ICPADM 2018 Report

The 12th International Conference on the Properties and Applications of Dielectric Materials (ICPADM) was held in Xi’an, China, May 20-23, 2018. ICPADM started in Xi’an in 1985 with the initial aim to provide a venue for Chinese electrical insulation and dielectrics researchers to communicate their research activities with the rest of the world. The ICPADM is held every three years and after the 1st and 6th ICPADM held in Xi’an, the 12th ICPADM came back to Xi’an again. The conference was organized by Xi’an Jiaotong University and sponsored by the IEEE / DEIS.

Preconference activities on Sunday the 20thincluded two workshops – “Ageing of Dielectrics” chaired by Hugh Zhu from Doble Engineering Company in USA and “Advanced Power Cable” chaired by Lisheng Zhong from Xi’an Jiaotong University in China. A welcome buffet reception was held in the evening of May 20th.

Shengtao Li, General Chair, Delivers a welcome speech
Liu Ziyu Memorial speech award to Yasuhiro Tanaka
The conference venue
Shengtao Li, Harjo Suwarno, and Guanjun Zhang at the registration desk

In the opening ceremony on Monday 21th, welcome addresses were given by Mingzhe Rong, the vice president of Xi’an Jiaotong University, Qingquan Lei, Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering and Shengtao Li, the conference chair. The ICPADM 2018 Liu Ziyu Memorial Lecturewas delivered by Yasuhiro Tanaka from Tokyo City University. The lecture discussed space charge distribution measurement using PEA method encounter with unexpected behavior.

Session invited speech award to Toshikatsu Tanaka
Ahsan Ashfaq and his poster with Dr. Yu Chen
Xiaojun Wang and his poster with young researchers
Three students awarded travel support stipends
Four students awarded best paper awards

In addition to the memorial lecture, plenary lectures were given over the following two days by Jinliang He (Tsinghua University) on progress in eco-friendly high voltage cable insulation materials, Gilbert Teyssedre (Laplace, CNRS and University of Toulouse) on interface tailoring for charge injection mitigation in insulators,Gary Stevens (Gnosys Global Ltd.) on developments in functional materials for extended performance dielectrics and George Chen (University of Southampton) on polypropylene laminated paper insulation for HVDC power cables. A total of 448 papers were submitted to the conference and 261 from 21 different countries were selected for presentation. A total of 98 papers were presented over 12 oral sessions and the remaining 163 papers over 6 poster sessions. The papers were grouped into 10 topic areas: nano-technology and nano-dielectrics, monitoring and diagnostics, ageing and life assessment, space charge, partial discharge, insulators and insulation in equipment and systems, conduction and breakdown and surface phenomena, modelling and simulation, bio-dielectrics and ecofriendly dielectrics, new materials and a special topic of electrical insulation systems at cryogenic temperature. Social events included a technical visit of BYD Auto Co., Ltd followed by a banquet in the conference venue.

During the closing ceremony, awards were presented for the four best student papers (two oral and two poster), and three student travel support stipends were given.

Group photo of volunteers
Group photo of conference attendees