TY - JOUR
T1 - Polarity effects on breakdown of short gaps in a point-plane topology in air
AU - Hogg, Michael
AU - Timoshkin, Igor
AU - MacGregor, Scott
AU - Wilson, Mark
AU - Given, Martin
N1 -
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PY - 2015/8
Y1 - 2015/8
N2 - Electrical breakdown in air in a point-plane topology involves complex processes that are still not fully understood. Unlike uniform-field topologies, the highly-divergent fields produced by point-plane topologies create pre-breakdown corona with volumetric space charge. It is known that space charges developed by corona discharge have significant impacts on the breakdown voltage in non-uniform electrode topologies. With large inter-electrode gaps (>cm) the breakdown voltage for a HV point cathode in air at atmospheric pressure is noticeably larger than a HV point anode. However, this paper shows that in shorter point-plane gaps in air (less than ~10 mm), in the air pressure range 0.1-0.35 MPa, an HV point anode has a similar breakdown voltage which eventually is surpassed by the HV point cathode as the inter-electrode gap is increased. The inter-electrode gap at which the HV cathode has a higher hold-off voltage is found to be dependent on the gas pressure and radius of the point electrode.
AB - Electrical breakdown in air in a point-plane topology involves complex processes that are still not fully understood. Unlike uniform-field topologies, the highly-divergent fields produced by point-plane topologies create pre-breakdown corona with volumetric space charge. It is known that space charges developed by corona discharge have significant impacts on the breakdown voltage in non-uniform electrode topologies. With large inter-electrode gaps (>cm) the breakdown voltage for a HV point cathode in air at atmospheric pressure is noticeably larger than a HV point anode. However, this paper shows that in shorter point-plane gaps in air (less than ~10 mm), in the air pressure range 0.1-0.35 MPa, an HV point anode has a similar breakdown voltage which eventually is surpassed by the HV point cathode as the inter-electrode gap is increased. The inter-electrode gap at which the HV cathode has a higher hold-off voltage is found to be dependent on the gas pressure and radius of the point electrode.
KW - electrical breakdown
KW - corona discharge
KW - air filled plasma closing switch
KW - point plane electrode topology
UR - http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=94
M3 - Article
SN - 1070-9878
VL - 22
SP - 1815
EP - 1822
JO - IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation
JF - IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation
IS - 4
ER -
