Multifactor mechanical aging properties and electrical performance research on composite material tower and samples

Abstract

Composite materials have potential applications in power systems because of their excellent electrical and mechanical characteristics. Composite towers can solve problems existing in the construction and operation of regional transmission lines. However, there are many problems that need to be solved before their large‐scale practical application. Composite materials used for electric towers are synthesized with polyurethane resin and glass fiber, contributing to poor hydrophobicity and self‐cleaning capacity as well as poor antifouling property. So hydrophobic coatings have been applied to the surface of materials in this paper. Electrical tests on the composite material samples, including wetting flashover test, pollution flashover test, and icing flashover test, were conducted to study the properties of hydrophobic coatings, which demonstrate that flashover voltage of hydrophobic coated composite samples is significantly improved. At present, the key technical problems that limit the large‐scale application of composite towers are aging and degradation of mechanical properties. To test those two properties of composite towers and relevant composite materials, 5000‐h multifactor artificial accelerating aging tests were carried out, which proved that the composite samples used for the tower and the composite tower itself have good aging resistance and mechanical properties. © 2017 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.