Electrical Breakdown indielectric fluids: a review of old and new concepts

This paper presents a review of the most significant results obtained by various leading scientists over the past four decades. The understanding of the electrical breakdown process in liquid dielectrics improved with the advent of more sophisticated, powerful techniques and tools. Particularly, the development of ultra fast electro-optical techniques has permitted the scientists to "see" for the first time the various pre-breakdown events. With the insight gained it became apparent that no simple mathematical model could possibly describe the actual process. Only qualitative model can be proposed to explain the experimental observations. In the last part of this paper the state of our knowledge of electrical breakdown in dielectric liquids is summarized and recommendations are presented for future research.