Abstract:
Insulation is very important for electrical systems to work well. An ideal insulator should be able to handle electrical stress, stay strong, last a long time, and have high resistance. We are looking at how epoxy insulators with silica can handle temperature and electrical stress in this research. We made different samples with epoxy and silica, with nano composites and micro composites. Silica is used as filler because it resists thermal stress and electrical stresses. We put these samples in an electrothermal chamber and tested them for 200 hours. We applied 4,000 volts of electricity and kept the temperature at 65°C.
The main objective of the research is to investigate and understand the effects of thermal stress and DC electrical stress on the performance of novel epoxy composite insulators with different percentages percentage of fillers.
To understand how these samples performed, we did various tests. We used an optical microscope to look at their surface. We also performed hydrophobicity test named as STRI and contact angle. The best water-repellent behavior was seen in the 5% nano silica sample it showed HC1 class. We also looked at how they band gap energy, and it didn't change much for the 2.5% nano silica sample; it remained at 2.98eV.
We tested how electricity moves through these samples by measuring from DC leakage current. We also performed FTIR also named as Fourier transform spectroscopy to study their structure. Lastly, we performed LCR meter to check how these samples behaved with different frequencies. The samples with fillers performed well, due to their strong chains, larger surface area, and more surface energy. This research shows that these nano composites could be very useful as insulators in electrical systems. This is important because it proves that using nano composite technology can make polymeric insulators stronger and last longer. These insulators are used a lot in high-voltage power systems for transmitting and distributing electricity.
