Nanocomposite polymers: Possible charging effects below inception voltage

In this paper, some results are presented on experiments concerning partial discharge (PD) behaviour of epoxy resin samples having 3 wt% nano- and 3 wt% micro-fillers, as well as epoxy samples having 3 wt% and 1 wt% nanoparticles. The nano- and micro-fillers were TiO₂ (titania). The electrode arrangement used was a plane/plane arrangement. Some preliminary results with this plane/plane electrode arrangement on nanocomposite polymers were reported as well as quantities of comparing analysis with other´s research achievements. The main intention in this paper is to see whether a sample with PD at its inception voltage, still presents some tendency to charging effects below inception and try to discuss the possible content of the charging effects. This paper also analyzes the reasons of different PD behaviour between conventional polymers and nanomaterials from their structure and the existence of fillers.