Ads
related to: dielectric breaks for electrical conduit sizes
Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Electrical breakdown in an electric discharge showing the ribbon-like plasma filaments from a Tesla coil.. In electronics, electrical breakdown or dielectric breakdown is a process that occurs when an electrically insulating material (a dielectric), subjected to a high enough voltage, suddenly becomes a conductor and current flows through it.
The field strength at which break down occurs is an intrinsic property of the material called its dielectric strength. In practical electric circuits electrical breakdown is often an unwanted occurrence, a failure of insulating material causing a short circuit , resulting in a catastrophic failure of the equipment.
In electromagnetism, a dielectric (or dielectric medium) is an electrical insulator that can be polarised by an applied electric field.When a dielectric material is placed in an electric field, electric charges do not flow through the material as they do in an electrical conductor, because they have no loosely bound, or free, electrons that may drift through the material, but instead they ...
With a constant pressure, the voltage needed to cause an arc reduced as the gap size was reduced but only to a point. As the gap was reduced further, the voltage required to cause an arc began to rise and again exceeded its original value. For a given gas, the voltage is a function only of the product of the pressure and gap length.
Breakdown voltage is a characteristic of an insulator that defines the maximum voltage difference that can be applied across the material before the insulator conducts. In solid insulating materials, this usually [citation needed] creates a weakened path within the material by creating permanent molecular or physical changes by the sudden current.
A liquid dielectric is a dielectric material in liquid state. Its main purpose is to prevent or rapidly quench electric discharges.Dielectric liquids are used as electrical insulators in high voltage applications, e.g. transformers, capacitors, high voltage cables, and switchgear (namely high voltage switchgear).