Contamination characteristics of polymeric insulators by the wind blow method

The most severe contamination will normally occur after typhoon with strong sea wind in Japan. The characteristics of contamination under strong sea wind are necessary to be understood not only for porcelain insulators but also for polymeric insula¬tors that have different shapes and diameters. In this paper, the outline of the equipment for the contamination using the wind blow method is shown, and the validity of the equip¬ment is demonstrated through the study on the diameter dependence of contamination. The proposed wind blow method enables to prepare artificially contaminated polymeric insulators without removing the hydrophobicity of the surface. Three wind blowers and two-fluid microparticulation nozzles were installed in the wind tunnel. The wind speed at the insulator was up to 14…