Partial discharge testing in aeronautic environment on magnet wire and feeder cables

Rationalization of energy sources aboard aircraft and improvements in more electric technologies are pushing the aeronautic industry to meet the all-electric aircraft challenge. As a result, onboard power has been steadily increasing, reaching 1MW for B787. AC and HVDC network voltage have followed reaching 230VAC and 540VDC increasing the likeliness of partial discharge. In the future, this shift will lead to the complete redesign of the architecture of onboard power systems. The aim of this study is to characterize the partial discharge inception voltage, with the aforementioned constraints in mind, on two components of the electromechanical chain: magnet wires used in electric actuators and feeder cable used in harness.