Details

For contemporary pulsed-power and high-voltage systems, the behaviour of solid polymer dielectrics under nanosecond high-voltage impulses is a crucial issue that has not received enough attention, especially in carefully regulated experimental settings. A simulation-validated conceptual design of an integrated test cell and resonant high-voltage pulse generator designed for the investigation of nanosecond breakdown in thin polymer materials is presented in this thesis. The pulse-forming element is a resonant air-core pulse transformer, which uses near-resonant energy transfer and loose magnetic coupling to generate fast-rising, high-amplitude voltage pulses from a small, sturdy assembly. However, the induced voltage is distributed unevenly along the secondary winding by the loose coupling that permits this performance, making it impossible to determine maximal turn-to-turn stress only from the terminal voltage. This results in a dual design requirement: the device must expose the polymer sample to an electric field strong enough to cause it to enter its breakdown regime while also making sure that all other dielectric regions the fluid surrounding the sample and the transformers inter-turn insulation remain safely below their own breakdown thresholds. All things considered, the suggested generator and test cell constitute a practical, internally consistent design that limits electrical failure to the sample being tested; additional investigation will concentrate on building the device and measuring nanosecond breakdown experimentally to validate these computational predictions.