Determination of the Electric Field on High Voltage

Rubber Insulators Using the Finite Element Method

Constantin Beiu Cornel Toader
INCDPM “Alexandru Darabont” University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest
Bucharest, Romania Electric Power Engineering Department
[email protected] Bucharest, Romania

Nicolae Golovanov Georgeta Buica

University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest INCDPM “Alexandru Darabont”
Electric Power Engineering Department Bucharest, Romania
Bucharest, Romania

Paul-Mihai Mircea
University of Craiova, Faculty of Electrical Engineering
Craiova, Romania

Abstract— The paper presents a study of electric field

distribution on insulator strings, which are used for suspension II. GEOMETRIC MODEL
of overhead transmission lines of 400kV and are stressed by
power frequency voltage. The investigated insulator strings are
used on transmission networks of National grid of Romania. The
simulation uses the Finite Element Method (FEM) and
COMSOL Multiphysics software to carry out the electric
analysis on the insulators. It was used rubber insulators strings
as the insulating material.

Keywords—power transmission network, high voltage insulators,

finite element method

I. INTRODUCTION
Electric field distribution on the surface of insulators of
overhead lines determines the strength of the power lines and
the insulation behavior to stress during the operation time.
Pollution of the insulators leads to a change voltage
distribution, stress of the insulation and cause flashovers.
Fig. 1. Geometry of analyzed system
Experimental determination of the distribution of the electric
field compared with the data obtained through modelling can To determine the electrical field along rubber insulator, it
provide useful information for assessing the insulation status. was chose a three subconductor system, steel – aluminum
Also, theoretical analysis of the insulation system having 3x300 / 69 mm. The electric field is generated by a 400
optimizes the configuration by choosing adequate armatures, kV network (230 kV phase to ground) (fig. 1). The insulator’s
so that, it is avoided corona discharge and uneven stress of the length is 4m. Upper yoke supporting insulator chain is
insulation. The computation methods of electric fields along considered grounded, together with pillar structure.
an insulator string have been developed in several papers [1- To solve MAXWELL’s equations, the COMSOL
4]. In this paper, the electric field distribution around the Software uses FEM, so that it is mandatory to impose
insulator when it is stressed by power frequency voltage is boundary conditions. At the outer boundary it was set the
evaluated using COMSOL, which is a suite of programs for
two and three dimensional electromagnetic field ana1ysis The condition as “zero charge” and the equation is n ⋅ D = 0 (fig
paper presents a 2D model to determine the electric field along 2).
the insulator.

978-1-4673-8562-6/16/$31.00©2016 IEEE
 determining the V (x, y) of analysed domain and calculation
of the electric field in this area
Taking into account that power frequency is considered
low frequency, the electric and magnetic field can be treated
as decoupled. In this case, to resolve the equations only
conductivity of material is necessary. The conductivity of the
materials used in this simulation is shown in table 1.
To diminish the electric field distribution along the
insulators, it were installed Corona rings (Fig. 3).

Fig. 2. Boundary condition

The analysed problem is used to determine the

configuration of complex electrostatic field with axial
symmetry in the absence of spatial charges. This reduces the
the problem to a Laplace type problem in to two-dimensional
space. In this way, the linear, homogenous space and with
constant permittivity, the Laplace equation (1) it can be solved
analytically in case of simple configuration or numerically in
the case of complex configurations [5, 6].

∆V = 0 (1)
Fig. 3. Insulators with Corona rings

It can be admitted a linear variation of the potential within

each tringle (2) III. RESULTS AND DISCUTIONS
In fig. 4 is drawn the electric potential isoline and the
V(x, y) = a + b ⋅ x + c ⋅ y (2) distribution of potential around the phase of the network and
isolation system. As it can be seen, the part of the insulator
which is closer to phase is more stressed than the part closer
where x and y are coordinates inside the triangle and a, b to the pillar.
and c are constants.
If it is noted with Vi1, Vi2 and Vi3 the potential of triangle TABLE I. CONDUCTIVITY OF MATERIALS
“i” corners then the constants a, b and c are determined from
the matrix equation (3): Material Conductivity [S/m]
Aluminium 4.032 x 106

Rubber 5 x10-8
ªai º ª αi1 α i2 α i3 º ª Vi1 º
«b » = 1 ⋅ «« βi1 βi3 βi4 »» ⋅ «« Vi2 »» (3) Air 0
« i » 2⋅A
i
«¬ ci »¼ «¬ γ i1 γ i2 γ i3 »¼ «¬ Vi3 »¼

where Ai it is the triangle area and Įik ȕik, Ȗik, k = 1, 2, 3

are constants that depend on the coordinates of the three
corners.
Taking into account the constant expressions in (3), the
potential within the triangle, determined from equation (2) is
given (4):

Vi (x, y) = [ A ] ⋅ [ Vi ]
t
(4)

COMSOL provides the meshing domain based on

admitted errors, assembling the equations of type (4) and Fig. 4. Electric potential isoline
 Fig. 5 represents the electric field distribution near IV. CONCLUSION
insulators system. The maximum stress is on the corona rings, Electric field along rubber insulators have been analyzed
used as protection against flashovers on insulators string. in this paper. This analysis showed that the distribution of the
electric field distribution along the length of the insulator is
not uniform. The electric field distribution along the insulator
surface was maximum towards HV end and minimum towards
grounded end. The proposed model with some alterations and
new material properties can be used to analysis electric field
distribution for different geometry for insulators.

REFERENCES

[1] V. T. Kontargyri; I. F. Gonos; I. A. Stathopoulos; A. M. Michaelides,

“Simulation of the Electric Field on High Voltage Insulators using the
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Field Computation, 2006 12th Biennial IEEE Conference on
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electric Insulating Components”, EU Project ADETEC, MedPower
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Fig. 5. Electric field distribution [4] J.L. Rasolonjanahary, L. Krähenbühl, and A. Nicolas, “Computation
of electric fields and potential on polluted insulators using a boundary
element method”, IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, Vol. 38, No. 2, pp.
In order to determine the electric field along the insulator, 1473-1476, March 1992.
it was established a line field passing along the isolator (Fig. [5] Chinnusamy Muniraj, Subramaniam Chandrasekar, “Finite Element
6). Modeling for Electric Field and Voltage Distribution along the
Polluted Polymeric Insulator”, World Journal of Modelling and
In fig. 7 It is drawn the distribution of electric field along Simulation, vol. 8 (2012) No. 4, pp. 310-320
the insulator string. The maximum stress is 130 kV/m. [6] Andrei H. (coordonator), “Numerical Methods, Modelling and
Simulation Applied in Electrical Engineering”, ELECTRA Publishing
house, Bucharest, 2011.

Fig. 6. The line field for calculating the electric field along the insulators

Fig. 7. Electric field distribution along the insulator