Performance analysis and life-cycle assessment of energy distribution system insulators in aggressive environments

In this study, the energy distribution system was evaluated against the durability of materials and its environmental aspects, in relation to the life-cycle assessment (LCA) of electrical insulators of different technologies, analyzing individual performance tests and the main impacts generated from the perspective of "cradle to gate". Initially for the performance study, nine different insulators were tested, which were tested for clean (48 hours) and salt spray chamber (360 hours), with hydrophobicity and leakage current measurements, as well as the application of pollutants artificial limbs. After the tests were carried out, four of these insulators with the best performances were selected to perform ACV studies using the SimaPro 8.3 software. From the performance results was inferred that the insulators that had silicone coatings and obtained the lowest values of leakage current during the clean and salt spray chamber tests, indicated better performances in aggressive environments. Already, through the ACV, the environmental impacts of insulators with equivalent characteristics were verified, since three of them had porcelain as the main constituent material. The hybrid insulator with resin core and glass fiber silicone coated indicated the lowest environmental impacts due to its low amount of mass compared to the others, but it was not possible to verify the quality of the data implemented in the ICVs