Simulation and Experimental Analysis of Electrical Characterization of Cap-Pin Glass Insulator under Uniform and Non-Uniform Pollution Layers

This paper deals with the analysis of the electrical performance of the glass cap-pin insulator under pollution conditions. The experiments are conducted in accordance with the IEC 60815 standard using artificial pollution (a distilled water mixture with NaCl). Several levels of applied voltage are used to evaluate the impact of both uniform and non-uniform pollution. For the same conditions, simulations are carried out using the COMSOL Multiphysics environment. Of interest, Leakage current waveforms are extracted from the current density and compared to those obtained from experiments. A proposed process, which aims to predict the effectiveness of the simulation in selecting appropriate parameters, geometry, boundaries etc., is investigated, where the findings are closely match the real model. Therefore, the electric field distribution on the insulator surface is presented, and 3D representations are considered for better visualizing the influence of the pollution on the insulating system. Accordingly, arcing discharges are characterized by high levels of electric field stress for uniform pollution, and dry-band arcing is simulated to correspond perfectly with laboratory findings for non-uniform pollution. Finally, this paper provides valuable insights into the electrical stress on the insulator under the effect of pollution conditions.