Development of simulation methods for dielectrics

Small organic molecules, e.g. antioxidants, byproducts or additives, are often present in polymeric materials that are used as insulation in power products. The impact on the performance of the insulation due to these molecules can be significant. In the current study the impact of a polyol (mesoerythritol) on a polypropylene system was studied with the focus on the dielectric permittivity and losses. Material modeling was applied in order to compute these properties for various polyol concentrations. Experiments results were in order to verify the findings of the simulations and the results show that the agreement is very good, especially for the simulations performed in high-resolution. With a so-called multi-scale scheme almost equivalent results was obtained but at significantly lower computational cost. The long term goal is to develop an effective and fast simulation tool.