Influence of Environmental Stresses on High Voltage Polymer Rod Type Insulator Performances

The main goal of this paper is to investigate the effects of environmental stresses on high voltage polymer insulators regarding electric field distribution. For that purpose simulations were carried out, using contemporary software tool COMSOL Mph, for polymer rod type insulator operating under polluted conditions and with presence of water droplets. Simulations were performed for clean insulator, with uniformly deposited contamination layer, with presence of dry band location and presence of water in the form of droplets on the hydrophobic surface of insulator. In order to simulate different types of pollution, the pollution layer is modeled as a conductive layer for different values of its conductivity. The results provided in this paper point out critical spots on the insulator due to the environmental stresses and as such they provide deeper understanding of polymer insulators performances under different polluted conditions from the surrounding ambient.