Corona Onset Voltage at High Frequency for an Isolated, Cylindrical Electrode

Corona on antennas or transmission lines is a significant source of electromagnetic interference on aircraft. A corona onset criterion, which describes breakdown in nonuniform RF fields, is derived from the Boltzmann transport equation. Predictions of corona onset are made using recent formulae for net ionization. Measurements of 300 MHz corona onset for an isolated, cylindrical electrode were made and are compared with predictions. The results confirm that the derived breakdown criterion is a good predictor of RF corona onset at 300 MHz for cylindrical geometries where diffusion is the dominant electron loss mechanism in the range 0.1 les rp les 10 cm-torr.