A surface tracking model for failure prediction

Surface tracking on carbon based solid insulators is one of the main reasons for failure in high voltage systems. Due to the various factors, such as humidity, flow rate, pollution, local voltage, etc., it is hard to make an estimation about the life of an insulator. Also, in contrast to the internal 3-dimensional treeing, 2-dimensional surface tracking has attracted little research effort. The model described simulates the tracking process, which consists of two stages, initiation and track growth.