IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Vol. 26, No.

5; October 2019 1581

Repeated Impulse Aging of Oil-Polypropylene Insulation

Chenmeng Zhang, Shijun Xie and Yu Zhang
State Grid Sichuan Electric Power Research Institute
No. 16 Jinhui West 2nd Street
Chengdu, Sichuan, China

ABSTRACT
Repeated impulse voltage has long been considered to affect the insulation property of
power equipment, which is called accumulative effect. This phenomenon is widely
studied on oil paper insulation but rarely on oil polypropylene film insulation, which is
widely used in power capacitors and other equipment. Therefore, the accumulative
effect of repeated impulse on oil polypropylene insulation is studied in this work. First,
a repeated impulse accumulating test platform was set up and the accumulation
characteristics of oil polypropylene insulation with repeated impulses were tested and
analyzed. Next, the residual breakdown voltage, surface morphology and gas
composition dissolved in the oil in different aging levels were tested. The results
indicated that the OPF insulation residual breakdown voltage decreased and the film
surface roughness increased when subjected to the repeated impulses. The dissolved gas
contents changed along with the impulse accumulation aging. Lastly, the possible
mechanisms of the accumulative effect in oil polypropylene insulation are discussed
based on the test results.
Index Terms — oil polypropylene film insulation, accumulative effect, repeated
impulse, surface morphology

1 INTRODUCTION The focus has been mainly on the accumulative effect on

the insulation in the inverter-fed motors [5, 6]. The studies
POWER capacitors are widely used in power systems
have shown that the repeated high frequency impulse,
which are used for reactive power compensation, suppressing
produced by the mismatch impedance of the cable and the
harmonics, pulse power techniques and energy storage. In
motor, leads to premature failure of the winding insulation in
operation, power capacitors are exposed to repeated impulses,
inverter motors.
which is very common in power systems, and eventually leads
to insulation degradation and premature failure [1, 2]. In around 2000, researchers turned their attention to the
accumulative effect in oil-impregnated paper (OIP).
A failure analysis of a surge capacitor in Echeng ±500kV
Vandermaar et al found the breakdown voltage of OIP would
HVDC converter station was presented in [3]. The analysis
decrease after repeated impulses [7]. Wang et al observed the
demonstrated that the capacitor insulation degenerated with
streamer propagation in OIP with repeated impulses; the
the repeated impulses so that the insulation failed when the
results showed that repeated impulses affected the insulation
impulse voltage was lower than the arrester switching impulse
in OIP [8, 9]. Montanari et al studied the relationship between
protective level (SIPL) as well as the capacitor switching
the pulse width modulation impulse and the space charge and
impulse withstand level (SIWL). A similar fault also occurred
partial discharge (PD) characteristics [10]. Pompili et al
in Zhengping ±500kV HVDC converter station, China. The
revealed that PD diagnostics method for bushing OIP
surge capacitor failed due to impulse voltage which was lower
insulation subjected to repeated switching impulses [11]. Also,
than the capacitor SIWL. These faults demonstrate that more
Okabe tested the voltage-time and voltage-number
attention must be paid to the impact of impulse voltage on
characteristics of insulation elements with oil-filled
insulation degradation of power capacitors.
transformers revealing that repeated impulse could lead to
The phenomenon of dielectric insulation degeneration with insulation failure [12]. Balaji et al revealed that the waveform
impulse voltage is usually referred to as the accumulative parameters of impulse voltage played an important role in the
effect. This concept was firstly proposed by Standring in accumulation process [13].
1956 in a study of combined solid and liquid dielectrics [4].
Sima’s research group made a great effort on revealing the
Since then, many researchers put efforts in studying this
phenomenon and mechanism of the accumulative effect in
phenomenon.
OIP [14-20]. The accumulative effect of repeated lightning
Manuscript received on 19 March 2019, in final form 10 June 2019,
impulse on insulation characteristics of transformer OIP was
accepted 13 June 2019. Corresponding author: C. Zhang. studied in [14]. The results showed that both the surface

