Electrical tree initiation and propagation in silicone rubber under long-term AC aging

Electrical tree break-down is the major failure problem in cable accessories, however, mechanisms of the electrical tree initiation and propagation are still lack of deeply research, especially in silicone rubber (SIR) which is widely used as insulation material for cable accessories. Long-term aging (0– 1000 h) experiments under the different voltages were conducted to observe electrical tree initiation and propagation processes. In trees initiation stage, with increasing of applied voltage, electrical tree initiation probability becomes larger, while tree initiation time dramatically decreases. The experiment observations demonstrated four shapes of trees which are dominated. As applied voltage increasing, the numbers of electrical trees life-cycles increased and exponential relationship was found between tree length and magnitude of applied voltage. It is noted that charges, whose energy exceeding a certain critical value, destroy microstructure of dielectric accumulatively via injection and extraction, and cause electrical trees initiate when it accumulates to a visible extent.