Dielectrically Graded Insulation Using Lattice Material: Concept and Numerical Exemplification

Dielectrically graded insulation (DGI) is a potential approach in next-generation electric insulation systems due to its effective electric field (E-field) regulation, high insulation performance and reduced geometrical size. However, it is challenging to find a construction method of DGI with facile procedures, high accuracy, high flexibility, and good scalability. Fortunately, the rapid developing of additive manufacturing (also known as 3D printing) provides a novel approach - lattice material - for DGI construction. The lattice material is made of ordered, periodical cellular structure (unit cell), in which the feature size or topological structure of every unit cell can be tailored to build non-uniform, functionally graded objects. Since the dielectric properties of almost all the insulation materials is strongly related to its internal structure, it is reasonable to build FGM insulation by lattice materials. In this paper, the concept of lattice-material DGI (LM-DGI) is proposed, which is based on the description and analysis of research progress in DGI. Finite element simulation is then conducted on a 2D example to verify its effectiveness in E-field regulation. The results indicate that despite certain amount of fluctuation, the LM-DGI still has adequate performance in electric field regulation. Moreover, the distribution of electric field can be flexibly modified by changing the feature size (e.g. hole radius) of unit cells. We believe that LM-DGI is promising for facile, accurate and large-scale DGI insulations, making it ideal for industrial usage.