Partial discharges (PDs) in electrical equipment are normally detected with 50 Hz AC sinusoidal voltage stimulus in an online situation, but can also be measured at other non-sinusoidal and non-power frequency stimuli in off-line situations. In this work, three types of non-sinusoidal voltage waveforms, which are symmetric triangular-wave, symmetric trapezoidal-wave, and approximately square-wave voltages, were applied to investigate the effect of ambient temperature on the PD activity produced in an air gap between mica-epoxy surfaces, in combination with the frequency-domain dielectric spectroscopy (FDS) measurement of mica-epoxy dielectric. The results show that the PD inception voltage (PDIV) decreases greatly with the increase of temperature at three types of applied voltages. The PD behavior at symmetric triangular-wave and sinusoidal-wave voltages shows no obvious changing with the increase of temperature. With the increase of ambient temperature, the average PD charge exhibits regular increasing trend and the increment has almost proportional relation with the increasing rate of applied voltage; the maximum PD charge has the largest value at approximately square-wave voltage and also shows the increasing trend. The most obvious effect of temperature on PD activity lies in the constant voltage period of applied voltage. In this period, the average PD number and average PD charge both exhibit almost exponential increasing trend with the increase of temperature.

An oil-paper sample was conducted accelerate thermal ageing treatment, and its ageing process was divided into five ageing stages according to the variation of polymerization degree. Partial discharge tests were conducted on the air gap discharge model, and the PRPD patterns of the oil-paper sample were collected at different ageing stages. The feature quantities were extracted by using statistical operator, the dimension of the original feature data was reduced by factor analysis method, and the clustering characteristics of the feature data before and after dimension reduction were compared. A probabilistic neural network model (PNN) was established to identify the ageing stages of oil-paper insulation, and a back propagation (BP) neural network model and a support vector machine (SVM) model were built as comparison. The three models were trained by the same data, and their recognition results were compared. The results show that ageing will cause pores in the pressboard, which promotes the occurrence of partial discharge. Compared with other models, the FAM-PNN model has obvious advantages in recognition accuracy and operation efficiency. The ageing state of transformer oil-paper insulation can be evaluated accurately and efficiently using the FAM-PNN model.

The effects of thermal conductive fillers on the tensile strength and thermal conductivity of EPDM composites were studied by filling EPDM rubber with multi-scale alumina, nano-zinc oxide alone, and their mixer. An EPDM thermal conductive composite with good mechanical properties was prepared, and its insulating properties were tested. The results show that when the addition amounts of multi-scale alumina and nano zinc oxide are 200 phr, respectively, the thermal conductivity of the composites is 1.12 W/(m·K), the tensile strength is 5.01 MPa, and the tear strength is 21.12 N/mm.

The insulating properties of the doubly-fed motor stator coil after different cycles of cold and heat circulation was compared and its service life was assessed under different high frequency voltage to study the cold and hot shock resistance and high-frequency pulse electrical ageing performance of the doubly-fed generator stator coil. The results show that the cold and heat circulation has little effect on the insulating properties of doubly-fed generator stator coil. With the increase of high frequency ageing time, both the dielectric loss factor and its increment increase, and the insulation resistance increases at first and then decreases. The partial discharge inception voltage of the coil after high frequency pulse is smaller than that of the unaged coil, and the high-frequency pulse electrical ageing life of the stator coil is calculated to be more than 30 years.

A micro/nano co-doping epoxy/boron nitride (BN) composite was prepared using micro-BN and nano-BN as fillers, and the variations of thermal conductivity and breakdown characteristics of the epoxy composites with the nano-BN doping content were studied when the total doping content of BN was fixed. The results show that when the total mass fraction of BN is 20%, with the increase of nano-BN doping content, the thermal conductivity of the composite decreases slightly, the power frequency electric strength increases at first and then decreases, and the endurance time of the sample with thickness of 0.2 mm is shortened under the bipolar square wave voltage of 8 kV and 25 kHz. The thermal conductivity of the epoxy composite doped with pure micro-BN is the largest (0.83 W/(m·K)), and its endurance time is the longest (193 s) under high frequency bipolar square wave voltage, which are 277% and 408% higher than that of pure epoxy resin, respectively. When the mass fraction of nano-BN is 1%, the power frequency electric strength of the epoxy composite is the highest (131 kV/mm), which is 27% higher than that of pure epoxy resin. Therefore, for the micro/nano co-doping epoxy composite system, the addition of nanoparticles can improve the power frequency electric strength of composite, but it will reduce the thermal conductivity of the composites and shorten the withstand time under high frequency bipolar square wave voltage.

