Space Charge Accumulation and Measurement Method for Insulation Materials

This study focuses on the space charge accumulation in insulations. The specimens used in this study consist of a metal base with an applied insulator. Such specimen consists of copper base with a conformal coating. The conformal coating used is a commercially available acrylic resin-based coating. The pulsed electroacoustic (PEA) method was used for these measurements. The measured data gives information about the amount of space charge, its distribution and its effect on the electric field. Information about the ability of material to accumulate space charge is important as space charge can affect lifetime of insulating material, in this case of conformal coating. This in turn can give us information about the possibility of electric breakdown and partial discharges in conformal coating. The secondary aim of this study is to determine the suitability of used measurement method for the measurement of such samples.