هندسة الجهد العالي 1

Course Titled:
High Voltage Engineering (I)
‫هندسة الجهد العالي‬
10/19/2024 1
BREAKDOWN OF INSULATORS-WHAT IS IT?
• For the purpose of discussing flow of currents, all substances may be
placed in one of the two categories
insulators and conductors.

• An insulator is a substance in which it is practically impossible to cause any
current to flow.
• In insulators, all the negative charges (i.e. electrons) are firmly
attached to their corresponding positive charges.
• It then follows that no net flow of charges can take place in insulators
• A conductor, on the other hand, is a substance in which a certain
number of electrons can be easily made free from their associated
positive charges, and made to move under the influence of an
electric potential difference.
• Under certain conditions free electrons and positive charges can
also be made available in an insulating material, which then starts
behaving like a conductor.
• . Such a transition is known as the breakdown of the insulator.
. Insulators may be
• solid (like porcelain and glass),
• liquid (like transformer oil)
• gaseous (like air).
In an electric power system, all the three types of insulators are used.
Presence of a strong electric field in an insulating medium is the only
factor that initiates the breakdown process.
The focus of high voltage engineering is on design of a reliable and
economic insulation system.
• It is therefore important to know how an insulating material turns itself
into a conducting one.
• Such an understanding helps us take measures that can prevent this
transistion.
• Breakdown mechanism in solid, liquid, and gaseous insulators is not
the same.
• Nevertheless, a sound understanding of the breakdown mechanism in
gases helps us appreciate better the similar processes in solids and
liquids.
1.2 ELECTRIC FIELD AND STRESS
• An electric field is said to exist in a region of space if a charge experiences a
force when placed anywhere in that region.
• If a unit positive charge is placed at some point in the field, the force
experienced by it is said to be the electric stress at that point.
• . A unit negative charge when placed at the same point in the electric field
as a unit positive charge, will experience the same force (magnitude-wise),
but in an opposite direction.
Now, the voltage between two points equals the work done in moving a unit
charge through the distance between the points
where V is the voltage and E is the electric stress. In other words, the electric
stress at any point is numerically equal to the voltage gradient at that point and
is generally expressed in kV/cm in high voltage studies.
• An electric field is said to be uniform if the force experienced by a
charge is same (both in magnitude and direction) at all points in
the region, i.e. the voltage gradient is same throughout the region.
• Conversely, in a non-uniform field, a charge does not experience
the same force at all points.
• An electric field is created in an insulating medium if an electric
voltage is applied across it.
• The electrode configuration determines whether the field will be uniform or
not.
• A parallel plate electrode system and a sphere-sphere electrode system
(with radius of curvature greater than the electrode separation) ensure a
uniform electric field.
• In a uniform field the electric field stress E is related to the voltage V by E =
V/d, d being the electrode separation.
On the other hand, a cylindrical electrode
arrangement (radius of curvature less than the
electrode separation distance) will produce a
non-uniform field.
For example, transmission line conductors produce a non-uniform

field in the surrounding air medium.
1.3BOHR'S ATOMIC MODEL REVISITED
Bohr's model may be briefly summarized as follows:
(a) A stable atom consists of a nucleus of protons and neutrons with electrons
revolving around the nucleus in circular orbits.
(b) The electrons in the atom can only revolve in certain particular orbits for
which the angular momentum is an integral multiple of h/2n, where h = Planck
constant = 6.624 x 10-34 J-s.
(c) Every permissible orbit has a total energy depending on the atomic number
of the atom and the quantum number of the orbit. If an electron has to jump
from a lower energy level to a higher energy orbit, it has to absorb the difference
of the two energies. Conversely, an electron emits energy when jumping from a
higher orbit to a lower one.
1.4 IONIZATION
What happens when an electron in an uncharged atom receives enough energy to
jump to an orbit having an infinite radius?
• The answer is that the electron will no longer experience the attractive force of the
protons, and therefore will be free.
• The electron, then, is said to be removed from the atom.
• Ionization is the process by which an electron is removed from an atom, leaving
the atom with a net positive charge (called a positive ion).
• Since an electron in the outermost orbit is subject to the least attractive force
from the nucleus it is the easiest one that can be removed by any of the ionization
processes which imparts energy to the atom.
• The energy required to remove an outer electron, completely from the
normal state in the atom to a distance well beyond the sphere of the
nucleus, is called the first ionization energy Wi.
• It is customary to measure this energy with the help of a potential Vi,
through which an electron has been accelerated in an electric field in order
to acquire energy equal to the ionization energy.
• This quantity is called the ionization potential. W; is therefore generally
expressed in electron volt (eV) and is numerically equal to the ionization
potential. Thus we have
1.5 IONIZATION PROCESSES
1.5.1 Ionization by Collision
• An elastic collision is one in which the energy exchanged is translational kinetic
energy.
• The fact that only kinetic energy is involved implies that the atomic and
molecular structure remains unchanged after such collisions and no ionization
or excitation takes place.
• An inelastic collision, on the other hand, involves the interchange of kinetic
energy of translation and the internal energy of excitation or ionization.
• If an electron moving with a kinetic energy mv2/2, collides with a
neutral atom or molecule in a gas, then ionization of the neutral
particle may occur if mv2/2 > Wi, provided the collision is an
inelastic one.
• In general, a positive ion and two slow electrons result.
• The probability of this process is zero for electron energies less
than or equal to Wi, but increases almost linearly at first and then
gradually with electron energy up to 150 eV.
Any further increase in electron energy
decreases the probability.
This is shown in Figure.
The lesser probability of ionization at
higher electron energy is due to the fact
that at a high electron speed the
collision time decreases, and therefore
the probability of transfer of kinetic
energy of the electron to internal energy
of the colliding particle becomes less.
1.5.3 lonization on the Surface of Electrodes
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Course Titled:

High Voltage Engineering (I)

‫هندسة الجهد العالي‬

insulators and conductors.

For example, transmission line conductors produce a non-uniform

.)noissime dlefi( dlefi cirtcele lanretxe gnorts a fo noitisoprepuS )c(

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