Design and evaluation of different types of insulators using PDE tool box

Abstract

This paper presents the analysis of potential and electric distribution characteristics of outdoor polymer insulator. Silicone rubber provides an alternative to porcelain and glass regarding to high voltage (HV) insulators and it has been widely used by power utilities since 1980's owing to their superior contaminant performances. Failure of outdoor high voltage (HV) insulator often involves the solid air interface insulation. As result, knowledge of the field distribution around high voltage (HV) insulators is very important to determine the electric field stress occurring on the insulator surface, particularly on the air side of the interface. Thus, concerning to this matter, this project would analyze the electric field distribution of energized silicone rubber high voltage (HV) insulator. And the simulation results of electric field and potential distributions along surface of silicone rubber polymer insulators under clean and contamination conditions. For comparative purposes, the analysis is based on two conditions, which are silicon rubber insulators with clean surfaces and silicon rubber insulators with effect of water droplets on the insulator surface. Finite element method (FEM) is adopted for this work. The electric field distribution computation is accomplished using MAT LAB-PDE TOOL software that performs two dimensions finite element method. The objective of this work is to comparison of both the alternative shed and straight shed type insulators under the effect of contamination on potential and electric field distributions along the insulator surface when water droplets exist on the insulator surface.