Partial Discharge Testing of Ceramic Capacitors

摘要

The rapid increase in the use of multilayer and high voltage ceramic capacitors, for which reliability is a major concern, requires the study of failure mechanisms. In this research, instead of the destructive reliability tests of barium titanate (BaTiO_3) ceramic capacitors, a new nondestructive testing method was proposed. The BaTiO_3 ceramics used in this study were sintered at either 1300, 1350,1400 or 1450 ℃ (2372,2462,2552 or 2642 °F) to vary pore size distribution. Pore size of BaTiO_3 ceramics increased with sintering temperature. The breakdown field and partial discharge inception field decreased with the increase of the sintering temperature. This means that the large pores in overfired BaTiO_3, having a relatively low inception voltage of partial discharge, decrease the breakdown field. Reliability of ceramic capacitors can be nondestructively tested by the partial discharge testing method.