Detailed Investigation of Breakdown Prediction Models for High Voltage Circuit Breakers

Although studied for several decades, detailed knowledge on the leader mechanism conducting to a dielectric breakdown seems to be still insufficient. For this reason, based on home-made 2D-Euler CFD code, the present study handles the pressure and temperature as controlling parameters to consider for the efficient prediction of the dielectric breakdown. Moreover, it presents the limits of the suggested theoretical approach. This theoretical and numerical investigation is correlated with corresponding power test results on HV mock-ups