The space charge accumulation and dissipation characteristics of the oil-paper insulation systems composed of different types of transformer oils were studied under the conditions of applying and removing different intensity of DC electric field. The results show that compared with paraffin-based transformer oil, the naphthenic transformer oils have higher naphthenic hydrocarbon content, more suitable aromatic hydrocarbon content, and higher charge transfer rate, and the oil-paper insulation systems composed by them has less charge accumulation and the charges dissipates more easily after applying and removing the high voltage DC electric field, which is beneficial to the dissipation of charge in oil-paper insulation for converter transformer.

In order to study the effect of nano Al₂O₃ on the DC electrical tree of epoxy resin, epoxy and epoxy/Al₂O₃ nanocomposites were prepared. The samples were conducted electrical tree test and partial discharge detection by using needle-plane electrode, and the inception, growth, and ageing of DC electrical tree and corresponding partial discharge characteristics were analyzed. The results show that the addition of nano-Al₂O₃ particles can decrease the initiation probability and growth rate of DC electrical tree in epoxy resin. When the mass fraction of Al₂O₃ is less than 3%, the higher the content of Al₂O₃, the stronger the ability to suppress the electrical tree. In addition, the faster the voltage rise rate, the higher the initiation probability of DC tree in epoxy resin. When the voltage applying time is about 1 800 s, the DC electrical tree stops growing, and the electrical trees are all branch trees. Partial discharge is an important reason for DC electrical tree ageing of epoxy resin, and the partial discharge pulse clusters appear in the voltage rise and fall phases in each cycle mainly, which is due to that the electrical trees grow faster at these two phases. By comparing the partial discharge test results of pure epoxy resin and the nanocomposites with 1% Al₂O₃, it is found that nano-Al₂O₃ can suppress the partial discharge in the electrical tree developing process, which leads to the decrease of discharge pulse amplitude and appearing of more sparse partial discharge areas, indicating that the nano particles can suppress the development of electrical tree by suppressing partial discharge.

When installing the cable accessories, we usually coat silicone grease on the interface between silicone rubber (SR) insulation of cable accessories and XLPE insulation of cable body, but the silicone rubber will affect the interface pressure after absorbing silicone grease. The interface pressure between SR and XLPE was studied by combining experiment and simulation methods. The elastic modulus variation of the silicone rubber after absorbing silicone grease was measured by experiment, and then the elastic modulus was distributed to three-dimensional model to conduct simulation. The results show that under the silicone grease environment, the greater the expansion degree of silicone rubber, the greater the mass change rate, and the smaller the elastic modulus. The interface pressure between SR and XLPE decreases with the increase of silicone grease absorption time. The larger the expansion degree of cable joint, the greater the interface pressure, and the faster the interface pressure decline speed. The interface pressure decreases slightly with the increase of friction coefficient.

A ±400 kV HVDC model cable was conducted DC withstand voltage test and impulse withstand voltage test, and the DC breakdown voltage and impulse breakdown voltage of the model cable under the highest operating temperature were obtained. The electric field distribution under DC breakdown voltage and impulse breakdown voltage were calculated. On the basis of average field intensity method and maximum field intensity method, the insulation thickness of ±400 kV HVDC cable was designed, and the electric field distribution of insulation layer was calculated under DC voltage and impulse voltage. At last, the insulation thickness of ±400 kV DC cable was obtained by comparing the electric field distribution of ±400 kV HVDC cable and model cable. The results show that when the insulation thickness of HVDC cables is designed by the average field strength method, the insulation thickness depends on the impulse voltage. When the insulation thickness is designed by the maximum field strength method, the insulation thickness depends on the DC voltage. By comparing the electric field distribution of ±400 kV DC cable and the electric field strength of the model cable when breakdown, it is obtained that the insulation thickness of 400 kV DC cable is 26 mm.

Using bisphenol A epoxy resin, phosphorus flame retardant, aluminum hydroxide, and molecular sieve as the main agent, organic anhydride and accelerator as curing agent, we prepared a halogen-free flame retardant potting material for film capacitor. The effects of different flame retardants and filling content on the glass transition temperature and flame retardancy of the potting materials and the durability of the capacitor were studied, and the optimum formula of halogen-free flame retardant potting material for film capacitor was determined. The results show that the glass transition temperature of the potting materials prepared by the optimum formula is 104℃, and the flame retardant is V0 (3 mm), and the electrical insulation performance is good. The film capacitor potted with this potting material can meet the 600 h durability test under the condition of 1.2 times of voltage and 85%RH /85℃, and the capacitance change rate before and after test is 3.93%.