Studies on corona degradation of polymeric insulators

Corona has been identified as one of the major factor in degradation. Corona in practice occurs in two ways, one is due to improper hardware design, another one is due to the water droplet corona. The impact of the former one is more compared to later and has got larger attention in recent literature. In the present work the corona degradation studies are conducted on different types of polymeric insulator samples. A specially designed HV source along with the corona chamber is employed. A single needle electrode is used to generate the corona on the various polymeric samples used for the study. Simulation of the electric stress on the sample subjected to the AC corona, using charge simulation method (CSM) is attempted. Results of the experimental investigation obtained for various samples are analysed and presented.