Evaluation of the influence of various nanofillers on the AC breakdown strength of epoxy-based nanocomposites

The dielectric breakdown of polymer nanocomposites is a fundamental value for the design of high voltage applications. Previous measurements on epoxy-based nanocomposites saw a drastic increase of the short-term DC breakdown voltage. In this paper, the AC breakdown voltage is determined for the same materials. Weibull analysis was utilized to calculate the size and shape parameters of the measured values. Compared to the DC breakdown values, the results here are significantly lower due to the different breakdown mechanism that occurs under AC stress.