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ICPADM 2012 The 10th International Conference on Properties and Applications of Dielectric Materials, July 24-28, 2012, Bangalore, India Behaviour of water droplets on polymer surface Nagaraj H P1, Vasudev N2, Ravi K N1, Shivakumar Aradhya2 1 Sapthagiri College of Engineering, Bangalore 2 High Voltage Division, CPRI, Bangalore
Abstract The flashover of polymeric insulators in artificial contamination tests shows that, the discharge on a fully contaminated insulator follow the leakage path along the surface of the insulator. The presence of water droplets and contaminated layers intensify the electric field strength on the surface of polymeric insulator. Therefore, the study of electric field distribution on polymeric insulators under wet and contaminated conditions is important. The water droplets play an important role in pollution flashover and ageing of polymeric insulator. Therefore study of water droplets on Polymer surface is very important and hence studied. Index Terms Polymeric Insulator, Ageing, water droplets, Electric field.

In this work the surface characteristic of polymer insulator was studied by placing different number of water droplets on the polymer insulator. Sodium chloride solution of particular Severity was used for the tests. This is due to the fact that the water droplets on the surface may combine with pollutants and may become conductive. The behavior of decreasing flashover values of the polymeric material is similar to the one observed in service and laboratory. When sequence of flashovers was obtained in the laboratory, the flashover values of polymeric insulator decrease one after other. The same behavior is observed on the polymeric material also. This study will be helpful in understanding the arcing property of the surface of polymeric material.

I. INTRODUCTION Polymeric insulator is the best alternate to porcelain insulator when pollution ambient is present. The ageing property of polymeric insulator is not as good as porcelain. Ageing of polymeric insulator is therefore studied in all the research laboratories. The ageing of polymeric is due to various reasons. The primary ageing is the loss of hydrophobicity. The ambient weather condition plays an important role in the same. The surface deterioration of the polymer may be of temporary or permanent in nature. Once the hydrophobicity is lost the deterioration may even lead to erosion of the material. The surface deterioration may lead to flashover or even shed failure. In order to understand the surface behavior of polymeric it is necessary to understand the arc characteristics between the water globules on the polymer surface. The arc behavior of the water droplets plays an important role in the pollution flashover and aging of non-ceramic insulators. The water droplets increase the electric field strength on the insulator surface. The corona discharges on the surface due to water drops may lead to ageing of the weather shed material of the insulator. Therefore tests are conducted on the surface by placing water droplets on the surface of polymer. Such tests are quite useful to understand the degradation process on the polymeric insulators.

II.

EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP AND PROCEDURE

Tests were conducted on polymeric insulator samples in order to evaluate their performance in the presence of water droplets on application of voltage. Five samples of silicone rubber with different percentage of silicon contents were used as samples. The voltage was applied from a 50kV, 5kVA testing transformer. The samples were in rectangular shape & test was carried out on 4mm thick sample of dimension 5cm 15cm. The polymeric material is basically hydrophobic. The main reason for the surface deterioration is the arcing at the surface. The arc may occur between the water globules. Therefore they are deliberately placed on the surface of polymeric material and arcing characteristics are studied. Initial experiments were performed without any droplets between the electrodes. This was carried out in order to understand the difference in the flashover between the surfaces with and without water droplets. 2, 3, 5 and 9 water droplets are arranged as shown in figure. The droplets were of 0.2ml in volume. The electrodes were positioned at a distance of 4 cm apart. The arrangements of globules are shown in figure 1.

2 The voltage was raised gradually till flashover. The flashover values were recorded and the results are tabulated. 3 4 5 3 4 5 19 20 18

Three consecutive flashovers were obtained on polymer samples with 2, 3, 5 and 9 droplets. These droplets were having a conductivity of 1.6 S/m corresponding to 10kg/m 3. These conductive droplets represent polluted and moistened polymer surface. The results of these tests are given in Tables II, III, IV, and V. Table II Results of the tests with two droplets Sl.No. Sample Flashover Values in kV No. First Second Third 1 1 15 5 1 2 2 19 4 1 3 3 17 3 1 4 4 16 4 1 5 5 17 4 1 Table III Results of the tests with three droplets Sl.No. Sample Flashover Values in kV No. First Second Third 1 1 15 5 1 2 2 18 4 3 3 3 16 3 1 4 4 16 4 1 5 5 17 4 1 Table IV Results of the tests with five droplets Sl.No. Sample Flashover Values in kV No. First Second Third 1 1 16 2 2 2 2 14 4 1 3 3 17 4 1 4 4 16 4 1 5 5 17 4 1

All dimensions are in mm. Fig. 1. Figure showing the arrangements of water globules on the polymer surface. The experimental set-up for the tests is shown in figure 2.

