A methodology for short-time thermal endurance testing of polymers for cable insulation

In this paper, a test procedure which allows rapid endurance characterization of electrical materials is presented. The proposed methodology, consisting of measurements of oxidative stability associated to a conventional thermal endurance test, is applied to the common problem of comparing endurance of materials candidate for high-voltage cable insulation. The advantage of this methodology is that the thermal endurance graph can be obtained in relatively-short times, hence material comparison becomes much more convenient with respect to the procedure described by IEC 216 Standard