Abstract
This paper describes the results of a study on the tracking performance of outdoor insulating materials based on the rotating wheel dip test(RWDT). And, the influence of surface degradation was evaluated through such as measurement of the flashover voltage after and before tracking test, also aspects of surface degradation using scanning electron microscopy. The time to tracking breakdown of treated filled specimen is longer than untreated filled specimen. And, after the RWDT, the surface of specimen by adding untreated filler appeared heavy erosion. It was found that the addition to surface treated filler, the better tracking resistance. In the RWDT, the breakdown specimen is not affected by the dry flashover voltage, despite the fact that the surface degradation of tracking test has different state on each specimen. This suggests that wet flashover voltage play an important role in evaluating of tracking and erosion on the surface degradation in tracking test. And, the flashover voltage of specimen under wet conditions are greatly affected by the salt concentration and degree of degradation by the RWDT Because of hydrophobicity and degree of degradation by the RWDT, the flashover voltage of treated filled specimen is higher than that of untreated filled specimen. Different types of specimen may have different hydrophobicity and their surface state under contaminated conditions may not be the same.
