CIGRE India Journal
Year : 2023, Volume : 12, Issue : 2
First page : ( 19) Last page : ( 27)
Print ISSN : 2250-0081. Online ISSN : 2250-009X.

Degradation due to tracking and erosion of micro/nano silicone rubber composites based weathershed material developed for outdoor insulation and its correlation to the measured leakage current

Sindhu Baby A.V.¹, Thomas M. Joy¹

¹High Voltage Laboratory Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

Online published on 1 March, 2024.

Abstract

The continuous condition monitoring of overhead insulators is inevitable for a healthy and dependable power transmission and distribution network. Regular insulator monitoring is necessary in polluted areas to reduce electrical power outages due to the pollution induced flashover. The health of the insulators is monitored by a scheduled measurement of the leakage current. With this technique, a critical minimum value of leakage current is highlighted as the indicator to start the preventative maintenance. The Inclined Plane Test is used in this paper to analyse the behaviour of leakage current along the various filled silicone rubber (SR) based weathershed material which would find application in condition monitoring in areas where insulators are polluted and contaminated. The leakage current recorded in this investigation before and after the commencement of the erosion process is the same, and there is no evidence of a growing tendency. Therefore, merely monitoring the rise in the value of leakage current to the critical minimum value will not reveal the deterioration of the material. This research provides a new approach for detecting material deterioration by evaluating the leakage current's Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) spectra. The method developed can be used to monitor the performance of composite weathershed materials used in outdoor polymeric insulators.

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Keywords

Condition Monitoring, Composite insulator, Erosion, Inclined plane test, Leakage current.

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