Effect of water diffusion on dielectric behavior of polymer insulators

Polymers as high voltage insulatoion materials has become an alternative option replaces the insulating material made of ceramic and glass. Different with other insulators, polymer has an advantage in dielectric properties, volume resistivity, thermal properties, mechanical strength and light weight. Beside that the polymer insulator has a water-repellent properties (hydrophobicity), although various advantages of polymer insulator, but the material is a synthetic material that is generally vulnerable to climate, pollution and exposure to high electric field. The influence of inertia and heavy rainfall can lead to erosion of the surface of the polymer insulator. The different between Partial pressure is different between the materials and environmental conditions allows the diffusion process. Attempts to increase the stability of polymers against degradation due to aging continues to be done by adding fillers, which in this study we utilize the waste coal fly ash as filler material. Some important parameters to determine the performance of the polymer insulator silicon rubber which is the goal of research that is to know the value of the dielectric constant, and the contact angle of the insulator material by providing treatment concentration of coal fly ash filler are different and how they affect the process of diffusion of water into a test object, so will obtained polymer insulator dielectric characteristic difference before and after the diffusion process takes place. The test results showed that the influence of the diffusion of water will worsen the state of the insulator as indicated by the rising and falling relative permittivity hydrophobic nature of the test material. Beside that the addition of filler also took part in influencing the dielectric properties of the polymer insulator silicone rubber (SIR).