Inhibition of electrical trees degradation of crosslinked polyethylene at high temperatures by electron-buffering voltage stabilizers

The effect of adding electron-buffering voltage stabilizer (1 wt% m-aminobenzoic acid) on the electrical tree-induced degradation of cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE) was studied at high temperatures. The electrical tree inception, growth, and partial discharge characteristics were simultaneously analyzed at 30, 50, and 70°C, respectively. The results showed that the growth rate of electrical tree and partial discharge activity as well as the discharge repetition rate, significantly increased with the temperature for pure XLPE and XLPE stabilizer blend. However, the XLPE stabilizer blend exhibited higher tree inception voltage, lower tree growth rate, and partial discharge activity than pure XLPE. The addition of the voltage stabilizer reduced the carbon layer thickness in the tree channel and offered higher resistance to the electrical tree growth. Surface potential decay demonstrated that the voltage stabilizer addition decreased the trap energy level, but increased the shallow trap density of the XLPE. Quantum chemical calculations showed that the voltage stabilizer enhanced the ability to buffer the high-energy electrons in the XLPE. A high-energy electron buffering mechanism was also proposed to explain the effect of voltage stabilizer on the electrical treeing and partial discharge activity in the XLPE at high temperatures.