Experimental Investigation on Room Temperature Vulcanised Silicone rubber and Epoxy resin coated porcelain outdoor insulators located at highly polluted environment

Insulators flashover is one of the major problem that confronts all around the world, particularly in austere weather conditions and highly polluted areas. Any failure in the acceptable performance of high voltage insulators result in intrerruption of electrical power that leads to loss of capital. Flashover voltage (FOV) is directly related to the severity of pollution on the surface of insulator. Generally, anti-pollution flashover coating is considered as one of the most effective means to prevent and reduce flashover. This paper investigates and compares the results on application of Epoxy Resin and Room Temperature Vulcanized (RTV) Silicone Rubber for improving the performance of outdoor (near coastal thermal plant area) insulators of 12 KV rating. The flash over voltage of the insulators is optimized for a polluted environment by applying the protective coating and tested experimentally. The experimental results are compared with simulated results using Artificial Neural Network.