Potential breakdown of small gaps under simulated high-altitude conditions

R. C. Mason (Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, East Pittsburgh, Pa.): The breakdown voltage under uniform field conditions, and for values considerably larger than the minimum increases only slightly less rapidly than does the product of gap length and gas density. Near the minimum of the familiar sparking-potential curve, the change of voltage with pd is slight. For nonuniform fields, however, the breakdown voltage for a given electrode separation does not increase nearly so rapidly as gas density does; and further, the variation depends upon the field distribution and hence will not be the same for all separations of a given electrode system.