Phase change materials for use in thermally and electrically stressed insulation for high voltage applications

The temperature of high voltage equipment is often the limiting factor when transmitting electrical energy because the electrical insulation can get severely aged when the temperature is exceeding a certain limit. Hence, cooling has to be improved or heat generation must be reduced to avoid damage of the insulation. In this paper a new method was examined by investigating electrically insulating phase change materials which are able to store latent heat during a phase change from the solid to liquid state in times of high energy demand. To verify the electrically insulating properties of paraffins, one class of phase change materials, a special test cell was designed allowing the determination of breakdown voltage of phase change materials. The measurements on one paraffin sample proved the promising electrical insulating properties and it was shown that the breakdown voltage in the liquid state is comparable to that of mineral oil (transformer oil). With this contribution the first step was done towards the use of phase change materials for application in high voltage equipment.