Study on aging characteristics of silicone rubber insulator sheds using FTIR

In order to explore a method for assessing the aging characteristics of composite insulators, the composite insulators in service were studied using the Fourier Transform Infra-Red (FTIR) test. The influences of several aging factors on the shed materials of composite insulators in service such as shed locations, operating years and environment contamination levels were preliminarily investigated. It indicates that the peak of the FTIR spectra is lower and the main groups are broken for the first shed at the high voltage side and the shed with longer operating years; as for the insulator strings under different environments the effect of contamination level on the FTIR characteristics of the shed is less than that of operating years.