UNSW - SCHOOL OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS

ELEC4611 POWER SYSTEM EQUIPMENT LABORATORY

EXPERIMENT 5
COMPUTER-BASED ANALYSIS OF ELECTRIC STRESS

1. INTRODUCTION

Insulating materials used in power system equipment are subjected to severe electric stress.
Breakdown will occur if the stress exceeds the material breakdown strength. Knowledge of
the electric field distribution in a given insulating structure is important as it enables
determination of the permissible operating voltage and methods of controlling electric stress.
This knowledge can be achieved using computer-based numerical methods such as the Finite
Element Method (FEM) to solve the Laplace’s or Poisson’s field equations. Note that
practical insulating systems usually involve a combination of different insulating materials
with different permittivity and also require solving three-dimensional fields with complex
boundary conditions.

2. EXPERIMENT

This experiment involves the use of computer programs. There are many commercial
software programs for field analysis. One such product is the Ansys Maxwell 2D for two-
dimensional field analysis (www.ansys.com). The workflow process to solve a field problem
involves six steps: create a structure → assign materials → add boundaries → add excitations
→ set up the solution → solve → post processing.

(a) Draw, set up, and solve for the electrostatic field in between two parallel copper plates
(1 mm thickness, 15 mm length) at 5 mm apart with an applied voltage of 1 kV. Verify
that the electric field is uniform.

▪ Starting Maxwell: do one of the following:

- Double-click the ANASYS Electronics Desktop icon on Windows Desktop.
- Use Start menu to select Programs>ANASYS Electronics Desktop
▪ Create a 2D Project:
- From the tool bar Maxwell>Maxwell 2D
The Project Manager window will appear on the left.
To create solution type, do one of the followings:
- Choose Maxwell 2D>Solution Type>Electrostatic
- Right click on Maxwell2Ddesign1 in Project Manager window, then choose
Solution Type and Electrostatic.
Note: You need to set the Solution Type to Electrostatic when you insert a new
project.
▪ Create modeling objects:
In order to draw the above structure (parallel plates), you can follow these steps:
(a) Design the first plate:
- Draw>Line
- In status bar, enter 0 in X box and 0 in Y box.
- Change the coordinate from Absolute to Relative.
- Enter 0 in dX box and 1 in dY box (after this step, you can see a vertical line
with length of 1mm will be drawn).

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 - Enter 15 in dX box and 0 in dY box.
- Enter 0 in dX box and -1 in dY box.
- Enter -15 in dX box and 0 in dY box.
- Right click on design window>Done. After this step, the object will be
automatically named Polyline1.
(b) Design the second plate:
- Repeat part (a) above with appropriate coordination start with 0 in X box and 6
in Y box.
- The plate will be automatically named Polyline2.
(c) Design boundary:
- Draw>Rectangle
- In status bar, enter -20 in X box and 27 in Y box.
- Enter 55 in dX box and -47 in dY box
- It will be named Rectangle1
▪ Defining Materials:
In this step, the materials as well as their characteristics will be assigned to above
created objects.
Choose Polyline1 and Polyline2 objects > Modeler > Assign Material. In materials
tab, choose copper > OK.
▪ Set up Boundaries and Excitation:
(a) Choose Polyline1>Maxwell 2D>Excitation>Assign>Voltage>enter 1000
V>OK
(b) Choose Polyline2>Maxwell 2D>Excitation>Assign>Voltage>enter 0 V>OK
(c) Edit>Selection Mode>Edges.
Hold Ctrl + left click on 4 edges of Rectangle1
>Maxwell 2D>Boundaries>Assign>Balloon>OK.
▪ Generating a Solution
(a) Set up a Matrix Calculation: Maxwell 2D>Parameters>Assign>Matrix>Check
Voltage 1 as Signal Line and Voltage 2 as Ground.
(b) Set up a Solution: Maxwell 2D>Analysis Setup>Add Solution Setup>Leave
these criteria as default.
▪ Checking Validity and Run Simulation:
(a) Maxwell 2D> Validation Check Make sure all steps are checked.
(b) Run simulation: Maxwell 2D>Analyze All.
▪ Monitoring electric stress:
Choose Rectangle1 >Maxwell 2D>Fields>Fields>Mag_E>AllObjects

(b) Consider a right-angled structure as shown in Figure 1:

▪ Obtain the field plot for this structure.
▪ Comment of the results.
▪ Suggest a minor modification that can be done to the structure to reduce the stress.
Redo the plot to verify.

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 5cm electrodes

air
15cm

10kV

0V

Figure 1
Note: The thickness of the above electrodes is 1cm.

