THE HIGH VOLTAGE PERFORMANCE OF INCLINED INSULATORS

Abstract

The use of insulators at non-standard angles in high voltage overhead power lines and in the railway system has widely increased. The main purposes of this are to reduce the construction cost of transmission towers and to improve their aesthetic appeal. While new overhead lines have been designed and developed by combining the insulator into the structure, the high voltage performance of the inclined insulator at non-standard angles has not been the subject of significant research. Until now, there are a few works focused on the effect of the inclination angles of an insulator. To extend the research in this field, this study therefore investigated the impact of the orientation and angle of insulator on their electrical performance. To do this, a series of simulation and experimental work was conducted. The modelling of the location of rain droplets hitting an angled insulator was completed to understand more about their cleaning performance and to support the electrical field analysis. In addition, the tests in the high voltage laboratory have been developed to evaluate the electrical performance under a range of conditions. The achievements resulting from this this research include the following. The modelling of the impact point of rain has shown that the orientation and angle of insulator have an important role in determining the cleaning performance. In addition to the orientation of the insulator, their placement at different angles when compared with the prevailing wind direction can influence droplet movement and their distribution on the insulator. The influence of the droplets on the angles of insulator further correlates with the leakage current characteristics, electrical discharge, ageing area and breakdown performances. However, the insulator angles do not appear make a significant difference and change in the electrical properties (particularly when we use even amounts of pollution / rainfall during a test). Therefore, the insulators inclined at an angle can be used as normal in service. However, understanding the long-term influence of the angle on the accretion of pollution and the resulting leakage currents is likely to be vital.

Date of Award	1 Aug 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Ian Cotton (Supervisor) & Tony Chen (Supervisor)