The ac and dc performance of polymeric insulating materials under accelerated aging in a FOG chamber

The paper present's the results of the de performance of polymeric insulating materials in a fog chamber. The materials evaluated in fog produced from low (250 μS/cm) and high (1000 μS/cm) conductivity water include cylindrical. rod samples of high temperature vulcanized (HTV) silicone rubber and ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM) rubber containing various amounts of either alumina trihydrate (ATH) or silica fillers, or both. comparison is made of material performance obtained with ac which was reported in an earlier study. In both low and high conductivity fog, the time to failure with ac and +dc was very similar, but a reduction by a factor of about four was observed in the time to failure with -dc. For both ac and dc, silicone rubber performed. better than EPDM samples in low conductivity fog, while the order of performance was reversed in high conductivity fog. A theoretical model to determine the effect of dry band discharges on material is presented. Good agreement of the predicted behavior of materials with the experimental findings is shown.