DOI: 10.1109/TDEI.2019.008180
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 1582 C. Zhang et al.: Repeated Impulse Aging of Oil-Polypropylene Insulation

roughness and dielectric parameters increased with the 2.1 SAMPLE PREPARATION
accumulation of repeated lightning impulses, which can be The oil used in experiment is C101 oil, which main
attributed to the combined effects of polar products, fiber component is benzyltoluene. And the polypropylene film used
deformation and the translucent gelatinous substance. The is polypropylene double-sided coarse film which a thickness
effect of space charge on the accumulative characteristics of of 12 µm.
OIP insulation under repeated lightning impulses was studied
in [15]. Charge behavior in OIP was analyzed under different The sample pretreatments were carried out in the same way
that full-film capacitors production process.
conditions, and it is indicated that the increased application
of lightning impulses, high applied voltage, and short 1) The oil was filtered through oil purifier to eliminate the
interval time contributed to the accumulation and transport micro-water and other impurities.
of space charges. In [16], the influence of repeated lightning 2) The oil was dried at 50℃ for 48 h in the vacuum drying
impulses on the OIP, especially the mechanism behind this oven, with an air pressure of 100 Pa; the polypropylene films
phenomenon, was experimentally investigated. The test were dried at 50℃ for 24 h in the vacuum drying oven, with
results indicated that the accumulative effect only existed in an air pressure of 100 Pa.
the cellulose paper rather than the transformer oil. This effect
was considered to be attributed to the electrical degradation 3) The polypropylene film was impregnated in the oil for
and accumulation of space charge. The voltage-number another 48 h, with a temperature of 50℃ and air pressure of
100Pa.
characteristics of transformer insulation under transformer
invading non-standard lightning impulses was presented in 4) All the pretreated samples were sealed in polypropylene
[17-19]. The failure characteristics and mechanism of nano- container in a cool, dry, isolated and well-ventilated storage
modified oil-impregnated paper subjected to repeated area.
impulse voltage was studied in [20].
2.2 ACCUMULATION TEST PLATFORM
So far, considerable attention has been paid to the
accumulative effect in OIP insulation. But few studies have The test platform is shown in Figure 1, which is consisted
been reported for the phenomena of the accumulative effect with impulse voltage generator, voltage divider, test
in oil polypropylene film (OPF) insulation, which is widely container and the control system. Standard negative
used in power capacitors, and also some other equipment. switching impulse (250/2500µs) was generated by the
The insulation characteristics of OPF in thermal degradation impulse voltage generator, which rated parameter is
as well as steady state voltage are studied in [21]. Yet OPF 30 kJ/300 kV. The test container was special made to
insulation characteristics in transient impulse voltage are still simulate the internal environment of the capacitor. Column-
need further research. column electrodes were adopted to generate a quasi-uniform
electrical field. The diameter and edge radius of brass
In this paper, in order to explore the mechanism caused by column electrode were 25 mm and 3 mm, respectively.
the accumulative effect in OPF, a repeated impulse Two-layer OPF sample was fixedly placed between the
accumulation test platform was built. The accumulative electrodes to simulate the OPF insulator in the capacitor.
effect phenomenon, which is called V-N characteristic According to ASTM D 3487 [22] and IEC 60897 [23], the
(relationship between breakdown voltage and impulse impulse interval for the tests was 60 s in this paper. The high
number that OPF can withstand) was tested. And the V-N voltage terminal grounded to release residual charge after
characteristics and accumulative failure probability were each shot. These measures were taken to avoid charge
mathematically analyzed using a Weibull distribution model. accumulation phenomena [17].
Then the characteristics with different times of impulse were
tested, including residual breakdown voltage, surface
morphology as well as gas composition dissolved in the oil.
The results show that repeated impulses leads to
accumulative damage to the OPF insulation. Lastly, possible
mechanisms are discussed based on the test results.
The remaining parts of this paper are arranged as follows.
The experiment setup is shown in Section 2.
The accumulative effect test is presented in Section 3.
The test results are described in Section 4. The mechanisms
are discussed in Section 5 and in Section 6 are the Figure 1. Test platform for studying the accumulation effect.
conclusions. 1- Gas-pressure meter, 2- Gas balance port, 3- Tank, 4- Oil output port, 5-
Supporting insulator, 6- C101 oil, 7- Sample supporting, 8- Low voltage
electrode, 9- High voltage electrode, 10- Oil input port, 11- Insulating
2 EXPERIMENTAL SETUP bushing, T- Transformer, r-Protection resistance, D- Silicon stack, C- Charge
capacitor, Rf- Front resistance, Rt- Tail resistance.
The aim of this paper is studying the accumulative effect
in OPF insulation. An experiment platform is setup as
follows.

