Electrical performance evaluation of HDPE developed for surge arresters housings

This paper aims at investigating the application of high density polyethylene (HDPE) for manufacturing distribution surge arresters housings. For this purpose, it was developed prototypes of HDPE surge arresters with rated voltages of 10 kV, 15 kV and 24 kV. Two types of polymeric materials were used to manufacture the prototypes: unplasticized and plasticized HDPE. The HDPE surge arresters were submitted to electrical performance tests, according to Brazilian NBR 16050 standard. The main tests carried out were: short-circuit, weather aging, water immersion and operation duty. The results obtained have demonstrated that unplasticized HDPE surge arresters shown low performance under short-circuit and weather aging tests. On the other hand, plasticized formulation has demonstrated good stability under electrical tests and it seems to be suitable for manufacturing surge arresters housings.