An organic molecule of poly(propylene glycol) bis(2-aminopropyl ether) (ATPE) with electron-donating groups is blended with low-density polyethylene (LDPE) to prepare all-organic nonlinear resistive field grading material. Quantum chemical results show that ATPE has an electron-donating ability. Experimental results demonstrate that, compared with traditional inorganic SiC particles, ATPE reduces the LDPE composite's percolation threshold and improves the nonlinear conductivity, achieving much lower filler loading, which is attributed to the electron-donating groups of ATPE. In addition, ATPE also provides higher breakdown strength and surface flashover voltage as well as better toughness for LDPE composites than SiC particles. It provides the basis for high-performance all-organic nonlinear resistive field grading material.

The current time domain spectroscopy of dielectrics provides important information for the analysis of dielectric properties and mechanisms. However, there is always interference during the testing process, which seriously affects the analysis of the test results. Therefore, the effective filtering of current time domain spectroscopy is particularly necessary. L1 trend filtering can estimate the trend items exactly in a set of time series. It has been widely used in the fields of economics and sociology. Therefore, this paper attempts to apply L1 trend filtering to the current time domain spectroscopy. Firstly, polarization and depolarization currents are measured in the laboratory. Then the test results are filtered by L1 trend filtering and the filtering effects are compared with several common filtering algorithms, such as a sliding mean filter and Savitzky–Golay smoothing filter. Finally, the robustness and time complexity of L1 trend filtering are analyzed. The filtering results show that because the polarization currents vary in a wide range of the time domain (about 2–3 orders of magnitude), smooth and undistorted curves in the whole test time range can hardly be obtained through common filtering algorithms, while they can be obtained by L1 trend filtering. The results of robustness analysis and time complexity analysis show that L1 trend filtering can extract the trend items accurately in the time series under given different noise levels, and the execution time is also lower than 176.67 s when the number of tested points is no more than 20,000. Those results show that L1 trend filtering can be applied to the time domain current spectroscopy of dielectrics.

Nonlinear resistive field grading material presents nonlinear electrical conductivity, and self-homogenizes the electric field distribution. The nonlinear conductivity is closely associated to the filler distribution, which can be modulated by the electric field assist during the material preparation. In this paper, the effects of the direct current (DC) electric field assist on the filler distribution and nonlinear conductivity of the nonlinear resistive field grading materials were studied for the first time. The silicon carbide (SiC)/low-density polyethylene (LDPE) composites were prepared under different DC assisted electric field. The composites’ microstructure, dielectric spectra and DC conductivity were characterized, respectively. Results illustrate that the DC electric field assist leads to the gradient distribution of SiC filler in the matrix, and also contributes to the SiC particles’ chains. Compared with the untreated SiC/LDPE composite, the electric-field assisted composites show more distinct nonlinear conductivity characteristics when the DC assisted electric field exceeds 0.3 kV mm⁻¹, which is attributed to the percolation phenomenon of SiC particles. This work is helpful to design the dielectric functionally graded materials, and to self-homogenize the electric field distribution in power apparatus and electronic devices.

The calculation of an electric field distribution provides the basis for the structural design of the insulation, and an accurate characterization of conductivity as a function of temperature and electric field forms an important basis for the simulation of the electric field distribution in HVDC (high-voltage direct current) cables. However, the conductivity functions that describe the insulating materials used for HVDC cables in different studies are different, and very little has been reported regarding how to choose the most accurate function. In this work, the conductivity of insulating materials used for HVDC cables is characterized, and the effects of the conductivity characterization on the simulation of the electric field in HVDC cables are studied. First, eight common conductivity functions are compared qualitatively. Then, the conductivities of XLPE for different temperatures and electric fields are measured, and a data fitting technique is used to analyze the coincidence degree between different functions and the test results. Finally, the steady-state electric field distributions of HVDC cables for different temperature gradients are simulated in COMSOL Multiphysics. The results show that the sum of the square of the relative errors of the fitting when using the original functions is larger than that achieved when using the logarithmic form of the functions. The deviations in the electric field caused by taking the logarithm of different functions are smaller.

Inorganic insulating powder can potentially be used in nuclear power plant cables, fire-resistant cables, and so on due to its high heat resistance and radiation resistance. It is of great academic and engineering value to study the dielectric properties of inorganic insulating powder. In this paper, we aim to study the nonlinear dielectric properties via the measurement of the time-domain polarization current spectrum under the application of a DC electric field. Three kinds of silica powders are measured by a measurement system with adjustable pressure. The effects of powder shape, particle size, and packing pressure and temperature on the dependence of relaxation polarization and electrical conductivity on the applied electric field are studied. The experimental results show that the relationship between electrical conductivity and the electric field of inorganic insulating powder presents two different characteristics, i.e., field-induced enhancement and field-induced weakening. The relationship between conductance and temperature shows an increase with temperature. That is, the electrical conductivity increases or decreases with the increase in temperature. The inorganic powder insulation can be regarded as a composite, which is composed of inorganic powder particles and air gaps. The interface between the powder particles and air gaps contributes a lot to the polarization of inorganic insulating powder. The phenomena (including the field-induced weakening characteristic between relaxation polarization and electric field and the decrease characteristic of polarization with increasing temperature) can be explained by a simplified interface polarization mechanism.