N. F. Kasri

Effect of nanofillers on the polarization and depolarization current characteristics of new LLDPE-NR compound for high voltage application

Polymeric nanocomposites in which the nanosize fillers are evenly distributed in the polymer material attract attention as an insulating material due to their ability to enhance the materials performance properties of electrical and mechanical. For high voltage (HV) insulation application, one of the targets is to obtain new insulators with improved dielectric properties. This paper presents the outcome of an experimental study to determine the conductivity level of the linear low-density polyethylene- (LLDPE-)natural rubber (NR) compound, filled with different amount of SiO2 and TiO2 nanofiller by using the polarization and depolarization current (PDC) measurement technique. linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) and natural rubber (NR) with the ratio composition of 80 : 20 are selected as a base polymer. The experiment was conducted to find PDC pattern and conductivity variations of each of the LLDPE-NR/SiO2 and LLDPE-NR/TiO2 samples. The results show that the addition of SiO2 filler exhibited less conductivity compared to TiO2 filler with certain percentage. From the study, it can be concluded that LLDPE-NR/SiO2 is a better insulator compared with LLDPE-NR/TiO2.

Electrical tracking characterization of LLDPE-Natural Rubber blends filled with nanofillers

Electrical tracking is a process of formation of permanent conducting path across the insulating material due to the surface erosion under high voltage application. The existing of leakage current (LC) on the wet contaminated material surface causes the generation of surface discharges that resulted to the material degradation. Electrical tracking test can be indicated as failure when LC exceed 60 mA for more than two seconds or at least 25mm of formation of carbon track or erosion breaks through the thickness of the sample. In this paper, a new formulated thermoplastic elastomer material which composed of Linear Low-Density Polyethylene with Natural Rubber (LLDPE/NR) filled and unfilled with different percentage of silicone oxide (SiO2) or titanium oxide (TiO2) as nanofiller is presented. The compound was tested based on IEC 60587 inclined plane tracking test procedure. The analysis of LC and rate of carbon track development were also conducted. Surface morphology analysis was carried out for investigating the degraded surface structure of the materials. The formulation of pure LLDPE/NR has shown the highest average leakage current whereas the composition of LLDPE/NR-TiO2 with 1 % wt of nanofiller was found to be the best electrical tracking resistance due to the lowest average leakage current and no carbon track appeared. The blends of LLDPE/NR-SiO2 show that low average leakage current and no carbon track in less than 5 % wt nanofiller. The usage of 5% wt or more for both nanofiller had shown the worst in carbon track formation.

Design of HV switching for polarization & depolarization current measurement

The method of assessing the insulation condition in high voltage (HV) electrical equipments can never be overemphasized. Over the years, several method of assessing the insulation condition have been researched & used by many researchers. One of these methods is using the dielectric response of the materials to determine the Polarization and Depolarization Current (PDC). PDC is a non-destructive assessment method that combines a sequence of switching operations & current measurement for time domain response. In this paper, the HV switching sequence for a PDC assessment was designed & built to fulfill the PDC assessment basic theory. The switch was applied on three materials used in HV insulation to determine their polarization current (ip) & depolarization current (id). Test duration for both ip & id were 10000 seconds and the test results are presented as a current pattern. The current pattern is consistent with the theoretical current wave PDC pattern from literatures thereby confirming the validity of the built switching device.

Development of Compact Pulse Generator with Adjustable Pulse Width for Pulse Electric Field Treatment Technology

Efficiency, reliability, high power quality and continuous operation are important aspects in electric vehicle attraction system. Therefore, quick fault detection, isolation and enhanced fault-tolerant control for open-switches faults in inverter driving systems become more and more required in this filed. However, fault detection and localization algorithms have been known to have many performance limitations due to speed variations such as wrong decision making of fault occurrence. Those weaknesses are investigated and solved in this paper using currents magnitudes fault indices, current direct component fault indices and a decision system. A simulation model and experimental setup are utilized to validate the proposed concept. Many simulation and experimental results are carried out to show the effectiveness of the proposed fault detection approach.The inverter with critical loads should be able to provide critical loads with a stable and seamless voltage during control mode change as well as clearing time. The indirect current control has been proposed for providing stable voltage with critical load during clearing time and seamless control mode transfer of inverters. However, the islanding detection is difficult since with the indirect current control the magnitude and frequency of voltage do not change when the islanding occurs. The conventional anti-islanding method based on the magnitude and frequency of voltage variation cannot apply to the indirect current control. This paper proposes an islanding detection method for the indirect current control. The proposed islanding detection method can detect the islanding using reactive power perturbation and observation when the frequency and magnitude of voltage don’t vary during clearing time. In order to verify the proposed anti-islanding method, the experimental results of a 600W three-phase inverter are provided.