Modifications to the von Laue statistical distribution of the times to breakdown at a polymer-oil interface

Summary form only given. When analyzing the time to breakdown in gases and in liquids, two different processes can be considered: initiation of the breakdown described by the statistical time t s and the development of a conducting channel across the gap, leading to voltage collapse described by the formative time t f . An exponential distribution for the breakdown behavior was proposed by von Laue, based on Zuber's experimental data: N(t)/N 0 =exp (-t-t f /t s ).In a paper presented at the 2012 IPMHVC, the authors described an initial analysis of experimental data obtained for the breakdown of a polymer-oil interface under impulse conditions, assuming that the breakdown followed the von Laue distribution. The von Laue plots obtained frequently showed multiple straight line sections, suggesting that changes were occurring to the breakdown processes during the experimental run, or that more than one mechanism of breakdown was occurring. By examining both the von Laue plots and plots of time to breakdown versus shot number in the experimental run, the authors made informed choices on the values of ts and tf, which were reported in the paper. The authors have now performed a more rigorous analysis of the experimental data. Expected distributions for the time to breakdown were generated over a range of values for ts and tf. The probability that an experimental data set came from each of these simulated distributions was then calculated using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. By analyzing maximums in the probability values, it is possible to determine the ranges of values for ts and tf which best describe the experimental data. In addition to the simple von Laue distribution, fits have also been made to a modified von Laue distribution where the formative time is normally distributed about an average value, and to distributions generated by combining two different Laue distributions.