Adhesion force measurement of electrical insulating materials by atomic force microscopy

For long-term operating outdoor insulation, contamination accumulation has become an increasingly serious problem. In this paper, atomic force microscopy was used to measure the adhesion force of glass, silicon rubber, porcelain, stalinite samples. Test results showed that adhesion force of silicon rubber was the largest, approximately larger than the other three samples by one or two orders of magnitude. Furthermore, silicon rubber surface exhibited a long-range attractive force and multiple points contact, probably due to the electrostatic interaction and surface roughness. It might be a theoretical proof which accounts for the different contamination accumulation between composite insulator and porcelain or glass insulator.