Experimental Study on Surface Ageing of Polymeric Insulator

Polymeric insulators are widely used due to their excellent hydrophobic nature. Hydrophobicity gets affected due to surface degradation. The major environmental factor that affects the surface characteristics of the polymeric insulator is the deposition of contaminated water droplets on the surface of the insulator. In the present work, the effect of salinity of water droplets representing the contaminated water and the number of droplets on the surface of the polymeric insulator are experimentally studied. The behavior of flashover voltage due to the above factors was observed and a conclusion was drawn on how the flashover voltage behaves with an increase in salinity and also with the increase in the number of water droplets on the surface of the insulators. This study has resulted in an important conclusion that even though flashover is close to the surface, they occur at a lower value of voltages with the increase in salinity and number of droplets of water. This causes surface degradation and hence results in surface ageing of the material.