Behavior of anodized aluminum strip under sine and square wave voltage

The purpose of this paper is to understand the pros and cons of aluminum conductors insulated with anodized aluminum for rotating machines used in aircraft. The investigation is focused on the breakdown voltage and partial discharge inception voltage of simple systems (crossed pairs, simplified coils). The results show that both breakdown voltage and partial discharge inception voltage are very sensitive to curvature radius and lower than those achieved using conventional copper conductors insulated with polymeric enamels. However, the operating temperature of the insulation (600 °C) is extremely appealing. Therefore, it could be interesting to devise high temperature fillers and suitable manufacturing procedures to exploit this insulation system in specific applications, where the weight of the machine is the key factor for material selection.