A study on the surface characteristics of polymer insulation material for HVDC power equipment depending on accelerated degradation test

At present, new insulation design techniques in DC environment and research for improvement of insulation performance are needed for research is being conducted to apply the HVDC transmission system. Understanding the change of the surface characteristics of the polymer insulation material is useful for analyzing the mechanism of the insulation material for application to electric power equipment. In the present paper, the surface characteristics of the polymer insulation materials used in HVDC power equipment have been experimentally investigated. Based on the measured activation energy, the accelerated deterioration time was selected and the accelerated deterioration test was conducted. The surface resistivity and the contact angle were measured to understand the surface characteristics of the deteriorated insulation materials and compared with those before the deterioration.