Electro-thermal aging behaviour of thermoplastic compounds

Improved recyclability and cost pressure encourage the use of thermoplastics as electrical insulation material for demanding electrical applications. Besides their basic mechanical, thermal and electrical properties it is of interest to study the aging behavior of these thermoplastic materials. In this paper a non-standard test method is presented, where rod-rod shaped test samples have been exposed to electro-thermal stress. The samples have been aged at elevated temperature under alternating current (AC) field until breakdown occurred. Several thermoplastic materials were tested and differences in performance due to fillers and additives were investigated.