(c) A cable, shown in Figure 2, has an eccentric core and axial uniformity. There are 100
kilo-volts across the cable and the insulation has a relative permittivity  r = 2.0 and
resistivity  = 1013 m. The diameter of cable core and cable are 10 mm and 100 mm,
respectively. The center of cable core is 25 mm away from the center of cable.
▪ Obtain the field plot for this cable using Maxwell 2D.
▪ Determine the stress and voltage at points P1 and P2. Compare simulation results
with those obtained using manual field mapping (see Appendix).
▪ Identify the region of highest stress and determine its value.
▪ Calculate the cable capacitance and insulation resistance (per unit length).
▪ Explain why the lower half plot (in Fig.2) is incorrect.
▪ If this cable is concentric, redo the field plot and determine the highest stress. This
case can also be solved analytically and the electric field at a radius r is given by:
V
E (r ) = V/m
r ln ( b a )
where b is the outer radius, a is the inner radius, and V is the total voltage across the
insulation. Compare the results. Also, compare against that of the eccentric core.
Note: inner circle (cable core) should be subtracted in order to achieve accurate result.

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 Fig.2: (a) curvilinear squares plot for an eccentric cable of constant cross-
section, (b) general curvilinear square and its subdivisions, (c) expanded
view of curvilinear square 2 that forms the ends of a curvilinear cell of
depth d (m).

(d) In many high voltage insulation systems multi-dielectric structures are used with
dielectric materials with different relative permittivity in order to provide better use of
insulation by reducing the overall insulation thickness and making the field more
uniform within the overall layer structure. In other cases, the use of multi-dielectric
structures is unavoidable such as in a HV bushing where the small gap between the
porcelain insulator and the inner HV conductor is normally filled with insulating oil.
Consider the 11 kV model bushing as specified in Experiment 3 with the applied
voltage of 20 kV.

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 ▪ Obtain the field plot for the case when the gap is air, and determine the highest
stress by modelling cross section of bushing
▪ Obtain the field plot when the gap is filled with oil, and determine the highest stress
by modelling cross section of bushing
▪ Comment on the results.

3. REFERENCES

1. E. Kuffel, W.S. Zaengl, and J. Kuffel, High Voltage Engineering: Fundamentals, 2nd
ed., Butterworth-Heinemann, 2000.
2. Ansoft Corporation, Getting Started: A 2D Electrostatic Problem, Maxwell 2D
Student Version, 2002.

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4. APPENDIX – FIELD ANALYSIS BY MANUAL FIELD MAPPING

To solve a field problem, we need to obtain the flux or potential distribution. From this, we
can obtain the required macroscopic and microscopic properties
e.g. R, C, L , J , D , B , E , etc

There are three methods of obtaining flux and potential distribution:

1. ( )
Solve Laplace’s equation 2 = 0 or Poisson’s equation 2 = −   ( )
analytically or numerically
2. Manual field mapping
3. Numerical iteration

Field mapping

This technique uses known field properties to draw up a map of the field for a particular
configuration. It can give surprisingly accurate results.

Field properties:
(i) Flux lines and equi-potentials are orthogonal
(ii) Surfaces of flux sources are equi-potentials
(iii) Flux lines intersect sources and sinks orthogonally.

The aim is to divide the field structure into curvilinear squares (assuming there is symmetry in
the third dimension)

If the element is part of current flow and the current density is J , and electric field E
I = J  area = J  ( x ) = J x ( =1 m )

V = E y

Hence, resistance of the elemental section is:

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 V E y 1 y 1
R = = =  = =  if = 1m and y = x
I J x  x 
Thus, each curvilinear square of unit depth has resistance . The total resistance can be
obtained by counting squares in the full map.

This holds for any field, the only difference being the property relative to the field type, e.g.
▪ For an electric field, capacitance of the unit square = 
▪ For a magnetic field, the unit square inductance = 
▪ For a thermal field, the unit square conductance = k

e.g. for a current flow field above, if there are n equipotential drops and m flux tubes of
current and the resistivity is , then the total R is:
n
R= ohms
m
4 
In the above: n = 4, m = 8  R = = ohms (per m)
8 2

If a capacitance:
 = Q and total Q = mQ = 8Q
 = V and total V = nV = 4V
Hence:
Q 8 Q
Total C = = = 2 (F/m)
V 4 V

For flux density and potential gradient, use the appropriate single square and the applicable
scale factor of the map:

Flux density =
1 x
  m
= =
x x

  n
Pot. grad = =
y y

Thus if we know total  and  and get m and n, and x ( =y ) from the map, we can find
 x and  y .
__________________________

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