A study on influence of borax to polyester insulators

Abstract

In this study the effect of borax on polyester insulators is investigated by evaluating the tracking and erosion resistance using the inclined plane test. The test procedure follows the A STM D2303 standard. During the test, 50 Hz current was acquired from the ground electrode allowing a sampling rate of 48000 samples per second. The effect of borax concentration on the glass transition and the degradation temperature is studied by employing differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis. The addition of borax to the unsaturated polyester resulted in an increase in the glass transition temperature, while the addition of 0.5% of borax by weight caused a decrease in the degradation temperature. The leakage current was processed using the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) technique. The effect of borax on the degradation process of polymers was studied in a range of single harmonic components starting with the fundamental up to the 9th. The experimental data which was taken from borax added polyesters were shown to have higher harmonic components and lower fundamental leakage current than the pure polymer.