Electrostatic modeling of vacuum insulator triple junctions

Triple junctions are often initiation points for insulator flashover in pulsed power devices. Two-dimensional finite-element TriComp and Maxwell modeling software suites were utilized for their electrostatic field modeling packages to investigate electric field behavior in the anode and cathode triple junctions of a high voltage vacuum-insulator interface [1,2]. Both codes enable extraction of values from a macroscopic solution for use as boundary conditions in a subset solution. Electric fields computed with this zoom capability correlate with theoretical analysis of the anode and cathode triple junctions within submicron distances for nominal electrode spacing of 1.0 cm. This paper will discuss the iterative zoom process with TriComp and Maxwell finite-element electric field solvers and review theoretical verification of the results.