Influence of shed profile on the outdoor insulation performance of polymeric insulators

Wet tests, dry tests and artificial pollution tests were carried out to investigate the influence of shed profile and shed arrangement on the outdoor insulation performance of polymeric insulators. The sample insulators characterized almost the same insulation distance but prominently different shed diameter and shed space, therefore various leakage distance on a large scale. Considering the wettability of polymer insulators, both hydrophobic status and hydrophilic status were simulated in the tests. It is found that shed profile and its arrangement have prominent influence on flashover voltage of polymeric insulators under wet and pollution conditions. Moreover, leakage distance is not the sole crucial parameter to describe pollution performance of insulators. Increasing leakage distance in a limited insulation distance by excessively adding the number of shed and enlarging shed diameter may contrarily lower the wet and pollution performance of polymeric insulators