Mechanical characteristics of line post type polymer insulation arm for 154 kV

This paper describes the mechanical characteristics of a 154 kV line post type polymer insulation arm that functions both as the steel arm and as the porcelain insulator of the currently used steel transmission towers. The 154 kV line post-type polymer insulation arm consists of polymer composite insulators, called units, that include two horizontal units with an open angle, to respond to a longitudinal load of 40 kN, and a suspension unit to respond to a vertical load. Its installation length is about 2.3 m. Samples of the insulation arm were installed at different places on an electric wire to form a truss structure and a frame structure, in order to examine their mechanical characteristics. For the truss structure, neither remarkable bending stress nor torsional stress was observed in the FRP core. The mechanical force design of the insulation arm can be evaluated in reference to the axial force of the FRP core only. The buckling coefficient, for evaluating the axial force of the insulation arm with the truss structure, was experimentally identified. Moreover, we were able to show that a static load test, for evaluating the mechanical force performance of the insulation arm against a longitudinal load, is more severe than an impact load test at the same longitudinal load. ©1998 Scripta Technica, Electr Eng Jpn, 126(2): 23–30, 1999