Volume discharges and treeing — A primer

Since this paper is directed to the practical electrical designer who uses electrical insulation as only one of several elements in a complete design, it is assumed that he is not familiar with the more theoretical investigations of how and why insulations fail under high voltage stresses. For this reason, in attempting to discuss the subject of Volume Discharges and Treeing — which is a highly theoretical subject — we are approaching it in a very elementary fashion. If this simple approach helps some of you to a better understanding of electrical breakdown, we need not apologize to those who are expert in the area.