Silicone rubber is increasingly used as the preferred outdoor insulation material for a

range of medium and high voltage applications. These include hollow core insulators for

HV electrical apparatus such as breakers, bushings and instrument transformers,

among others.

In all these applications adhesion of the silicone material to the internal parts is critical.

In addition, the rubber must be free of any defects or voids. As such, it is very

important to have a non-destructive method to verify the quality of internal silicone

rubber interfaces.

In this contribution by Dr. Henrik Hillborg of the ABB Corporate Research Center in

Vsteras, Sweden, a number of test methods are evaluated for use by manufacturers

who are developing new lines of composite hollow core insulators. They can also be of

value to existing suppliers looking to optimize production parameters and ensure

consistently high quality products.

Part 1 of this article, which focused on non-destructive testing of silicone-housed surge

arrester, appeared in the Qtr. 3, 2009 issue.

HOLLOW CORE INSULATORS

Custom-made hollow core insulators having regions with both good and bad adhesion of

the silicone to the inner fibreglass reinforced (FRP) tube were manufactured using both
primed and unprimed areas along the tube. The insulators were then analyzed using

computer tomography (CT) so as to obtain a good quality image. No voids within the

silicone rubber were detected.

The expected delaminations in the unprimed regions were only detected if total

debonding occurred, thereby forming a thin (<1 mm) void at the interface between the

rubber and the tube. Thus, if the surfaces were in intimate contact, it was impossible to

detect regions without the proper chemical bond between rubber and substrate.

Figure 1: Air void between unprimed Al flange and silicone rubber detected by computer

tomography: survey scan (left) and cross section (to right). Colours in the cross section

image epoxy tube (white), silicone rubber (grey), air (black).

Thin (1-5 mm) air gaps were observed along the ends of both aluminium flanges of the

unprimed insulators (see Fig. 1). These air gaps could also be observed using a simpler

X-ray inspection system by the presence of bright lines along the ends of the flanges

(as shown in Fig. 2).

 Figure 2: X-ray images. Air gap between edge of flange and rubber is indicated by

bright line (arrow). Corresponding region on primed hollow core insulator (right photo)

shows that no bright line was found along the flange, indicating absence of air gaps.

An example of a thin (1-2 mm) air gap along a large part of an Al flange after cutting

the rubber away is evident in Fig. 3.

Figure 3

The most difficult characteristic to assess was delamination in those cases where the

silicone rubber has mechanical contact but with either no or a bad chemical bond to the

substrate. No significant difference in appearance between primed and unprimed

regions of the hollow core insulators could be seen by CT scans, X-rays or ultrasonic

testing.

However, destructive testing revealed that the rubber could easily be peeled off the

tube in the unprimed region, whereas good adhesion was obtained in the primed

region.

CONCLUSIONS

Non-destructive testing of silicone rubber outdoor insulation is a useful tool during the

product development stage for surge arresters and hollow core insulators. It also allows

optimizing production parameters and ensuring high quality.

The feasibility of a number of nondestructive techniques to detect internal flaws in the

silicone rubber has been evaluated on surge arresters and hollow core insulators with

internal defects. These defects involved voids as well as poor adhesion or debonding of

the silicone from internal parts and were intentionally produced by omitting primer or

by using improper settings during the injection moulding process.

The techniques evaluated ranged from low-cost methods such as ultrasonic testing or

X-ray and infrared imaging to more advanced and emerging techniques including laser

shearography and computer tomography.

It was concluded that laser shearography was probably the most promising technique,

able to detect both voids and areas of delamination down to a spatial resolution of
about 1 cm. A simple X-ray inspection system (as used in airport security systems) has

the potential to find larger internal voids and also debonding in hollow core insulators

(i.e. where the defect size is > 5-10 mm). However bad adhesion could not be

detected. Computer tomography could be used for the detection of certain voids (i.e., >

1-2 mm) within the silicone rubber. However, poor adhesion could not be detected.

Resonance ultrasonic testing was only able to detect larger areas of debonding of

silicone rubber to smooth substrates. It was also difficult to interpret the results to

determine if a defect was present. It was concluded that this method had too low a

sensitivity and also was too slow for this application.

Finally infrared imaging was able only to find larger air-filled voids within the rubber.

The following tables provide a generalized ranking of the alternative methods evaluated

for this purpose.