Failure characteristics of suspension-type porcelain insulators on a 154 kV transmission line

The paper reports on the failure characteristics of porcelain suspension insulators removed from a 154 kV transmission line in Korea. It is found that it is very important to choose the test data describing the homogeneity of porcelain, which is related to the micro-crack propagation in the porcelain body, for leveling the ageing state of the porcelain insulators. Tests such as the Rockwell hardness, is found to be effective in calculating the statistical values on the micro-crack fracture of the porcelain body. The combined thermal and mechanical tests have a close relationship to the dielectric strength of the porcelain body. The use of the Weibull distribution function is shown to be a very reasonable way of calculating the failure probability of aged porcelain insulators