A thermo-electrodynamic electric field dependent molecular ionization model to design electrical insulation system of HVDC wet-mate connectors under transient conditions

A powerful engineering software tool is elaborated to design proper dimensions/ systems/materials in a wet-mate DC connector under transient conditions. By using this tool, designers can examine various preventive measures to avoid streamer growth or limit it to only glow discharge in the oil portion of a wet-mate DC connector. In this regard, for a compact design of a wet-mate DC connector envisaged in this paper four mitigation methods including 1) using a dielectric solid covering the front portion of the moving contact, 2) increasing the relative permittivity of the dielectric solid, 3) using the dielectric oil with molecular constituents having high molecular ionization potentials, and 4) increasing the radius of curvature of the edge are evaluated.