Session: SYMP 3-2: Advanced Material Systems

Paper Number: 140490

140490 - Stimuli-Responsive Material Systems for Enhanced High-Voltage Insulation 

Stimuli-responsive materials and structures have been widely used to develop sensors, actuators and energy harvesters. The work presented in this paper is motivated by the need to assess the possibility of using some stimuli-responsive material systems to strengthen high voltage insulation of electrical equipment in the power grids and other critical facilities. Specifically, it is our attempt to evaluate two unconventional solutions to partial discharge (PD) detection and mitigation inside gas or liquid insulated high voltage equipment by exploiting smart material systems’ response to changes in electric potential or current. PDs, in contrast to full electrical breakdown that briges two conductors or electrodes, are the electrical discharges occuring within a localized region that is typically near the surface of an electrode or at the location of an impurity with lower electrical strength. PDs, if left unnoticed or unmitigated, would not only cause significant amount of energy loss in electrical equipment, but also result in material ageing and contamination which in turn will reduce equipment life time. Therefore, it is of paramount interest to find innovative solutions to detect and suppress PDs. In this work, our first early concept design includes a dielectric elastomer based actuator which has a spring that is relaxed when normal high voltage is applied to the elastomer (stretched). When partial discharge occurs, the voltage drop will cause the elastomer to contract, compress the spring, enlarge the insulation gap, and lower the electric field. The second design is based on the volume increase or swelling of porous battery electrode materials that serve as coating of high voltage components prone to PD. When PD occurs, the curvature of the high voltage component increases which lowers the local electric field and therefore supresses PD. The transient response of the two systems subject to PD voltages is simulated. The results indicate that the systems can respond to PD in the direction toward PD suppression. The preliminary studies also shed light on some key design parameters that affect the performance of the smart material systems (for instance, the response time). Unlike conventional approaches in which PD detection and mitigation are separated (i.e., as the functionalities of two distinct systems), this work proposess a promising new paradigm in the electrical insulation of high voltage equipment which combines sensing and actuating in the same smart material based system and enables “responsive monitoring” by harnessing the electromechanical and/or electrochemical properties of some stimuli-responsive materials.

Presenting Author: Xuewei Zhang Texas A&M University-Kingsville

Presenting Author Biography: Xuewei Zhang receives B.S. and M.S. degrees from Tsinghua University (Beijing, China) in 2007 and 2009, and Ph.D. degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA) in 2014, all in Electrical Engineering. He has been working at Texas A&M University-Kingsville since 2015, currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. His research interests include high voltage engineering and plasma science.

Authors:

Xuewei Zhang
Jing Li