Simulating Reverse Electrical Trees Using Kinetic Model and Cellular Automata

Electric treeing is a mechanism of failure in solid polymeric insulations. Under some conditions, trees grow through filamentary trees, which have a small diameter and do not cause breakdown when they reach the counter-electrode. In this case, reverse trees grow opposite to the forward-filamentary tree. Several methods are available to model electric trees and their phenomenology. Among them is the kinetic model, which proposes that electric trees grow due to microfractures present in the material. This model had previously been considered to model tree growth, but we extended it to include the widening of tree branches in a prior study. In this work, we included the phenomenology of reverse trees and their relationship with filamentary trees. The simulation showed that filamentary trees grow until they are close to the counter-electrode, and when reverse trees begin to form, their branches widen. From this point, filamentary trees do not grow, but branches widen until the current density is high enough for final dielectric breakdown.