What are the test standards for insulating oil dielectric breakdown voltage testing?
There are many test standards for insulating liquids, but they are derivatives of three main standards. Two of these are from ASTM International (USA) and the other is from the IEC (Europe). These main standards are:
(1) ASTM D877 - Standard Test Method for Dielectric Breakdown Voltage of Insulating Liquids Using Disk Electrodes.
(2) ASTM D1816 - Standard Test Method for Dielectric Breakdown Voltage of Insulating Oils of Petroleum Origin Using VDE Electrodes.
(3) IEC 60156 Insulating Liquids - Determination of the breakdown voltage at power frequencies - Test method.
(4) There is also a Japanese standard not based on these ASTM or IEC standards.
There are many standards based on IEC 60156 and in addition Japanese standard JIS C2101 also includes requirements for dielectric breakdown voltage testing. JIS C2101 calls for spherical electrodes similar to those specified by IEC 60156, but requires a different sequence of five breakdowns. JIS C2101-99 (M) for mineral oils calls for two oil samples to be tested each with a sequence of five breakdown tests. JIS C2101-99 (S) for silicon oils calls for a sequence five tests but each test is performed on a different sample of oil.
