Investigation of water tree characteristic in XLPE nanocomposites for medium voltage cable application

Cross linked polyethylene (XLPE) is a polymeric material that has been used as insulator and it is widely used for underground cable nowadays. The underground cable may contain defects such as void and impurities due to imperfect manufacturing processes, and exposed to the moisture, which eventually could initiate to the occurrence of water tree under high voltage application. The occurrence of water tree in the cable could lead to the breakdown of the power cable. By addition of nanofiller, the process of water tree formation could be slow down. In this work, an experiment has been carried out to investigate the water tree properties in XLPE nanocomposite for medium voltage cable application. Experiment is performed to observe the real formation of the water tree under high voltage application and to gain better understanding on how the nanofiller could slow down the formation of the water tree. Two types of nanofiller such as Zinc Oxide and Alumina are used with different weight percentage which are 0wt%, 0.5wt%, 1wt% and 1.5wt%. As a result, water tree formation can be observed and the time of water trees start to occur for each type of nanofillers are different. The nanofillers of 1wt% Al
2
O
3
in XLPE inhibit the significant growth of water tree compared to other weight percent of both nanofillers.