Correlation Between Resistivity And Dielectric Performance Of Polymeric Material Insulation Under Standard Test Procedure

High voltage insulation technology has gone through a continuous developments and improvements,starting from ceramics to polymer composite insulating synthetic material.Some researches has been done,but there are still available spaces of improvements in terms of the performance of insulating polymer.Synthetic polymer is widely used in high voltage insulation.It is divided into two types which are thermoplastic and thermoset materials. This project focuses on the performance of a thermoplastic material,Polypropylene (PP) as insulators.Among the essential needs to evaluate and examine the performance of selected materials as extra high voltage applications is its resistivity and dielectric strength level.In determining the dielectric strength of the selected material,breakdown test on the specimen was conducted using a flat shaped electrode.The test parameters,dimensioning and condition of the specimen are prepared based on the international standard,BS EN 60243-1:1998.The resistivity test is divided into two terms which are the surface,and the volume of the material based on international standard BS 6233-1982.The experiment was carried out by determining the strength of long term solid electrical insulating materials at power frequencies of 50 Hz.Based on this project,Polypropylene (PP) satisfies the requirements of the breakdown field strength under flat shapes of electrodes which exceeds the minimum requirement of 10 KV/mm with reference to the international standard BS EN 62039:2007.Pin electrode does give the most impact on Polypropylene (PP) dielectric performance that results on the highest breakdown value of polymer.Hence,the breakdown results can be used to determine the characteristic of the resistivity test,processing variables,against condition and other manufacturing or environmental situation in high voltage polymeric insulation application.