Pollutions contamination effects and microvaristor applications on polymer insulators

Salt fog test, wheel test and 5000 hours accelerated weathering tests were standardized for determining the polymer insulator performance under pollution contamination. But all these tests will be carried out under salt contamination only. Some of the pollutions like hydro carbons will also present in the atmosphere by the bricks burning process. These pollutions will have severe impact on the insulator performance as salt pollution. Due to the presence of these pollutions on the insulator surface, degradation takes place by electrical stresses. Hence for long term reliability of the polymer insulator, long duration tests are required for various polluted contaminations. With addition to the pollution performance analysis a grading material is also required for minimization of the electrical stresses. In this paper salt and hydro carbon pollution effects on polymer insulator is analyzed by 8000 hours long duration test with UV exposure and ZnO microvaristor application on polymer insulator surface is analyzed for minimization of electrical stresses by Finite Element Method.