ANSYS Maxwell: Inception and Breakdown Voltage Calculations
Hello everyone, David Giglio here with Ozen Engineering, Inc. In this video, I will show you how to use the electrostatic solver in ANSYS Maxwell to calculate the inception and breakdown voltages associated with local polarization and dielectric breakdown of a dielectric material.
Introduction to Dielectric Materials
A dielectric material is an electrical insulator with voltage limits. If these voltage limits are exceeded, local polarization occurs within the dielectric, redistributing the atoms and charges in the molecules within the material. If the breakdown voltage is further exceeded, the material fully breaks down, leading to electric arcing.
Model Setup
- We have an electrostatic model with a conductor disk at zero potential (0 volts).
- An electrode is set at 1 kilovolt.
- Mesh operations are applied to create a fine mesh for accuracy, ensuring results are not dependent on mesh size.
The model runs quickly, typically within a few minutes. Once the excitation and geometry are set up, a post-processing rectangle is needed.
Simulation Process
- Run the simulation and click on the post-processing rectangle.
- Right-click, select Fields > E, and add Magnitude E.
- In the field plot view, right-click, select Fields > Marker > Add Markers.
- These markers are points added along the post-processing rectangle, representing the starting points of the streamlines (electric arc lines).
- Right-click, select Fields > Marker > Show Marker to display them.
- Position markers 1 millimeter apart, or distribute them as desired.
- Right-click the rectangle or anywhere in the model display, select Fields > Field Line Trace.
- Select the region in the volume, highlight all markers, and click Done to view the streamlines.
Inception Voltage Evaluation
- On the field line trace plot, right-click and select Inception Voltage Evaluation.
- Highlight all rows corresponding to each marker and click Evaluate.
- The evaluation calculates the inception and breakdown voltages (in kilovolts).
In this example, they are equal because the streamer constant is zero. Depending on the dielectric material, the inception voltage may differ from the breakdown voltage. For instance, changing the streamer constant to one results in different values, with the inception voltage being less than the breakdown voltage.
Conclusion
In this simulation using ANSYS Maxwell, we only calculate inception and breakdown voltages, which are conditions for local polarization and electric arcing. We do not model the plasma arc or its propagation. For modeling arc propagation, other tools like coupling Maxwell with fluid dynamics or using EM Charge Plus are recommended.
Thank you for watching. Contact Ozen Engineering, Inc. to learn about our simulation capabilities and request a demonstration. We are an ANSYS Elite channel partner, providing training, consulting services, and ANSYS software packages.
Thank you and have a nice day. Watch out for the next video!
Hello everyone, David Giglio here with Ozen Engineering. In this video, I will show you how to use the electrostatic solver in ANSYS Maxwell to calculate the inception and breakdown voltages associated with local polarization and dielectric breakdown of a dielectric material.
A dielectric material is an electrical insulator that has voltage limits. If these voltage limits are exceeded, local polarization will occur within the dielectric, which redistributes the atoms and charges in the molecules within the material.
If exceeded further and the breakdown voltage is reached, then the material fully breaks down and electric arcing happens. Here, I will show you how to set up the model. We have an electrostatic model with a conductor disk at zero potential, zero volts, and an electrode at one kilovolt.
We apply some mesh operations to create a fine mesh for accuracy and to have results not dependent on mesh size. This model is a little more complicated, but it runs quickly within a few minutes. Once we have the excitation and the geometry set up, we need a post-processing rectangle.
Run the simulation, then click the post-processing rectangle, right-click, Fields, E, and add magnitude E. Once this plot is set up, right-click, Fields, Marker, add markers. These markers represent the starting points of the streamlines, the electric arc lines.
Position these markers to be one millimeter apart. Once they're in place, right-click rectangle or anywhere in the model display, right-click, Fields, Field line trace. Select the region in the volume and highlight all the markers that were added. Click done, and you will see the streamlines.
On the field line trace plot, right-click, click inception voltage evaluation, highlight all of the rows corresponding to each marker, and click evaluate. It calculates for us the inception voltage and breakdown voltage.
Depending on the material in the dielectric, sometimes the inception voltage equals the breakdown voltage, but not all the time.
In this simulation, we're only calculating inception and breakdown voltages, which are the conditions for local polarization and the condition for breakdown and electric arcing.
If we want to model the plasma arc of the dielectric material, we can use other tools and assets such as coupling Maxwell with fluid, which models the conductivity and the pressure of the fluid, and computes the temperature distribution and the pressure distribution.
Thank you very much, and have a nice day. Contact us to learn about our simulation capability and request a demonstration for us to show you how we can help you with your engineering projects. Boson Engineering Inc.
is an ANSYS Elite channel partner, and we provide training to use ANSYS tools, offer consulting services, and sell ANSYS software packages. Watch out for the next video.
