Partial Discharge Inception Modeling in Insulation Systems for Aviation and Aerospace Applications

The increasing diffusion of high-voltage electrical assets in the field of aviation and aerospace sectors, due to the transition towards electrified transportation, brings significant challenges related to electrical insulation that need to be addressed. This work proposes a procedure to obtain reliable and partial discharge-free designs of aviation/aerospace electrical and electronic components, which stem from the recently developed three-leg approach. A partial discharge (PD) inception model that contains an explicit dependence on pressure is proposed and validated through a wide range of pressure levels ranging from 0.05 to 3 bar in air and CO2. Model fitting to measured partial discharge inception voltage (PDIV) values appears to be very good in air as well as CO2 environments; therefore, it can be speculated that the proposed approach can be used to predict PDIV in the case of solid insulation systems at different operating pressures, enabling PD-free insulation system designs to be carried out.