Analysis on Aging Characteristics of Composite Insulators
Composite insulator was widely used in the power grid because its excellent performance. Aging issue of composite insulators was appeared with the long-term operating. The internal structure of silicone rubber may be changed with the broken of macromolecular chains of silicone rubber, because long-term operating in the environments of surface discharge, ultraviolet, pollution and other harsh conditions. In order to study the aging characteristics of composite insulator at the different operating life, the components and thermal stability were analyzed using fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) respectively. The results of FTIR showed that silicon rubber composition in composite insulator changed slightly with different operating life, especially in the internal surface. However, the absorption peaks of Si-CH3 and Si-O-Si on external surface of the insulator were decreased obviously with operating life longer. The thermal gravimetric analysis results showed that the thermostability of composite insulator was almost not changed with different operating life. The temperature of 5% weightlessness was between 320°C to 335°C. It illustrated that the composite insulator had a good thermostability at room temperature and qualitative change wouldn't occur for a long time laying aside. The study of the aging characteristics of composite insulators will provided the reference for performance evaluation of running composite insulators.