Breakdown studies of SF6/argon gas mixtures

Mixtures of argon and SF₆ were investigated to determine the improvement in the dielectric strength compared to that of pure argon. It was found that a considerable increase in the breakdown voltage was obtained with the introduction of 1% or more of SF₆ . The effective ionization coefficients of the SF₆/argon gas mixtures were calculated from the data by a linear approximation method. Using the ionization coefficient values for pure SF₆ and for pure argon obtained from published literature, the breakdown voltages for these gas mixtures were then calculated and found to show good agreement with the experimentally derived values