Static and dynamic breakdown characteristics of liquid helium for insulation design of superconducting power equipment

In this paper, we investigated quench-induced dynamic breakdown characteristics of liquid helium (LHe) under both non-uniform and uniform electric field. Experimental results for various quench conditions revealed that the dynamic breakdown voltage of LHe increased with decreasing the effective post-quench thermal energy density and with increasing the gap length and pressure, because of the suppression of thermal bubble disturbance in LHe. All of the experimental data enabled us to establish the 3-dimensionally systematized diagram of dynamic breakdown voltage of LHe as a function of effective post-quench thermal energy density, gap length and pressure.