Residual Voltage in Polyethylene

A considerably high residual voltage can be observed even in non-degraded polyethylene by a non-contacting method using an electrostatic voltmeter. This residual voltage increases nonlinearly with increasing applied voltage and duration of voltage application, but decreases as the duration of short-circuiting is increased. A simple computer analysis is found to give good agreement with the experimental results using a carrier mobility of the order of 10-12 cm2/V·sec.