| Title |
Aging and Recovery of HTV Silicone Rubber Used for Outdoor Insulator |
| Authors |
연복희(Yeon, Bok-Hui) ; 허창수(Heo, Chang-Su) ; 조한구(Jo, Han-Gu) |
| Keywords |
Silicone rubber ; Aging ; Polymeric outdoor insulator ; Tracking resistance ; Arc resistance |
| Abstract |
This paper presents a study on the aging and recovery of HTV (high temperature vulcanized) silicone rubber used for outdoor insulators. UV irradiation, corona discharge and water immersion were employed as factors of the artificial aging. The effects of changes derived from these stresses on the tracking and arc resistance of silicone rubber were examined. We have investigated the aging phenomena of HTV silicone rubber by the above stresses using the surface energy calculation with contact angle measurement, solvent-extraction, and surface/volume resistivity and so on. These results showed that UV irradiation and corona discharge lead to nearly the same surface oxidation, but the percentage change of mobile low molecular weight by these stresses was different. Furthermore, the oxidized layer induced under UV irradiation restricted the recovery of hydrophobic surface. Water immersion little lowered hydrophobicity level and leaded to a loss of tracking and arc resistance. The degradation mechanism based on our results was discussed. |