Development of a Measurement System to Characterize Dielectric Materials in Cryogenic Temperature

It is very desirable to measure both the dielectric breakdown voltage and the dielectric losses in insulating materials at cryogenic temperatures, in order to improve the project of superconducting devices. In this work, we present the project of a measuring system that allows measuring the dielectric breakdown voltage, the loss tangent, and the electric permittivity of dielectric materials samples rated to operate at 77.4 K (liquid nitrogen bath), industrial frequency of 50-60Hz, and voltages up to 13.8 kV. Such system uses the same electrodes and chamber for all those kinds of measurements, in compliance with the standards of those tests. Only the external power and measurement circuits must be changed in order to perform the respective characterization. The project of that measurement system has been validated by computational simulation of a virtual prototype, using a commercial finite element method software package.