Using simulation programs to estimate performance of non ceramic insulators at severe coastal sites

This paper presents an experimental measurement of ac 50 Hz flashover voltage (kV) of hydrophobic non-ceramic insulators to enhance electrical properties of polypropylene (PP) with respect to mechanical characteristics by adding inorganic fillers. Blends of polypropylene with various inorganic fillers such as: Alumina Trihydrate (ATH) and Silica (SiO2) are prepared with varying concentration rates and this is an attractive way to examine a new material combining the best properties of these two fillers. Each test was repeated five times on each sample under the same conditions to check the accuracy of the results. The impact of adding fillers to the polypropylene insulators on the flashover voltage is compared with the base case (no filler). Besides, the flashover voltage of each specimen under investigation is examined under various weather conditions such as dry, wet,salt wet (salinity 30000, 50000and 60000µS/cm) and 30wt. %nitric acid(HNO3). The tensile strength as a mechanical property has been determined throughout this work. The performance of (PP) samples shows a marked dependence on the concentration of filler. A MATLAB code has been created to give interpolated values between different percentages of inorganic filler.