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 IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Vol. 26, No. 5; October 2019 1583

2.3 TEST PROCEDURES usually regarded as the characteristic life value under this
The test procedure was almost the same with the voltage, which indicates the average number of times required
accumulation effect tests for OIP [12-20], which set as to breakdown the test sample. β is the shape parameter, which
follows. determines the shape of failure probability density function
1) Measuring the minimum breakdown voltage of the OPF The least square method was used to estimate the Weibull
insulation under one (N = 1) impulse shot. To reduce the error, parameters and the estimated value can be obtained [24].
the test was repeated 10 times and the average was obtained. Weibull distribute parameter α is the estimated value of
accumulative times N. The α and β values for the 8 different
2) Based on the minimum breakdown voltage of the OPF
voltage levels are shown in Table 1.
insulation, reducing the impulse voltage in steps of 500V.
3) For each impulse voltage level, the impulse voltage was Table 1. Weibull distribution parameters α, β.
repeatedly applied to the OPF sample until the sample broke
Voltage/kV 12 12.5 13 13.5 14 14.5 15
down. The corresponding number of impulses was recorded.
10 trials test repeated for 10 samples at each voltage level. α 665 305 180 120 62 31 12

3 ACCUMULATIVE EFFECT OF OPF β 2.56 1.87 1.73 1.37 2.15 0.88 1.31

INSULATION
Based on Table 1 the mathematical relationship between V
3.1 V-N CHARACTERISTIC OF OPF INSULATION
and N is explored. CIGRE recommended using exponential
According to the test procedures presented in Section 2.3, model to describe the relationship between the applied
the accumulative effect of OPF insulation was tested. The V-N impulse voltage and the accumulative times before breakdown
characteristics are usually used to describe the accumulative [25], which is:
effect of repeated impulses on the insulation strength. The V- 1
N characteristic of two layers OPF sample is shown in Figure 
V  AN B (2)
2. As shown in the V-N curve, when the impulse voltage is
close to the breakdown voltage, the applied times of impulse where A and B are constant and related to the shape of the
increase relatively slow (Area I in Figure 2). With the decrease curves. The formula is fitted using the data from Table 1 and
of the voltage, the applied times of impulse increase rapidly the constant A and B can be obtained:
(Area II in Figure 2). Figure 2 indicates that even though the V  14.07 N 0.01737 (3)
amplitude of applied impulses is much lower than the
breakdown voltage of OPF sample, the sample will breakdown Equation (3) describes the basic relationship between the
after certain time of impulse eventually. This phenomenon applied impulse voltage and the accumulative times before
may be caused by the impulse accumulative damage. breakdown. The goodness of the fit (R2) is 0.991. This
equation can be a reference for the capacitor life assessment
and prediction.

4 TEST RESULTS
4.1 RESIDUAL BREAKDOWN VOLTAGE TEST
To investigate the OPF insulation accumulative effect, the
residual breakdown voltages of the OPF samples with
different impulse times were tested.
The test samples were from the same batch of test
preparation. The impulse voltage was set to 12.5kV and four
aging levels are chosen to test the residual breakdown voltages.
Figure 2. V-N characteristics of OPF insulation.
The four aging levels description is shown in Table 2. In each
aging level, 10 samples are tested and the average residual
3.2 ANALYSIS OF V-N CHARACTERISTIC breakdown voltages were recorded as shown in Table 2.
IEEE recommends the life of solid insulating media obeys
the two-parameter Weibull distribution. The commonly used Table 2. Relationship between aging level subjected to different impulse times at
12.5 kV and residual breakdown voltage.
two parameters Weibull cumulative probability distribution
Residual Breakdown Voltage
expressions is: Aging Level
/kV

F  x   1  exp   x  

 (1) L1 New samples 15.5
L2 Samples with 100 impulses 15.2
where F(x) is the OPF samples failure probability. x is the
L3 Samples with 200 impulses 14.6
accumulative times N. α is the scale parameter, which is the x
value corresponding to the failure probability is 63.1%. α is L4 Samples with 300 impulses 12.8

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 1584 C. Zhang et al.: Repeated Impulse Aging of Oil-Polypropylene Insulation

