Fiberglass rod for electrical/mechanical applications

Resin bonded glass fiber rods have been used as guy strain insulators for many years. As such, only moderate mechanical and electrical stresses are encountered over the service life of the insulator. More recently RBGF rods have found use in tension core applications such as suspension insulators. Mechanical and electrical stresses required for these types or products are considerably higher. A higher quality rod has been developed to meet these more demanding applications. Developments have been underway at Joslyn for the past several years to optimize rod properties and quality to meet these more demanding applications. This paper is not intended to be a comprehensive presentation of rod properties, but rather it is intended to point out some fundamental rod properties along with the means devised for assessing the quality of this rather unique product.