Dynamic electric strength of liquid perfluorodibutyl ether

An electric strength of perfluorodibutyl ether in small gaps between the hemispherical electrodes was investigated experimentally under AC voltage of linearly increasing amplitude. The influence of radius of hemispherical electrodes, gap lengths and also rate of voltage, increase on probability of breakdown initiation was investigated experimentally and theoretically. In the macroscopic stochastic approach proposed by A.L. Kupershtokh (1993, 1999, 2000 and 2001), breakdown initiation is described by macroscopic function of probability density of a streamer initiation /spl mu/(E). The fixed probability method was developed to reconstruct the function /spl mu/(E) using experimental data on series of breakdown voltages. The values of function /spl mu/(E) for perfluorodibutyl ether were determined in the range of electric field 0.4 to 0.9 MV/cm. Stochastic computer simulations of breakdown inception were carried out.