Comparison of reliability of conventional and rapid aging methods for insulating materials

It is shown that the conventional aging (CA) method of insulating materials is only an approximation, and simulates the actual service of insulation. Since the test is complex and uncertain, CA cannot be absolute. Although most rapid thermal endurance test methods of insulating materials are based on CA, once established, they are independent test methods. Further, the dispersion of CA data is large and repeating the tests is difficult due to its long time and high costs. Rapid methods, such as thermogravimetric point slope (TPS), have smaller scatter, higher success ratio, and good accuracy and are easy to repeat. Therefore, taken as a whole, the reliability of TPS may well be identical with, or even better than, that of CA for determining the thermal endurance properties of insulating materials