Simulation study of edge effect in high voltage condenser bushing foils

During the operation of a HVAC bushing, there exists E-field distortion at the edge of the aluminum foils where the edge effect enhances E-field. To figure out the operating performance of a bushing, it's essential to analyze the distribution of E-field at the edge of foils. In this paper, computing and experimental researches are conducted to analyze the edge effect. We first investigate a 2-D model of several parallel foils using finite element method. By means of ANSYS parametric design language (APDL) in ANSYS computing environment, we systematically analyze the dependence of the E-field distribution on the geometrical variables describing the relative position and dimension of the foils, finding that E-field strength at the edge of foils and the ratio of the enhanced E-field strength and the average value each have an exponential relationship with the distance between two foils and the thickness of a foil.