Investigation of the Insulation Condition of Contaminated Solid Epoxy Insulators

This paper reports the assessment of impurities of solid Epoxy insulator by sensing Polarizing and Depolarizing Current under high voltage excitation. Several impure Epoxy samples were created carefully by contaminating different level of carbon dust particles within it. The Polarization/Depolarization Current (PDC) measurement is also nondestructive method in time domain for assessment of dielectric response as well as conductivity of insulator. PDC measurements contain precise information about the condition of the contaminated/aged insulator. In this contribution, a crucial study of the insulation quality of the Epoxy insulator samples is presented in terms of increasing carbon contamination level in Epoxy samples. The experimental results indicate that the insulation quality of those samples degrades as the carbon contamination percentage increases. The proposed method can also assess the quality of the epoxy insulator sample under test.