Voltage Stabilisers for XLPE in High Voltage Applications

The constant work to increase the breakdown strength of cable insulation material in order to achieve a greater reliability and an increasing energy transmission has commercially almost exclusively been done by reducing the amount of contamination in the insulation material. However, the contaminants have now been reduced to a level at which further reduction is not easily done. A way to increase the breakdown strength even further in these super clean materials is to make use of an active species such as a voltage stabiliser. The effect of voltage stabiliser has been known for several decades. However, the low solubility of the aromatic voltage stabiliser in insulation materials such as polyethylene has been a dilemma. In this work we have dealt with this solubility problem by attaching alkyl side chains to the aromatic structure to improve its solubility in the insulation. Molecular modelling has been used in an attempt to predict the efficiency of the voltage stabiliser.