In Table 2, L1 corresponds to the un-aged OPF sample,

which average residual breakdown voltage is the impulse
breakdown voltage of virgin OPF. The degree of aging was
increasing from L2 to L4, and the corresponding average
residual breakdown voltages were decreasing gradually. In L4,
the average residual breakdown voltage was 82.3% of that in
L1. The OPF insulation residual breakdown voltage decreased
after suffering repeated impulse, which indicated the repeated
impulse will generate accumulative damage to the OPF
insulation and reduce the OPF electric strength. These results
provided a possible reason for the faults mentioned in Section
1 that the breakdown voltage is lower than the capacitor
(b) Film with 100 impulses
impulse withstand level.
4.2 SURFACE MORPHOLOGY
The test in Section 4.1 indicates the repeated impulse will
reduce the OPF electric strength. To make a further study on
the mechanism of this phenomena, the surface morphology
after suffering different times impulse was observed in this
section. The impulse voltage was set to 12 kV. The
observation instrument is atomic force microscope (AFM),
produced by JPK instruments. This AFM combines atomic
resolution with fast scanning with rates up to 100 line/sec in a
system with a large scan range of 100μm.
All the test sample are impregnated in acetone for 24 h, and
dried in the vacuum drying oven for another 24 h. The acetone (c) Film with 200 impulses
could eliminate the oil and other organic substance without
changing the OPF structure. For each test sample, 5 local areas
were selected to reduce the test error.
The OPF surface morphology before and after suffering
100, 200, 300 and 400 times impulses are shown in Figure 3.
The different color in the AFM image represents different
height, from black to white stands for from lowest to highest
position.
As shown in Figure 3a, the virgin OPF sample surface was
flat without significant protuberance. With the accumulative
effect of repeated impulse voltage, the OPF sample surface
morphology changed gradually. In Figure 3b, some small
protuberances arose and the other part was still as the virgin (d) Film with 300 impulses
film. Figure 3c shows the OPF sample after suffering 200
times impulse. It can be observed that more protuberances
emerged and the surface height difference was getting bigger.
After suffering 300 times impulse in Figure 3d, more and
bigger protuberances emerged. The “white peaks” got higher

(e) Film with 400 impulses

Figure 3. Film surface morphology after suffering different times impulse.

and gathered together, and the “black pits” were also getting
(a) New film deeper and gathered together. The whole OPF surface was

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 IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Vol. 26, No. 5; October 2019 1585

significantly different with the flat surface of the virgin OPF

sample. Figure 3e shows the OPF sample surface after
suffering impulse 400 times. It is obverse that with more and
more protuberances emerged, some neighboring protuberances
merged together and emerged some bigger protuberances. The
surface roughness increased dramatically with suffering the
repeated impulses.
The roughness of the OPF samples is calculated by the
“JPKSPM Data Processing” software. For each sample, five
spots which close to the electrode center at the macro level
and far away from each other at the micro level were chosen
to reduce the error. The average roughness (Ra) of each (a) The Hydrocarbon and H2 Content
sample after suffering different times impulses is shown in
Table 3.

Table 3. The roughness of each sample after suffering different times impulses.
Impulse
0 100 200 300 400
times
Ra /nm 9.0462 9.8078 13.8602 21.5641 23.6052

The test results in Table 3 indicate that with the repeated

impulse accumulatively applied to the OPF insulation, the
roughness increased heavily. The roughness increased by
8.42%, 53.22%, 138.38%, 160.94% times for OPF samples
subjected to 100, 200, 300 and 400, respectively, compared
with the roughness of virgin sample. (b) The CO2 and CO content

