Investigation of Uniform and Non-Uniform Water Droplets on Different Configurations of Silicon Rubber Composite Insulators Subjected to AC Electric Field Stress

This paper analyses the potential and electric field distribution of three different variations of 11 kV polymeric insulators. The 2d models differ from each other by its shed diameter, creepage length, shed spacing, and the number of sheds. The impact of rainwater droplets, uniform, and non-uniform wet pollution on the electrical behaviour of insulator models are discussed. The environmental stresses are artificially modelled on the insulator surface. Simulations are carried out on the polymer models using COMSOL Multi-physics software, and the variation of electric field and potential distributions w.r.t creepage distance are evaluated. The influence of shape, size, and location of water droplets on the field distribution is also studied. The obtained electric field and potential distributions of the three different insulator models are compared to obtain the best configuration which would perform better than others in these environmental stress conditions.