Investigation of Tracking Phenomena in HDPE Material due to Acid Rain under DC Voltages

Acid rain is one of the most serious environmental contaminant. With the increase in pH value of acid rain in India and the world over, it has become necessary to understand the performance of outdoor polymeric insulation material to acid rain to avoid outages in power system network. Most of the failure of outdoor insulation structure is due to 'tracking studies were carried out under DC voltages of both polarities in high density polyethylene (HDPE) material (the most preferred material for DC voltages) with NH 4Cl and the acid rain as contaminant. The results indicate that the positive DC voltage has loss tracking time irrespective of the type of contaminant. Certain physico-chemical analysis (like WAXD studies and EPR studies) was carried out to understand the degradation process.