Simple theoretical estimation of the dielectric strength of gases

Abstract

Understanding how a gas is able to strongly insulate electric devices is certainly of great importance to the electrical engineering community. More precisely, modeling how a dielectric gas stops an electric current requires to understand what makes a gas a good dielectric, or in other words, what makes a gas presenting a high dielectric strength (DS). We show how to easily estimate the DS of a gas by calculating its ability to absorb light.