Abstract— The high voltage withstanding capacity of a
apparatus depends on the degree of uniformity of the electric
field developed in the dielectric, which in turn is affected not
only by the type of voltage applied also by the physical shape
and size of the electrodes used. Different types of electrode
systems such as Sphere-sphere, sphere-plane, plane-plane etc.
are used in high voltage for the experimental investigation of
breakdown mechanism as well as degree of uniformity of
different gaseous and liquid insulating materials under high
voltage. But it is a time consuming and costly affair to perform a
series of experiments taking electrodes of wide variety of shape
and size. In this paper, the results of simulation to estimate the
distribution of equipotential lines and the intensity of the electric
field developed in the inter-electrode gap for two different types
of electrodes are presented. During characterization, voltage
level and depth of insulating material are considered to be the
same and the degree of uniformity has been estimated. From the
experimental results and performance analysis, it has been
observed that the distribution of equipotential lines are different
for different types of electrode systems, even if the voltage level
and the insulating materials are the same. The degree of
uniformity is also different for different electrode system, even if
the other conditions are similar.