Mitigation of electrical treeing at high temperature in nano-SiO2 doped epoxy resin

In this work, electrical tree inception and ageing experiments were conducted to investigate the initiation, growth characteristics and structural characteristics of electrical trees of nano-SiO2 doped epoxy resin at different temperatures. Electrical tree inception and ageing experiments were conducted using power frequency voltage of 15 kV at 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100 degrees C. Electrical breakdown properties of epoxy resin were investigated by applying AC and DC voltages at 20, 40, 80 and 120 degrees C. There are two major observations based on the experimental results. With the increase of temperature, the morphological structure of the electrical trees changes from dendritic to plexiform, the tree inception voltage decreases and the growth rate of the electrical trees increases obviously. Either under DC or AC voltage, the breakdown strength of the nano-SiO2 doped epoxy resin decreases as the temperature increases. Finally, based on the space charge and the trap level measurement, the mechanism of the electrical tree propagation and breakdown in nano-SiO2 doped epoxy resin was analysed.