Natural aging of SiR insulators in Pakistan

Composite or 3 polymeric insulators with a lot of advantages over ceramic (porcelain or glass insulators) have been in use since last 15 years. Before they are readily adopted as future insulators, a lot of work on their life estimation is required. The reason is their organic nature which causes the degradation of their useful electrical properties with time. To investigate this, lot of work is in progress all over the world and a work was also started on them to investigate their performance in Pakistan. In an initial part of that work SiR Rubber samples and full scale 10 kV distribution class SiR Insulators were aged in natural environment of HATTAR city. The HATTAR city is a heavily polluted industrial area near Islamabad. These insulators were installed in open environment and energized for two years. All natural stresses like rain, fog, salt, dust, pollution, UV radiation affect the insulator and cause its aging. The state of aging and degradation was estimated at defined time intervals by different material analysis techniques. The results are particularly useful for direct estimation of state and were also used for developing weather cycles of the HATTAR city environment for future work.