In SF6 gas-insulated equipment, solid dielectrics critically degrade insulation performance by reducing the electric field’s ability to withstand gas gaps. To investigate the critical role played by solid dielectric surfaces during the initial phase of gas–solid interface discharge phenomena, this paper experimentally measures the AC breakdown voltage (Ubd) of both dielectric surface-initiated breakdown (DIBD) and electrode surface-initiated breakdown (EIBD) across eight types of post insulator samples. Tests are conducted in 36 mm SF6 gas gaps under pressures ranging from 0.1 to 0.4 MPa. Combined with electrostatic field simulations, the results reveal that DIBD requires substantially lower Ubd than EIBD under comparable maximum electric field (Emax) conditions. As gas pressure increases, this difference becomes more pronounced. This phenomenon can be explained by three key mechanisms: First, due to the regulatory effect of dielectric materials and shielding electrodes on the electric field distribution, the high-electric-field zone along the gas–solid interface exhibits a longer effective discharge path compared to that in a pure gas gap. This configuration creates more favorable conditions for discharge initiation and subsequent propagation toward the opposite electrode. Second, microscopic irregularities on the dielectric surface induce stronger local electric field enhancement than comparable features on metallic electrodes. Third, in high-electric-field regions adjacent to the dielectric surface, desorption processes significantly enhance electron multiplication during gas discharge, and this enhancement effect becomes more pronounced as gas pressure increases, further lowering the discharge inception threshold. As a result, discharge initiation at dielectric interfaces requires less stringent electric field conditions compared to breakdown in a gas gap, especially at high gas pressure. This conclusion not only accounts for the saturation behavior in the Ubd-p characteristic of SF6 gas–solid interface discharges but also explains why surface contaminants/defects disproportionately degrade interfacial insulation performance relative to their impact on gas gaps.
Liu et al. (Sun,) studied this question.