Search

Several types of thin polymer film insulation are being evaluated for possible use in superconducting underground transmission cables. Measurements are reported on the partial discharge inception voltages of threelayer disc samples of 102-?m polyethylene and 61-?m polycarbonate for temperatures and pressures of the helium impregnant ranging from 5.0 K and 0.3 MPa to 11.5 K and 1.5 MPa. Butt gaps are simulated by punching 1 mm diameter holes in some of the layers. The effect of aluminized shielding around the holes is discussed. The observed inception voltages vary strongly with the helium conditions, increasing rapidly as the density increases. The results suggest that the voltage is capacitively divided between the polymer layers and helium-filled gaps, with partial discharge occurring when the breakdown strength of the helium is exceeded.

Several types of thin-film plastic insulation are being evaluated for possible use in ac superconducting underground transmission cables. The materials include polyolefins, polycarbonates, polysulphones, and nylons, in thicknesses ranging from 25µ to 125µ. Multiple-layer samples of the films are placed between 9.5 mm diameter, spherical stainless steel electrodes, and the film and electrodes encapsulated in epoxy. The epoxy casting is arranged to allow injection of liquid or gaseous helium between the plastic layers, at pressures up to 5 atm and a temperature of 4.2 K. Each casting contains eight pairs of electrodes.

The dielectric for a flexible superconducting power transmission cable will necessarily be in the form of multi-layered tapes, impregnated by supercritical helium, wound with butt gaps to provide flexibility.1 Major consideration for the choice of an appropriate dielectric are that the dielectric should posses suitable mechanical properties at low temperatures (5–10°K), the material should have very low dielectric loss (< 20 μ radian) and it should possess high enough dielectric strength. Economic considerations dictate that the cable should operate at very high electric stress levels. For example, the Brookhaven National Laboratory superconducting cable design2 specifies an operating stress 10 MV/m, free of any significant partial discharge up to a stress of 20 MV/m. So far no dielectric material simultaneously satisfying all the mechanical and electrical requirements cited above has been found and the search for a suitable dielectric tape is still in progress. In order to arrive at an appropriate material it is necessary to evaluate various materials in terms of their mechanical and electrical characteristics. It is in this connection that we undertook a program of measurement of dielectric strength and partial discharge inception levels of polymeric insulating tapes at cryogenic temperatures.

Technical and economic considerations indicate that it is advantageous to operate cryogenic underground cables at high voltages in an optimum range between approximately 100 and 500 kV. Several programs under way in the United states for the development of high voltage superconducting or cryoresistive cables were recently summarized by Belanger.1 An appendix to his paper summarizes the most important work in progress in other countries. In particular, the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission has funded a program to investigate several different superconducting cable concepts. The design of these high voltage cryogenic cables will require engineering data on the dielectric behavior of cryogenic liquids and solid insulators similar to that which already exists for room temperature liquid and solid insulation.

In recent years a great deal of attention has been directed to the application of superconductivity to electrical equipment, in particular, superconducting power transmission lines [1]. Liquid helium is being investigated in a dual role as the dielectric and coolant in some cable projects presently under way [2–4], in view of its extremely low dielectric loss (< μ rad). Most of the information available on the breakdown strength of liquid helium is limited to either uniform or quasiuniform field conditions. Nevertheless, in any practical system one often encounters bends, corners, and projections. Frozen contaminants on the electrode surface, for instance, water vapor, could provide serious nonuniform field configurations. It is therefore necessary to evaluate the performance of the dielectric under strongly inhomogeneous field conditions. In order to do this the ASTM standard electrode and the point-plane electrode systems were employed. Although the main emphasis was directed toward measurements on liquid helium, in certain cases liquid nitrogen and cold helium gas were also studied. It was found that the deterioration in dielectric strength of liquid helium in strongly inhomogeneous field conditions is much more severe than that of well-degassed transformer oil. Also, in the case of the point-plane electrode configuration, liquid helium exhibits a strong polarity effect markedly different from that of transformer oil. The breakdown data were also subjected to statistical analysis in order to determine the form of the distribution function.