Experimental study demonstrates prolonged hydrophobicity recovery after surface discharge in field-aged silicone rubber insulators, highlighting a novel metric for polymer degradation.
Polymer insulators with silicone rubber (SiR) may degrade during long‐term outdoor operation. To evaluate the degradation of aged SiR, we propose a surface discharge (SD) method. SiR specimens were collected from a 22 kV line post insulator that had been used for 18 years. The SD treatment was applied for 10 s, and the contact angle was measured in every 5 min after the treatment. The SD temporarily reduced the surface hydrophobicity, and the time required for the contact angle to return to its original value was defined as the hydrophobicity recovery time. The recovery times of aged sheds were longer than that of an unused specimen and they varied depending on the surface conditions. These results show that the hydrophobicity recovery time after an SD treatment is an effective method for evaluating the degradation of aged polymer insulators.
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Khin et al. (2026) studied this question.
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