So What is Capacitor Corona?

By Charles Hymowitz and Steve Sandler, AEi Systems

Its 3:00 A.M. A Saturday morning, Los Angeles time. My cell phone is going off, two, no three times. It’s
got to be a wrong number, so I ignore it. Then I hear a text message come in and that funny ding your cell
phone makes when an email arrives. I decide it’s worth it to get out of bed. So I get to the phone and it
immediately rings again. I don’t recognize the number, but I pick up. “Is this AEi Systems?” the caller
asks. “Uh yea,” I answer in my best professional 3AM voice. “We have a big problem and we need your
help.”

It turns out the engineers on the other end of the phone are as serious as a heart attack. They work for an
important government agency. We can’t and won’t identify the agency or the specific system they were
having a problem with, or exactly what it controls, other than to say it’s extremely costly on several levels
and for more than one constituency when it doesn’t run. Here is what I can say: one of their circuit boards
keeps failing and they don’t know why. There are several hundred boards in the system, and as they fail,
the system gradually becomes less valuable as it loses all output. They need to find out why a capacitor
in an R-C snubber across a thyristor is failing, and they need to know now!

As AEi Systems’ main service, we do a lot of worst case circuit analysis. As part of that process, we see a
lot of designs and do a lot of SPICE modeling, as well as circuit troubleshooting. This particular customer
wanted us to model the circuit in SPICE in order to see the stresses on the snubber, with the idea that we
might be able to determine the reason for failure.

By about 5 A.M. our investigation had begun.

Failed parts were flown by special charter flights to us in California both Saturday and Sunday. Regular
meetings every three hours were used to reinforce the sense of urgency as well as to assess our findings.
Over the weekend, we modeled the circuit in SPICE, assessed the stresses on the elements, and even
managed to contact the capacitor manufacturer (yes, manufacturers do answer the phone sometimes on
weekends).

The capacitor that failed was a radial-leaded polyester film cap rated at 600 VDC and 200 VRMS. Upon
failure, the capacitor was found to be shorted. The manufacturer’s derating for the polyester capacitor
was 70% of the 85°C rating up to 105°C and 50% of the 85°C rating up to 125°C. Military Handbook
1547A is typically used for military and aerospace programs, and is a good guide to follow in hi-rel
applications. The 1547A derating for polypropylene is 50% up to 70°C and linearly down to 25% at 100°C.

We identified that the capacitor did not fail its rating (although it did fail its derating). The measured
voltage stress was +317 volts peak and -430 volts peak. The equivalent RMS voltage is 173 volts. The
voltage stress ratios were 71.7% for DC and 86.5% for AC, both well above the recommended 50% max.
The ratio of the rated AC to the rated DC voltage, however, was only 0.33 – this is quite low, and
indicates the capacitor was not well suited for high-frequency AC applications.

Since the ratings were not exceeded, however, over-voltage could not have been the cause of the failure.
We next investigated the power dissipation.

The harmonic content of the capacitor voltage is shown in Figure 1 below. The power related to each
harmonic is additive, resulting in significant power losses. The capacitor ESR was measured, and its
reactance calculated, at each harmonic frequency. RMS currents were calculated at each frequency, and
were combined with the ESR to calculate the power in the harmonics. The sum of the harmonics is the
total power dissipation in the cap, and it was 105mW RMS nominal. The size of the capacitor is such that
this dissipation would not cause excessive temperature rise. The measured ambient temperature
surrounding the cap was only 109°F.
 

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  2 mag(fft(vcap))
y (max) = 192 volts
x= 60.0 hertz

180
y (max) = 115 volts
x= 180 hertz

140
mag(fft(vcap)) in volts

y (max) = 52.8 volts

x= 360 hertz
Plot1_f

100
y (max) = 35.0 volts
x= 540 hertz
y (max) = 25.2 volts
60.0 x= 720 hertz
y (max) = 20.6 volts
x= 900 hertz

20.0

2
200 600 1.00k 1.40k 1.80k
frequency in hertz
 
Figure 1: Capacitor voltage harmonics across the snubber capacitor.

We measured the impedance of both new and used capacitors in order to figure out if power dissipation
was a factor in the failure. Interestingly, the measured capacitor dissipation factor of the two samples that
were measured both exceeded the manufacturer’s specification limit of 0.75%.

The manufacturer stated that they were not surprised, and that our measurements were consistent with
those of other similar manufacturers’ parts. The dissipation factor was not a likely cause of failure;
however, it was eye-opening to find a part that exceeded the specified limits, and in this case the
manufacturer did not seem at all surprised or concerned.

No power ratings were provided in the capacitor datasheet, but the power dissipation turned out to be
relatively small. The capacitor was rated for 200VAC at 60Hz, and with the effects of temperature and
frequency accounted for; it was likely that these capacitors were overstressed.

Based on the analysis and the timeline for the failures, we surmised that this had to be a corona issue
resulting from excessive AC voltage, which could cause the capacitors to significantly degrade with time.
While no specific corona information was provided in the datasheet, it was noted that the AC
specifications were selected to assure no corona exists.

What is Corona?
Corona is localized ionization in an insulation layer. The coronal point is the voltage at which corona
begins, and this voltage is related to many different characteristics. For example, sharp corners tend to
have lower corona thresholds. Corona is also sensitive to humidity, with higher humidity resulting in a
lower corona threshold (hold that thought).

Once corona starts, it is hysteretic in nature, meaning that the voltage level has to be reduced below the
threshold in order to stop the ionization.

Corona can be very difficult to detect. It slowly destroys the insulation system over time. The degradation
generally results in catastrophic failure, but since it is hard to detect, it is like a little time bomb waiting to
go off.

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The final clue to the mystery came in two parts. First, we disassembled and examined the capacitors. The
results are shown in Figure 2 below.

After presenting our findings, we were informed that the air conditioning in the room where the customer
had installed the circuit boards had failed some weeks prior to the incidence of the capacitor failures. The
temperature had not increased much, but the humidity in the room had risen substantially.

It was now clear that the AC voltage overstress, in combination with the increased humidity, had caused
the capacitors to experience corona degradation and the subsequent failure.

 
 
 

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Figure 2: Disassembled failed capacitors revealed the effects of corona degradation (3 images). 

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On Monday, the capacitor manufacturer confirmed the corona in the failed parts. Our solution was to
substitute a capacitor made out of polypropylene film, since its power losses were much lower than the
polyester film, and its AC ratings much higher. And, of course, to fix the air conditioning. While it was a
very long weekend, our customer’s management was relieved to have a solution. It’s kind of funny how
engineers don’t miss sleep that badly when an interesting problem comes along.

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