• ECTS

    4 credits

  • Component

    Faculty of Science

Description

The electrical power transmission industry and the design of high voltage switchgear are confronted with the need to find solutions for insulation constraints. They are looking to improve the reliability and lifetime of their components (cables, insulators, circuit breakers ...). They seek to develop innovative solutions for the transport to reduce the visual pollution of overhead lines such as high voltage direct current (HVDC). For this purpose, it is necessary to characterize and develop new insulators and to take into account environmental constraints.

This course covers the different properties of insulating and conducting materials, such as conductivity, permittivity, dielectric breakdown, etc. It defines the theory of the physical origin of the different phenomena related to these properties.

A part of the course is also devoted to measurement techniques, characterizations and data analysis related to the various properties of dielectrics.

This unit also includes a course on the particularities of high voltage use and applications to high voltage equipment. It will define the functions, characteristics and constraints of this equipment.

A presentation of the HVDC networks is given, it gives the architectures of the converters and the links (unipolar, bipolar), the characteristics and the constraints.

A practical part including measurements and data analysis for dielectric characterization will be performed during a mini project.

 

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Objectives

This teaching unit should enable a student to integrate design offices or research laboratories working in the field of development and characterization of dielectric materials and components.

The objective of this course is that the student, at the end of the course, will know the properties, limits and use of conductive and insulating materials.

The student should be able to select materials for common electrical engineering applications (insulating materials, conductors).

The student must know the physical mechanisms of degradation, understand and predict the modes and mechanisms of failure of materials and must be able to estimate the life of materials. He/she should know the particularities related to the presence of high voltage (charge injection, ionization, breakdown...).

The student will have to know the different high voltage devices used in the transport networks. He/she will have to know their functions, their characteristics and their technological limits in order to be able to make the choice according to a specification.

The student should know the architectures, advantages and disadvantages of high voltage direct current (HVDC) electrical links.

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Necessary pre-requisites

The basics of electrostatics: coulomb's law, Gauss' law

 

Recommended prerequisites*:

Physics of materials at the atomic scale, band theory,

 

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Knowledge control

The control of knowledge will be based on a final exam

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Syllabus

1) Electrical properties

            Matter - Electric field - Potential - Current - Resistivity

            Conductive materials - Insulating materials

            Band theory - Charges - Traps - Conduction mechanisms

            Polarization - Permittivity

            Breakdowns - Mechanisms of breakdowns

            Reliability of electrical insulators

2) Methods of measuring the different properties

            Characteristic current voltage

            Measurement of the breakdown field - Partial discharges

            Measurement of space charges

            Dielectric spectroscopy

3) The high voltage

            The use of insulating materials under strong electric field.

            Particularity of high voltage equipment

4) HVDC networks

            Topology and particularities related to these networks

 

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Additional information

CM : 33h

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