The potential of replacing crosslinked polyethylene (XLPE) with an eco-friendly alternative, polypropylene (PP), as insulating material is investigated for overhead power distribution lines. Although XLPE exhibits excellent electrical and mechanical properties, the byproducts generated during crosslinking pose environmental challenges. PP is a viable alternative because of recyclability and absence of byproducts during crosslinking. This study evaluated alternating current (AC) breakdown strength, contact angle, and tracking resistance of two commercially available XLPE samples and three types of PP (PP1, PP2, PP3) with varying additive content. AC breakdown strength, analyzed using the Weibull distribution, facilitated relative comparison of insulation performance. PP2 exhibited scale parameters comparable to or exceeding those of XLPE. Contact angles exceeding 90° displayed hydrophobicity across all samples. To address pass/fail evaluation limitations, arcing images from tracking tests were analyzed using the box-counting method for fractal dimension analysis. Fractal dimensions increased with arcing extent, and complexity increased with test duration. Tracking resistance performance order was PP3, PP1, CC, PP2, OC which was attributed to enhanced heat dissipation properties of filler additives. The proposed quantitative method for comparing tracking resistance through fractal dimension analysis, explored the feasibility of using PP insulating materials in overhead power distribution lines.

Breakdown strength is an essential parameter for evaluating the electrical performance and degradation behavior of cable insulation and IEC 60243 also emphasizes its importance for detecting changes in insulation characteristics due to aging. However, the current IEC standards are mainly limited to specifying electrode configurations and test voltage conditions for breakdown tests, while the influence of insulating oil, is not clearly addressed. In this study, the breakdown strength of a 66 kV wet-type submarine cable was experimentally evaluated using insulating oils with different kinematic viscosities of 10, 100, 500, and 1,000 cSt in order to achieve reliable and reproducible breakdown measurements. The experimental results show that the measured breakdown strength decreases by up to approximately 20% depending on the oil viscosity. This indicates that the viscosity of the insulating oil has a significant influence on the measured breakdown strength during breakdown test. Therefore, it is necessary to perform breakdown strength measurements under identical test conditions, including the physical properties of the insulating oil, to ensure reliable comparison and accurate assessment of insulation performance and degradation characteristics.

Molded insulation materials are widely used from large electric power transformer apparatus to small electrical machinery and apparatus. In this study, by adding MgO with the average particle of several tens nm and the excellent thermal conductivity into molding material, we improved the problem of insulation breakdown strength decrease according to rising temperature in overload or in bad environmental condition. We confirmed the life evaluation by using the insulation breakdown and inverse involution to investigate the electrical characteristics of nano-composites materials. By using a scanning electron microscope, it is confirmed that MgO power with the average particle size of several tens nm is distributed and the filler particles is uniformly distributed in the cross section of specimens. And it is confirmed that the insulation breakdown strength of Virgin specimens is rapidly decreased at the high temperature area. But it is confirmed that the insulation breakdown strength of specimens added MgO slow decreased by thermal properties in the high temperature area improved by the contribution of the heat radiation of MgO and the suppression of tree. The results of life prediction using inverse involution, it is confirmed that the life of nano-composites is improved by contribution of MgO according to the predicted insulation breakdown strength after 10 years of specimens added 5.0 wt% of MgO is increased about 2.9 times at RT, and 4.9 times at 100 than Virgin specimen, respectively.

In order to develop a high voltage insulation material, spherical silicas with two average particle sizes of 5 μm and 20 μm were mixed in different mixing ratios (1:0, 0.7:0.3, 0.5:0.5, 0.3:0.7, 0:1) and their total filling content was fixed at 65 wt%. In order to observe the dispersion of the spherical silicas and the interfacial morphology between silica and epoxy matrix, field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) was used. The electrical insulation breakdown strength was estimated in sphere-plate electrodes with different insulation thicknesses of 1, 2, and 3 mm. Electrical insulation breakdown strength decreased with increasing mixing ratio of 5/20 μm and the thickness dependence of the breakdown strength was also observed. The tensile strength of the neat epoxy was 82.8 MPa as average value and its increased with decreasing particles size and that of epoxy/silica (2 μm) was 107 MPa, which was 130.8% higher value.

Reported here are results of the mechanical and electrical properties of both of intact and thermally degraded epoxy-coated copper busducts that are made by fluidized bed process. To elucidate and compare the properties mentioned above, electrical breakdown by thermal and water aging, v-t characteristic, bending test, impact test and cross cut test are carried out. Although the performance of electrical and mechanical properties are gradually decreased in increasing the severe conditions such as temperature, aging time, and so forth, sample C has a better performance in both mechanical and electrical properties.

In order to develop electrical insulation materials, epoxy-nanosilica-microsilica mixture composites (ENMC) was synthesized, and mechanical properties such as their tensile and flexural strength, and AC insulation breakdown strength were investigated. Properties of mechanical strength and AC insulation breakdown strength are analyzed as scale and shape parameter with respect to weibull plot. Their tensile and flexural strength, AC insulation breakdown strength were compared original epoxy or EMC to ENMC. The 4 phr nano-silica addition and the 65 wt% micron-silica mixture composite (ENMC) was found to have the highest tensile and flexural strength. In the tensile strength was improved 29%, and flexural strength was improved 60.9% higher than those of the original epoxy. In the insulation breakdown strength, ENMC_4 phr was improved 17% and ENMC_5 phr was improved 15.8% higher than those of the EMC.