4.3 DISSOLVED GAS ANALYSIS Figure 4. Dissolved gas analysis results.

To further investigate the influence of repeated impulse on

the capacitor oil, DGA was carried out. The tested sample was As shown in the Figure 4, among the possible gases, CH4,
OPF samples subjected certain times impulses. There are still CO2 and the total hydrocarbon had a positive correlation
four aging levels, which is described in Table 2. The essence with the aging degree. It is also worth noting that in the last
of chemical changes of organic is the break of the old bond aging level (L4), C2H4 and C2H2 were detected which didn’t
and the formation of the new bond. The chemical bonds of appear in the previous aging level (L1~L3).
both monobenzyl toluene and dibenzyl toluene are main C-C
bond and C-H bond. The bond energy of C-H bond is 414 5 DISCUSSION
kJ/mol, the bond energy of carbon-carbon bonds in benzene The test results in Section 4 proved the insulation
rings range between C-C bond and C=C bond, which is performance and the physicochemical performance of OPF
between 332kJ/mol to 837kJ/mol. When the OPF samples reduced during the accumulation process. The results in
subjected to repeated impulses, the possible generated gases Section 4.1 partly explained the fault mentioned in Section 1
are H2, CO, CO2 ,CH4, C2H6, C2H4 and C2H2. The dissolved that the surge capacitors broke down with an impulse voltage
gas contents for each level are shown in Table 4 and the lower than SIWL. As the tiny defects and impurities are
tendency charts are shown in Figure 4. inevitable in OPF insulation, partial discharges (PD) are
Table 4. Dissolved gas contents for each aging level.
unavoidable during the impulses high electric field intensity.
The PD will cause kinds of damages to the film and oil, such
Aging Level L1 L2 L3 L4
as electric, chemical and thermal damage. On one hand, the
CH4 0.24 0.34 0.44 0.52 PD is usually accompanied by electric, chemical and thermal
C2H4 0 0 0 0.07 effect. These effects will result in the change of surface
C2H6 0.10 0.11 0.07 0.11 morphology of the film, which was described in Section 4.2.
The higher and the bigger of the bulges, the thinner of the
C2H2 0 0 0 0.04
Test film, which resulted in the lower breakdown voltage of the
Results H2 0 0 0 0 insulation. On the other hand, the electrons and charged
/μL/L
CO 7.63 2.85 2.91 4.26 particles generated in PD will speed up and cause collision
CO2 127.29 137.13 171.95 1021.81 with the oil molecules. During the collision, the oil
Total molecules will decompose, which lead to the increase of gas
Hydrocarbon 0.34 0.45 0.51 0.74 content described in Section 4.3. The gas will make the PD
Content (THC) more likely to occur [9, 10].

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 1586 C. Zhang et al.: Repeated Impulse Aging of Oil-Polypropylene Insulation

The heat is also inevitable which generated by the electric increased dramatically with suffering the repeated impulses.
field and PD process. The film used in the power capacitor is The roughness increased by 8.42, 53.22, 138.38 and 160.94%
polypropylene double-sided coarse film with the thickness of times for OPF samples subjected to 100, 200, 300 and 400
just more than ten microns. The film will swell and the bulges impulses, respectively, compared with the roughness of virgin
emerge by local overheating. This may be another reason for sample.
the test results shown in Figure 3. For the OIP insulation, it is For the DGA, the dissolved gas contents changed along
found that the space charges were detected in the process of with the impulse accumulation aging. Among the possible
accumulation. For the OPF, the same process is believed also gases, CH4, CO2 and the total hydrocarbon had a positive
existed. As the surface morphology changed, more trap correlation with the aging degree.
appeared and trapping more space charge, which leads to the
increase of bulk charge density. The trapped space charge will To make a fully understanding of the accumulation effect
cause the local electric field intensity concentration. When the for OPF insulation, the effect of space charge and thermal
space charges accumulate to a certain degree, the local electric need further investigation.
field enhance which lead to the reduce of the partial discharge
inception voltage (PDIV) as well as the breakdown voltage. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The accumulation effect is a complex phenomenon which is This work was supported by Sichuan Electric Power
affected by many factors. To our knowledge, partial discharge, Company Post-Doctor Research Project “Research on
space charge and thermal effect can be the main factors Insulation Condition Assessment and Detection Methods for
contribute to the phenomenon. The possible aging process Surge Capacitors” (421811970069).
might be described as follows: the tiny defects in the film and
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504, 2018. 1986. He received a B.Eng. degree from the Electric
[21] R. Hammal, P. Rain, J. P. Gosse, and C. Hantouche, “Study and & Information Engineering School, Sichuan
characterization of pd in impregnated polypropylene capacitors,” IEEE University in Chengdu in 2013. He is working in the
Trans. Dielectr. Electr. Insul., vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 446–457, 2002. State Grid Sichuan Electric Power Research Institute
[22] ASTM D3487-16e1, “Standard Specification for Mineral Insulating Oil (SGSCEPRI), where he is a senior engineer for the
Used in Electrical Apparatus,” 2016. SGSCEPRI. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. degree
[23] Methods for the determination of the lightning impulse breakdown in Electrical Engineering College from Chongqing
voltage of insulating liquids, IEC 60897:19871987-03-30. University. His current research interests include on-
[24] A. Contin, G. C. Montanari, and C. Ferraro, “PD source recognition by line monitoring techniques for power systems and
Weibull processing of pulse height distributions,” IEEE Trans. Dielectr. transient processes in power systems.
Electr. Insul., vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 48–58, 2000.
[25] “Insulation co-ordination related to internal insulation of gas insulated
systems with SF6 and Nitrogen/SF6 gas mixtures under AC condition,”
CIGRE Working group C4.302, no.360, 2008.

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