a research assistant at the Department of
Electrical Engineering, Nagano College of Technology
from 2001 to 2003. He received a doctor engineering
degree from Toyohashi University of Technology in late
of March 2002. He is a assistant professor at the
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering,
Toyohashi University of Technology Japan. He is a
member of IEE Japan.
Naohiro Hozumi (Senior Member) was born in Kyoto, Japan on April 2,
1957. He received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in
1981, 1983 and 1990 from Waseda University. He was
engaged in Central Research Institute of Electric Power
Industry (CRIEPI) from 1983 to 1999. He has been a
professor at Toyohashi University of Technology since
2011. He has been engaged in the research in insulating
materials and diagnosis for high voltage equipment. He
was awarded in 1990 and 1999 from IEEJ for his outstanding research papers.
He is a senior member of IEE Japan and IEEE.
Masayuki Nagao (Senior Member) was born in Japan on April 16, 1950.
He received the D.Eng. degree from Nagoya University
in 1978. He became a Lecturer in 1980, an Associate
Professor in 1985 and a Professor in 1998 in the
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering of
Toyohashi University of Technology. He is engaged
primarily in research on high-field electrical properties
of polymers and insulation degradation phenomena. He
received a Paper Award from IEE Japan in 1991. He is a senior member of the
IEE Japan, Japan Society of Applied Physics, CIGRE, and Cryogenic
Association of Japan.