Abstract
Room temperature vulcanizing (RTV) silicone rubber has been widely used to coat porcelain insulators to render water repellency to prevent formation of water film on the surface and thus to suppress the leakage current and consequently flashover. However, the electrical property and the hydrophobicity of RTV silicone rubber coating under outdoor condition may be influenced by many environmental factors. In this studyvarious treatments, such as salt-fog, salt water immerging and UV irradiation were applied to the samples to investigate the change of the electrical property and hydrophobicity. As a result the leakage current increased and contact angle decreased asthe degradation time is longer. But the degraded RTV silicone rubber has recovered its hydrophobicity during the drying time in ambient condition because LMW(Low Molecular Weight) silicone fluid diffused from the bulk to the surface.
