A novel method to study the property of the interface between silicone rubber and fiber reinforced plastic

In this paper, a four-electrode system is developed to determine the interface resistivity of the specially made specimens containing an interface between silicone rubber (SR) film and a fiber reinforced plastics (FRP) substrate. Both simulation and experiment show that the shield electrodes can successfully shield a considerably part of the bulk current. With the shield electrodes, the current flowing through the interface can be obtained and the interface resistivity is calculated. The influence of liquid permeation of SR as well as the recovery process on the interface resistivity is studied. The results show that interface resistivity is a sensitive electrical parameter reflecting the interface status and the newly-proposed test method can provide a means of evaluating the interface between the SR housing and FRP rod in a composite insulator.