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It is argued that the main insulation of HV transformers is the major roadblock to a wide acceptance of cascade generators (CGs) with inductive energy coupling in industry. Typical HV, high-potential, high-frequency (HF), high-power transformer designs are depicted, and detailed electrostatic analyses of their insulation structures are performed, both in 2-D and 3-D. It is shown that in the air gaps formed between the cores and potted insulation, and possible air voids in layer insulation, partial discharges (PDs) are imminent. Full-scale insulation models for U-core transformers were manufactured and subjected to long-term pulsed testing at levels substantially exceeding the targeted operational stresses. It is further argued that pulsed testing is appropriate for both pulsed and dc high-voltage power supply (HVPS). The main insulation failures were associated with PD in the layer insulation. Overall PD currents were measured in time domain, and energy invested in the insulation degradation was calculated on the base of these measurements. Inverse power law was used to estimate life at operational stresses, limited to electrical aging only. The predicted life is long enough to move the main insulation out of the risk zone in the generator design.

Electric forces acting on a neutral matter in nonuniform electric fields may generate mechanical stresses even in the absence of charged species. This mechanism is invoked here as a factor in solid dielectric breakdown (BD). Analytical estimates and numerical simulations for point-to-plane gaps matching experimental conditions show that the electric forces arising in strongly nonuniform fields can be of the order of GN/ $\text{m}^{{3}}$ . Stress analysis for practical voltage levels predicts stresses inside the dielectric of the order of several megapascals, which exceeds yield stress of many technical insulating materials including those used in our experiments. Thus, solid insulation can be mechanically damaged just by the electric forces. This appears to be an unnoticed mechanism of electric BD in solids in a nonuniform field. It may be a dominant mechanism or a part of complex combination of other processes, such as ionization and avalanching, field emission, microdefects generation, and so on.