Superhydrophobic coatings for electrical insulators
Date
2018
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Abstract
Dielectric breakdown in electrical insulators is a frequently encountered phenomenon leading to surface damage, material loss and eventually a complete breakdown of electrical insulators. Dielectric breakdown is accelerated under severe conditions such as humidity and rain. As a result, the service life of the electrical insulators is affected. In our work, we employed superhydrophobic coatings, which are extremely repellent towards water, in an attempt to retain the dielectric strength of electric insulators in the presence of water. In addition, we studied the influence of surface roughness on the dielectric breakdown of electrical insulators. In this work, hydrophobic PDMS sheets (as a mimic to silicone bushings/insulators) with different surface roughness were fabricated and superhydrophobicity was imparted to these sheets via surface modification. The dielectric breakdown of these PDMS sheets was studied under both dry and wet conditions. The influence of surface roughness on the dielectric breakdown was also investigated by using PDMS sheets with different surface roughness. We noticed an increase in surface roughness leads to lower dielectric breakdown. Further, we demonstrated that superhydrophobic coatings on the surface of electrical insulators allow the retention of dielectric strength under wet conditions. Consequently, we envision that superhydrophobic coatings on electrical insulators will lead to enhanced performance and prolonged service life of insulators.
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Subject
dielectric strength
superhydrophobic
electrical insulators
coatings