COMPUTER-AIDED-DESIGN OF PORCELAIN INSULATORS UNDER POLLUTED CONDITIONS

The development of a user-friendly, interactive personal computer pack age for designing insulators to be used in polluted conditions is pres ented. This is accomplished by integrating a dynamic are model that co mputes the pollution flashover voltage within the Microsoft Windows ap plication program. Suspension, station post and pin type insulators of numerous shapes have been incorporated into the package. The model is capable of handling ac and de voltages, in addition to uniform and no nuniform pollution distributions on the insulator surface. The use of the model as a design tool to predict the insulation requirement for a given system voltage, and as a maintenance tool to determine the crit ical contamination level (in terms of ESDD) that will cause flashover of the insulator at the operating voltage, has been demonstrated. Wher ever possible, comparisons of the model predictions with experimental data have been made, and good agreement has been obtained.