Pyrolysis kinetics analysis on FRP rod of composite insulators by DSC

In recent years, abnormal heating phenomenon of composite insulators appears frequently, which causes great damages to the UHV/EHV power transmission lines in China. From previous studies, this kind of fault may cause the thermal deterioration of the FRP Rod in composite insulator. In this paper, Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) method was applied to study the thermal decomposition mechanism and thermal stability of FRP Rod in an inventory insulator. The DSC test was carried out in air atmosphere at the heating rates of 5, 10, 20 and 30 K/min, covering the temperature range from ambient to 1071K. And the kinetic parameters such as apparent activation energy of FRP rod pyrolysis were determined by Friedman method and OFW method. The results suggest that the activation energy calculated by these two methods are basically similar, and the average value obtained by Friedman and OFW method were 184.1 KJ·mol
⁻¹
and 160.3 KJ·mol
⁻¹
, respectively.