Fig. 2. Figure showing the experimental set-up for the tests. After arranging the globules, flashover values were obtained in a sequence. At first dry flashover values were obtained when the gap distance between the electrodes was 40mm. The results are tabulated in Tables I. This was obtained on five different polymer samples.

Sl.No. 1 2

Table-I Sample No. Dry Flashover Values in kV 1 17 2 20

Table V Results of the tests with nine droplets Sl.No. Sample Flashover Values in kV No. First Second Third 1 1 11 5 1 2 2 15 9 2 3 3 11 5 2 4 4 11 5 1

3 5 5 14 4 1

II.RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS Generally, the droplets under the influence of the field, start oscillating, then they join with each other and then with the electrodes creating a water path bridging the gap spacing. This phenomenon can be seen from the figures 3, 4 and 5. Sometimes the water starts evaporate which results in dry zones and hence micro-discharges occur which further results in bridging between the electrodes. First flashover values with two, three, five water droplets were same as the values obtained under dry conditions. Whereas the first flashover values in 9 droplet arrangement have decreased considerably. This was due to the fact that reduction in surface length without water droplets. The position of droplets with respect to the electrodes is of importance. When the droplets are near the electrodes, then the flashover voltage decreases.

Fig.53. Figure showing nine globules and their behaviour with Voltage.

III. CONCLUSIONS With the results of the tests with two water droplets arrangement we can arrive at the minimum flashover voltage per unit length which will be useful in the design of the surface length of polymer insulator. It is evident from all tests that water droplets elongate on the application of the voltage lessening the gap length leading to arcing and hence the flashover. Tests with nine water droplets arrangement show reduction in the flashover. When once the first flashover takes place, subsequent flashover values were of lower values. This behavior is of much interest because of the reason that the actual polymeric insulator behaves similarly in the field and in the laboratory.

Fig. 3. Figure showing the two globules and their behaviour with Voltage.

IV. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Authors wish to thank the authorities of CPRI, Bangalore and Sapthagiri College of Engineering, Bangalore for giving permission to publish this paper. Thanks are due to Ashwini, Rashmi, Megha and Ramya students of SCE, EEE Department for their help in carrying out the experiments.

V. REFERENCES 1) KATADA, K. TAKADA, Y. ; TAKANO, M. ; NAKANISHI, T. ; HAYASHI, Y. ; MATSUOKA, R. , CORONA DISCHARGE CHARACTERISTICS OF WATER Fig. 4. Figure showing the three globules and their behaviour with Voltage.
DROPLETS ON HYDROPHOBIC POLYMER INSULATOR SURFACE, PROPERTIES AND APPLICATIONS OF DIELECTRIC MATERIALS, 2000. PROCEEDINGS OF THE 6TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE VOL. 2, PP 781-

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4 2) MICHAEL G. DANIKAS, RAMANUJAM SARATHI, PAVLOS RAMNALIS, AND STEFANOS L. NALMPANTIS, ANALYSIS OF POLYMER SURFACE MODIFICATIONS DUE TO DISCHARGES INITIATED BY WATER DROPLETS UNDER HIGH ELECTRIC FIELDS, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING 4:5 2010, PP 329-334. 3) Karakoulidis, K. Danikas, M. G. Rakitzis, P.: Deterioration Phenomena on Insulating Surfaces due to Water Droplets, Journal of Electrical Engineering 56 (2005), 169-175 . 4) Danikas, M. G. Rakitzis, P. Karakoulidis, K.: Study of Parameters Related to Deterioration Phenomena due to Water Droplets on Polymeric Surfaces, Journal of Electrical Engineering 57 (2006), 130137.