To make a High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) transmission more energy efficient, the voltage of the system has to be increased. To allow for that the components of the system must be constructed to handle the increases AC and DC stresses that this leads to. One key component in such a transmission is the HVDC converter transformer. The insulation system of the transformer usually consists of oil and oil-impregnated pressboard. Modeling of the electric DC field in the insulation system is currently done with the ion drift diffusion model, which takes into account the transport and generation of charges in the oil and the pressboard. The model is however lacking a description of how charges are being injected from the electrodes and the oil-pressboard interfaces. The task of this thesis work was to develop and implement a model for this which improves the result of the ion drift diffusion model. A theoretical study of ion injection was first carried out and proceeding from this, a model for the ion injection was formulated. By using experimental data from 5 different test geometries, the injection model could be validated and appropriate parameter values of the model could be determined. By using COMSOL Multiphysics®, the ion drift diffusion model with the injection model could be simulated for the different test geometries. The ion injection gave a substantial improvement of the ion drift diffusion model. The positive injection from electrodes into oil was found to be in the range 0.3-0.6 while the negative injection was 0.3 lower. Determination of the parameters for the injection from oil-pressboard interfaces proved to be difficult, but setting the parameters in the range 0.01-1 allowed for a good agreement with the experimental data. Here, a fit could be obtained for multiple assumptions about the set of active injection parameters. Finally it is recommended that the investigation of the ion injection continues in order to further improve the model and more accurately determine the parameters of it. Suggestions on how this work could be carried out are given in the end.

La recombinaison dissociative (RD) est le processus dans lequel un ion moléculaire positif se recombine avec un électron et se dissocie après en fragments neutres. Parmi les différents types de réactions entre ions moléculaires et électrons, la RD mérite une attention particulière à cause du rôle important qu'elle joue dans les plasmas à basse température et de faible densité, telles que celles rencontrées dans les ionosphères planétaires et les nuages interstellaires. En dépit de l'apparente simplicité de la RD, son étude s'est avéré difficile aussi bien du point de vue expérimental que théorique. Afin d'apporter plus de lumière sur ce processus, la technique de la post-décharge en écoulement a été introduite et a été largement utilisée ces dernières décennies. La présente thèse est dédiée aux études expérimentales de la réaction RD, à l'aide du spectromètre de masse à sonde Langmuir (FALP-MS) en post-décharge en écoulement, à l'Université de Rennes 1, à Rennes, en France. Nous avons étudié la réaction RD à température ambiante a été étudiée pour les ions moléculaires d'acétone ( ) et les cations de diméthylamine cations ( ainsi que les vitesses de réaction des cations de triméthylamine ( cations, et nous avons obtenu des valeurs avec des incertitudes de of ± 30 %. De plus, nous avons étudié l'attachement électronique à la diméthylamine neutre et nous avons trouvé une constante de vitesse de = 4.81 x 10-10 cm3 s-1. Un nouveau système d'injection pour l'anneau de stockage électrostatique de KACST a été conçu et construit dans le laboratoire de l'IPR à Rennes. Le couplage de la source d'ions avec un analyseur de masse quadripolaire et l'utilisation d'un système de vannes pulsées assurant un pompage différentiel entre différentes régions de la ligne d'injection constitue une méthode nouvelle dans le contexte d'un anneau de stockage. Le but final de ce projet est l'étude des réactions à ions lourds tels que les ions moléculaires biologiques. / Dissociative recombination (DR) is a process in which a positive molecular ion recombines with an electron and subsequently dissociates into neutral fragments. Among the different types of molecular ion-electron reactions DR deserves particular attention due to the important role it plays in low-temperature and low-density plasmas such as those encountered in planetary ionospheres and interstellar clouds. Despite the apparent simplicity of the DR reaction, its investigation has proven to be a difficult task from both experimental and theoretical perspectives. In order to shed more light upon this process the flowing afterglow technique has been introduced and utilised extensively for the last few decades. This thesis is devoted to experimental studies into the DR reaction using the flowing afterglow Langmuir probe mass spectrometer FALP-MS at the University of Rennes 1, in Rennes, France. The DR reaction at room temperature has been investigated for the acetone molecular ions ( ) and dimethylamine cations ( as well as the reaction rates of trimethylamine ( cations, and the obtained values were with uncertainties of ± 30 %. In addition, the electronic attachment to neutral dimethylamine was also studied and the rate constant was determined to be = 4.81 x 10-10 cm3 s-1. A new ion injection system system for the KACST electrostatic storage ring has been designed and built in the IPR laboratory in Rennes. The coupling of an ion source with a quadrupole mass analyzer and the use of a gas pulsing system to maintain the differential pumping between different regions of the injection line, is a novel technique for use with a storage ring. The final goal of this system is to study the reactivity of heavy ions such as biological molecular ions.

A cryogenic (325-80 K) ion mobility-mass spectrometer was designed and constructed in order to improve the analytical figures-of-merit for the chemical analysis of small mass analytes using ion mobility-mass spectrometry. The instrument incorporates an electron ionization source, a quadrupole mass spectrometer, a uniform field drift cell spectrometer encased in a cryogenic envelope, and an orthogonal geometry time-of-flight mass spectrometer. The analytical benefits of low temperature ion mobility are discussed in terms of enhanced separation ability, ion selectivity and sensitivity. The distinction between resolving power and resolution for ion mobility is also discussed. Detailed experimental designs and rationales are provided for each instrument component. Tuning and calibration data and methods are also provided for the technique. Proof-of-concept experiments for an array of analytes including rare gases (argon, krypton, xenon), hydrocarbons (acetone, ethylene glycol, methanol), and halides (carbon tetrachloride) are provided in order to demonstrate the advantages and limitations of the instrument for obtaining analytically useful information. Trendline partitioning of small analyte ions based on chemical composition is demonstrated as a novel chemical analysis method. The utility of mobility-mass analysis for mass selected ions is also demonstrated, particularly for probing the ion chemistry which occurs in the drift tube for small mass ions. As a final demonstration of the separation abilities of the instrument, the electronic states of chromium and titanium (ground and excited) are separated with low temperature. The transition metal electronic state separations demonstrated here are at the highest resolution ever obtained for ion mobility methods. The electronic conformational mass isomers of methanol (conventional and distonic) are also partially separated at low temperature. Various drift gases (helium, neon, and argon) are explored for the methanol system in order to probe stronger ion-neutral interaction potentials and effectuate higher resolution separations of the two isomeric ions. Finally, two versatile ion source designs and a method for axially focusing ions at low pressure (1-10 torr) using electrostatic fields is presented along with some preliminary work on the ion sources.