A nonlinear model for surface conduction

A nonlinear conducting layer, at the surface of an insulating material, is modeled by a surface with a conductivity which depends on the tangential field at the interface. The model, formulated for 2D and axial symmetric problems, was embedded in a field computation software based on boundary elements method. The nonlinear equations on the conducting surface are discretised with one dimensional finite elements. The results agree with the solution of the differential equation which governs the potential in a simplified configuration.