High Pollution Resistant Composite Insulators

Composite insulators with silicone rubber housing have been applied since more than 40 years successfully under various climatic and pollution stress conditions. Since the service experience was not available in the introduction phase (Generation I and II) of this insulator technology in the early 1970ies, the life-expectation for composite insulators has always been lower than that for conventional insulators made of porcelain and glass. With growing experience and knowledge gained with this technology in the last 3 decades, this view has drastically changed and led to today's opinion that the service life-time of composite and conventional insulators are comparable even under severe application conditions. But, to obtain such insulators, the product design, material selection and quality of production must fulfil much more than the minimum requirements given by the current international standards.