Discharge-generated electrical fields and electrical tree structures

The discharge-avalanche (D-A) model for electrical tree propagation in polymers is founded entirely upon basic physical concepts. Electrical discharges in an existing tree structure are taken to raise the electrical field in the polymer both along the discharge path and particularly at the tree tips. As a result of the field increase, electron multiplication avalanches occur within the polymer causing damage, possibly through ionisation of polymer molecules, which is accumulated over a period of thousands (or more) cycles and eventually leads to a tree extension of limited size. The assumption that the damage produced in an avalanche is proportional to the number of ionisations allows the model to be expressed quantitatively in terms of material properties: such as the ionisation potential, I; the impact-ionisation length parameter /spl lambda/; the critical number of ionisations for tree extension N/sub c/; discharge features such as the number of 1-electron initiated avalanches per half cycle, N/sub b/; and the potential difference /spl Delta/V between the start and end of the avalanche over a distance L/sub b/.