The breakdown of glass with alternating potentials

THE FAILURE of solid dielectrics does not take place by one mechanism of breakdown but by several, different laws governing each type of failure. For some time thermal breakdown has been established as one of the mechanisms of puncture, and in 1928 there was found a type of breakdown in which the potential gradient is independent of temperature and thickness. This latter was spoken of as in the disruptive region. In 1929 a third type of breakdown was found lying between the previous two, and was termed as in the intermediate region.