• Electrical Insulation Research Center
  • Capabilities
  • Accomplishments
  • Director
  • Faculty Associates
  • Staff
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EIRC Capabilities

Laboratory Facilities

As a Division of the Institute of Materials Science at the University of Connecticut, EIRC has access to laboratory facilities acquired at a cost in excess fo $20,000,000 to conduct research on behalf of its clients. These facilities instrumentation for characterization of polymers, metals, composites, and surfaces. Instrumentation and facilities important to EIRC include:

• Time Domain Dielectric Spectrometer - a Fourier transform dielectric spectrometer which can characterize the dielectric spectrum of materials from 0.0001Hz to 10 kHz. Dipolar relaxation phenomena in the mHz region often contribute to power frequency losses.
• Wideband Electrical Measuring Apparatus - impedance analyzers covering the range from 20 Hz to 1000 MHz, digital oscilloscope with 2 gigasample per second digitizing rate and intergral floppy disk drive, expertise in constructing GHz bandwidth electronics, etc.
• Specialized apparatus for measuring ac resistive current waveform through a sample in the presence of much larger capactitive currents in order to characterize dissipative phenomena within dielectric materials.
• Charge Injection Measurement - EIRC has specialized apparatus for measuring the field at which a dielectric becomes "conducting", i.e., charge carriers therein achieve high mobility. For most polymers, this is the field at which the materials starts to degrade.
• SEM, WDX, EDAX, ESCA, etc. -Electron microscopy-based techniques for characterizing the surface of dielectric samples and elements therein. A new "environmental SEM" is capable of making such measurements without a conducting coating on the sample surface.
• DSP-based signal enhancement and analysis.
• GC/MS - Gas chromatography/mass spectroscopy provides a powerful method for determining the elements present in a gas stream. Using a dynamic headspace accessory invented in the Institute, gas evolved through heating of an extremely small sample of solid can be analyzed.
• Image Analysis based on computerized techniques.
• Dielectric Testing - EIRC has facilities for aging under controlled environment conditions, aging in a salt-fog chamber, high voltage testing (ac, dc, and impulse), partial discharge measurement, etc.
• Specialized Software - EIRC has commercial electrostatic and magnetostatic FEM software and proprietary software for transient nonlinear finite element analysis with coupled fields. This proprietary 2-D finite element software allows problems to be solved in which the material parameters are a function of the fields, the boundary conditions are a function of time, and several fields can be determined simultaneously. Thermally-induced mechanical stresses can be computed in post processing. For example, the electrical, thermal, and mechanical fields have been computed for ZnO nonlinear electrical conductor during application of a high current pulse. As a result of such computations, the energy absorption capability of the ZnO lightning arrester elements was improved by over 50%. This software has also been applied to explain how water trees in XLPE power cable convert to electrical trees as a result of lightning strikes, to study electro-thermal phenomena at a defect in XLPE power cable, to improvement of high current electrical contacts, etc.

However, the most important facility in any research environment is intellectual, not material.  IMS has professional staff associated with all major facilities who maintain those facilities, train others to use them, etc.  EIRC has staff with 15 years experience working with electrical insulation.  The Director of EIRC, Dr. Steven Boggs, has been working in the insulation field since 1975, when he joined the Research Division of Ontario Hydro after completing his Ph.D. in physics (molecular spectroscopy).  At Ontario Hydro Research, Steve worked in the areas of soil thermal properties, solid dielectrics, partial discharge, and SF6-insulated systems.  1n 1992, Steve was elected a Fellow of the IEEE for his contributions to the latter field.  Steve was Director of Engineering and Research at Underground Systems, Inc. for 6 years prior to joining the University of Connecticut.  During this time, he was also responsible for USi’s capacitor subsidiary, Chicago Condenser Corp. for which he wrote design software, developed instrumentation, etc.  During this period, he also received the basic patent for room temperature dielectric high temperature superconducting power cable and a high voltage cable termination which has been fully qualified.  Thus Steve has a broad background in capacitor, cable, switchgear, partial discharge, solid dielectrics, gaseous dielectrics, and ZnO arrester technology.  At the University of Connecticut, Steve is appointed to the Graduate Faculty in Physics, Electrical Engineering, and Materials Science.  In addition, Steve is an Adjunct Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto, where he also advises a Ph.D. student.