2015 Annual Report Conference on Electrical Insulation and Dielectric Phenomena

RTV Pre-coated Cap-and-pin Toughened Glass

Insulators - A Wide Experience in the Italian
Overhead Transmission System

Massimo Marzinotto Edward A. Cherney Giovanni Mazzanti

TERNA Consultant University of Bologna
Engineering Department 7 Woodland Glen Drive Guelph Viale Risorgimento 2
Viale Galbani 70, Roma, 00156 Italy Ontario, N1G 3N2, Canada Bologna, 40136 Italy
massimo.marzinotto@terna.it each@sympatico.ca giovanni.mazzanti@unibo.it

Abstract—This paper describes TERNA’s experience over
more than one decade of service of RTV coated toughened
glass cap-and-pin insulators in AC lines. The installation of
almost one million units and laboratory tests for the
continuous monitoring of samples taken from the field have
enabled promising estimates of the coating end-of-life and have
increased remarkably the confidence about their reliability. In
addition, trial installations of pre-coated insulators on DC lines
have provided interesting results for the use of RTV coated
insulators in HVDC overhead lines. Some considerations on
the application of RTV half-coated cap-and-pin toughened
glass insulators are also made.
Keywords—RTV coated toughened glass insulators;
hydrophobicity; hydrophobicity recovery; cap-and-pin insulators
I. INTRODUCTION
Toughened glass cap-and-pin insulators have a proven
reliability as demonstrated in more than 60 years of
experience in the Italian grid [1]. However, in very harsh
environments like those subjected to direct marine winds
and/or heavy industrial pollution, simply increasing the
creepage distance fails to solve pollution flashovers, and
some other countermeasures are required [2]. Insulator
washing becomes necessary with a washing frequency
ranging from 6 to 24 months depending on the pollution
level [3, 4]. In a few instances, an alternative approach is to
apply specific greases [4], but their effectiveness is short-
lived and then frequent replacement is required. In this case,
toughened glass cap-and-pin insulators, pre-coated with
Room Temperature Vulcanized (RTV) silicone rubber and
Ethylene-Propylene-Diene Monomer (EPDM) or silicone
rubber composite insulators offer improved performance.
However, toughened glass cap-and-pin insulators pre-coated
with RTV silicone rubber (hereafter RTV insulators) have
distinct advantages over composite insulators. In fact, RTV
insulators represent the best solution combining the
advantages of both uncoated toughened glass insulators and
composite insulators [5].
This paper reports on the experience that TERNA has
gathered in more than 10 years of applications of RTV
coated insulators on AC lines. The installation of more than
800,000 units and a continuous monitoring program through
laboratory tests of samples from the field have led to
interesting forecasts on the coating end-of-life and on some
early misconceptions about their reliability [6,7].
Furthermore, trial applications of pre-coated toughened glass
cap-and-pin insulators on DC lines have led to interesting
and encouraging results for their application to overhead
HVDC lines [8]. Some attention will be given to the
application of RTV half-coated cap-and-pin toughened glass
insulators, whose trial installation has been started. Half-
coated RTV cap-and-pin insulators may represent a real and
attractive new concept for preventing pollution flashovers.
II. RTV INSULATOR TECHNOLOGY
Whenever the pollution level becomes high that common
practice is to specify a long specific creepage distance,
different countermeasures are usually taken. According to
TERNA’s experience, a specific creepage distance for AC
should not exceed 61 mm/kV [2]. In this case, different
solutions are adopted; for example insulator grease or non-
ceramic insulators can help to reduce the risk of pollution
flashover. In the past grease was widely used but the solution
is short-lived, requiring regular replacement, and is not
attractive solution to overhead line insulators, where grease
application is more time consuming than for station
insulators for the same creepage length. In Italy, the first trial
installations of both composite and RTV coated insulators
started in the 90s on overhead lines at 132 and 150 kV (sub
transmission level). In 2003 TERNA was the first
transmission system operator (TSO) in the world to install
RTV pre-coated insulators on a 380 kV line; today more than
800,000 units are installed on the high voltage grid.
Today, ceramic (toughened glass and porcelain) RTV
coated insulators represent a valid alternative to composite
insulators. As far as overhead line insulators are concerned,
ceramic RTV coated insulators have a lower risk of
permanent electrical or mechanical failure than composite
insulators; therefore they represent the better solution [5]. In
particular, due to higher reliability of ceramic insulators with
respect to a mechanical failure, composite insulators in Italy,
and in many other countries, are not permitted in dead-
ending (tension) towers and for road, railroad, and river
crossings.

