Ablation resistance of epoxy resin based composite under pulse current in the vacuum

As insulation material failure may be caused by ablation due to arc discharge during surface flashover in the pulsed power equipment, it is essential to enhance the ablation resistance of the insulation material so as to extend its service life. This paper mainly studies the influence nano/micro alumina and aluminium hydroxide in epoxy composites on the ablation resistance, by quantifying the mass loss and observing the surface topography of sample after several times surface flashover (the peak value is approximately 10kA, and the waveform is 8/20us). The experimental results show that the addition of inorganic filler to epoxy resin is useful for improving the ablation resistance. The performance of aluminium hydroxide filler is much better than alumina. In the case of aluminium hydroxide/epoxy composites, nano-fillers are superior to micro-particles, but in the case alumina/epoxy composite, micro-fillers behave better than nano-particles.