Dependence of flashover voltage on the chemical composition of multi-component insulator surface contaminants

The withstand strength of contaminated insulators under practical field conditions depends on the type and distribution of contaminants as well as their conductivity. In this paper, the authors have investigated the dependence of flashover voltage on the chemical composition of multicomponent contaminants and have proposed a unique method to relate the flashover voltage to the types of salts present. Although the distribution of contaminants on the surface plays a significant role in the flashover, it was found that no one portion of the insulator tends to predominate in importance and the uniform contamination distribution yields the minimum flashover voltage.