Effect of pulse duration on surface charge of direct-fluorinated polyimide films

As one kind of the basic insulating materials, polyimide has been widely used in turn to turn insulation and turn to ground insulation in inverter-fed motors. However, the pulse voltage from the converter often causes overvoltage and localized high electrical field in the insulation system. During applying the pulse voltage, charges accumulate on the surface of the insulator, which could affect the dielectric property and cause the breakdown of insulation. Direct fluorination is a method to modify the surface layer of the polymers without changing the bulk properties. As a result of the fluorination, hydrogen atoms are replaced by the fluorine atoms and the component of the polymer surface is changed, which can influence the surface charge accumulation and affect the electrical properties. The experiment in this paper was focused on the effect of pulse duration and pulse number on surface charge of the polyimide films. The polyimide films with the fluorination time of 0, 15, 45 and 60 min were prepared. Surface charging was performed by corona discharging using repetitive pulse power at the temperature of 20 °C with the relative humidity of ~15%. The repetition frequency was 1 kHz and the pulse duration was 50, 110 and 210 μs, respectively. The surface charge decay was measured using a specific probe coupled with an electrostatic voltmeter. The results showed that the surface charge increases with increasing the pulse number and the duration of the microsecond pulse.