Breakdown Characteristics and Lifetime Estimation of Rubber Insulating Gloves Using Statistical Models

This paper is aimed at predicting the life of rubber insulating gloves under normal operating stresses from relatively rapid test performed at higher stresses. Specimens of rubber insulating gloves are subject to multiple stress conditions, i.e. combined electrical and thermal stresses. Two modes of electrical stress, step voltage stress and constant voltage stress are used in specimen aging. There are two types of test for electrical stress in this experiment: the one is Breakdown Voltage (BDV) test under step voltage stress and thermal stress and the other is lifetime test under constant voltage stress and temperature stress. The ac breakdown voltage defined as the break-down point of insulation that leakage current excesses a limit value, l0mA in this experiment, is determined. Because the very high variability of aging data requires the application of statistical model, Weibull distribution is used to represent the failure times as the straight line on Weibull probability paper. Weibull parameters are deter-mined by three statistical methods i.e. maximum likelihood method, graphical method and least squares method, which employ SAS package, Weibull probability paper and FORTRAN, respectively. Two chosen models for predicting the life under simultaneous electrical and thermal stresses are inverse power model and exponential model. And the constants of life equation for multistress aging are calculated using numerical method, such as Gauss Jordan method etc.. The completion of life equation enables to estimate the life at normal stress based on the data collected from accelerated aging test. Also the comparison of the calculated lifetimes between the inverse power model and the exponential model is carried out. And the lifetimes calculated by three statistical methods with lower voltage than test voltage are compared. The results obtained from the suggested experimental method are presented and discussed.