The insulating performance of oil is vulnerable to particles especially the conductive particles. This paper investigated the influence of copper particles of micrometer size on the breakdown strength and frequency-dependent properties of vegetable oil. The AC breakdown voltage of contaminated vegetable oil with copper particles of different numbers (ranging from 10 3 to 10 6 ) was measured. The frequency-dependent dielectric properties including volume resistivity, relative permittivity and dissipation factor of the contaminated vegetable oil with copper particles of various volumetric concentrations (0.011%, 0.056% and 0.112%) were measured. Identical experiments were conducted with mineral oil for comparison. Results show that the AC breakdown voltage of vegetable oil decreases with the increase of copper particle concentration. The mineral oil exhibits a similar trend, but the influence of copper particles on the AC breakdown voltage of vegetable oil is less significant than that on mineral oil because of its greater viscosity. The relative permittivity and dissipation factor increase with increasing copper volumetric concentration while the volume resistivity decreases. The influence of copper particles on them is significant at low frequencies and this influence becomes inconspicuous as the frequency increases. Similar results were observed for mineral oil.
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