Correlating the breakdown strength with electric field analysis for polyethylene/silica nanocomposites

The experimental findings on the DC and AC breakdown strength of polyethylene/silica nanocomposites are reported and correlated with simulation results on the electric field distribution of possible nanocomposite models. Specifically, the effects of interphase permittivity and interparticle distances on the electric field intensity and the breakdown strength are discussed with the aid of the Finite Element Method Magnetics (FEMM) 4.2 software. The results showed that the presence of the interphase, when assigned a unique interphase permittivity value, led to variations in electric field distributions. The electric field also changed as adjacent nanoparticles separated from each other with different interparticle distances.