Prebreakdown Phenomena in High-Viscosity Dielectric Liquids

The shadowgraphic image reflects only those regions of disturbance occurring in a dielectric liquid, which differ in refractive index from their surroundings. The time required for the onset of a prebreakdown disturbance after the application of a step voltage, and the rate of growth of the disturbance depend strongly on the viscosity (or the temperature) of the liquid. The refractive index is lower inside the disturbance region than outside. The variation of the external current is consistent with the temporal change of the disturbance. It is proposed that the formation of a disturbance region is due to the coulombic repulsion of local homocharges which in turn causes a decrease in local density and hence a decrease in refractive index. At highfields the anode injects holes to form positive ions and the cathode injects electrons, and theelectric conduction is filamentary. The electric breakdown in condensed materials (liquids and solids) involves double injection and the creation of low density regions to enable the charge-carrier multiplication processes to take place. Thus the breakdown strength is governed by the parameters which control the conditions for such prebreakdown phenomena to arise.