In this chapter, the review of insulating materials includes traditional and new forms as applied in power-system equipment. The electrical and physical properties of significance in characterizing and assessing the condition of the materials are introduced. A number of the deteriorative and faiIure mechanisms associated with practical insulating materials are described, including an indication of the magnitude of the electrical breakdown dresses of samples/prototypes compared with the actual operating dresses. An understanding of these various factors and the expected behaviour of the materials enables the mod appropriate techniques for insulation-condition assessment to be selected and assists in interpretation of the complex data recorded by the monitoring systems. The latter are considered in later chapters.

Inspec keywords: insulating materials; power systems; power system reliability; failure analysis

Other keywords: failure mechanism; physical property; deteriorative mechanism; power-system equipment; insulating material; electrical property; insulation-condition assessment

Subjects: Power systems