Experimental Study on Paschen Discharge in Helium for High Voltage Cryogenic Insulation Material

According to the requirements of large superconducting components, all the solid superconducting insulation of current leads, magnets, cooling and measurement pipeline at high potential should withstand 80–300 K thermal cycles. If helium leak or pipe leak taken place, and insulation has been formed some flaws, Paschen discharge would be occur. The experimental program aimed at analyzing the low-temperature electro-physical performance of solid superconducting insulation, which was designed with different configuration such as thickness, material structure and so on. The dielectric performance of both pre-preg cryogenic insulation and the wet wrap cryogenic insulation were studied. Both of the dielectric strength of the two type insulation is in the range from 11 to 23 kV/mm at 80 K helium condition. Besides, both of the two type insulation samples of 3 and 5 mm thickness can withstand 30 kV under various helium pressures at 80 K.