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 For composite and RTV insulators the compound
formulation has a very important role in the electrical
performance and endurance to electrical, thermal and
environmental stresses. Today, two main raw rubber
materials are used for outdoor high voltage insulators;
namely, EPDM and silicone rubber. However, the latter is
more widely used because of its hydrophobic properties.
Raw rubber, mixed with various ingredients, yields a
compound that is processable, meets the product
requirements, and is competitively priced [9].
The base polymer of all RTV coatings is
polydimethylsiloxane. Various fillers are used to attain the
specific requirements; alumina trihydrate (ATH) and silica
impart tracking and erosion resistance by enhancing the
thermal conductivity of the material, thereby conducting heat
away from the dry band arcing area [10]; fume silica controls
the flow and sag for a uniform coating application, and
increases the tensile strength; and other fillers are used as to
color the coating. An adhesion promoter is used to ensure
good bonding of the coating to the substrate and a crosslinker
cures the rubber. Most often, the composition is suspended in
a carrier solvent, but coating compositions are now available
without solvent.
RTV insulators can be classified into two broad
catagories: 1) field coated insulators, where the coating is
applied in the field once the insulator string is assembled (or
immediately before); 2) pre-coated insulators, where the
coating is applied in factory setting under controlled
conditions.
The former has obvious disadvantages compared to the
latter since the condition of the insulator surface before the
coating process strongly affects the adhesion and therefore
the product performance. In the field, pollution and moisture
are difficult to control and this can significantly affect
coating end-of-life. Experience shows that a uniform coating
thickness is difficult to achieve in field. A desired coating
thickness is required since a too thin coating can be easily
damaged during insulator shipment and handling, while a too
thick coating can be costly and may hinder the self-shattering
property of toughened glass insulators, thereby preventing
the advantage of easy detection of failed units. Consequently,
the ideal coating thickness is in the range of 300–400 μm.
Since the first trail installation in the Italian grid, TERNA
adopted a comprehensive series of tests to monitor the
degradation and ageing of the insulators [7]. These tests were
aimed at assessing as far as possible both the degradation and
ageing rates, and at being a tool to predict insulator end-of-
life. A yearly program of sampling and laboratory testing of
insulator strings from the field helped to better understand
the degradation and ageing processes. Furthermore, such
tests were also helpful to fine-tune the RTV insulators
specification:
• Since the beginning it was evident that pre-coating, i.e. a
coating performed in factory in a control environment is
a mandatory step to guarantee a long life.
• The rule of thumb according to which RTV coated
insulator end-of-life is a hydrophobicity recovery longer
than 24 hours is incorrect. RTV insulators sampled after
eight years of service show hydrophobicity recovery,
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once completely lost, in 150–200 hours. Such insulators
installed in an environment classified as very heavy (site
equivalent salinity >160 g/l) never flashed over.
• The electrical behavior of one single insulator is not
representative of the entire string from which it is
removed. Tests on a single unit must be repeated on
many units along the string for a representative value of
the string. Experience highlights that different insulators
along the string can feature completely different
hydrophobicity classification and hydrophobicity
recovery. Consequently, tests on a single unit can lead to
an incorrect conclusion.
• In the worst possible condition, when the RTV insulators
in a string are severely damaged, the behavior of the
string is very similar to that obtained with the same
number of uncoated units. This is extremely important
since at the end-of-life of a RTV insulator string, the
electrical performance, although far from those obtained
with new units, are not completely lost.
RTV insulators have been widely used on towers located
in the vicinity of residential areas, even if the pollution is
very light, when audible noise reduction is needed. Audible
noise at tower is always higher than in the span and it
increases during dry band arcing. Consequently, during fog
and/or dew the audible noise at night can become extremely
annoying to residents. This problem can be greatly reduced
with RTV coated insulators.
III. THE AC EXPERIENCE
Since the first wide-scale installation of RTV insulators
in 2003 (after trial installations) TERNA started a parallel
monitoring program based on a yearly sampling of the
strings installed in very harsh environments. Equivalent salt
deposit density (ESDD) and non-soluble deposit density
(NSDD) values after each sampling are usually higher than
0.06 mg/cm2 and 0.8 mg/cm2, respectively. This monitoring
program consists of hydrophobicity evaluation of both top
and bottom surfaces as sampled, followed by a sequence of
three withstand tests of which the first two are performed
paying attention to ensure that the insulators do not lose the
contamination collected while in service. The third test is
performed after carefully washing the insulator surface. The
first withstand test is performed with clean fog; the test
passes if after 100 minutes no flashover occurs. The second
withstand test is performed with salt fog at 56 g/l in line with
[11] without preconditioning; withstand is evaluated after 5
hours of test. The last withstand test is performed with the
salt fog in line with [11] with preconditioning at 160 g/l and
the withstand at 56 g/l with three out of four withstands.
Through years of testing, it has been found that flashovers
occur first on the second of the withstand tests and then on
both the second and the third withstand tests as the RTV
insulators age, i.e. longer in-service time. Since the
beginning of the monitoring program, no flashover on the
first withstand test has ever been recorded.
Although some flashovers have occurred during the
second withstand test and the third withstand test, no
flashover has ever been recorded in field. These results
highlight that the laboratory conditions are significantly
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more stressful than the actual field conditions; hence a
correlation between laboratory and field performance is
difficult to define.
Immediately after the third withstand test, the
hydrophobicity of the top and bottom surface is evaluated
over time in order to address hydrophobicity recovery. Tests
performed on different aged samples removed from the same
line highlight that hydrophobicity recovery becomes longer
with ageing. The top surface has always a longer recovery
time than the bottom surface. Furthermore, the
hydrophobicity recovery of the bottom surface is different
for each insulator rib; the outer under-rib surface recovers
faster than the middle under-rib surface, and the middle
under-rib surface recovers faster than the inner under-rib
one. This result is in line with the expected ageing condition
of each under-rib surface; in fact the inner under-rib surface Fig. 1. Evidence of electrical activity near the pin of a cap-and-pin RTV
is the highest stressed one, electrically. In some cases, insulator sampled after 7 years and 3 months of service on a 380 kV line.
evidence of electrical activity is revealed particularly in the
vicinity of the pin (Fig. 1). Also, signs of electrical activity
have been found at both the inner and middle ribs.
Hydrophobicity recovery has been found to decrease with
the length of time in service. The top surface usually
recovers in 150–200 hours while the bottom surface recovers
in less than 100 hours. This fact highlights how the bottom
surface of the insulator plays a major role in the electrical
performance compared to the top surface [12] and makes the
concept of half-coated insulator (bottom surface only) an
interesting possibility.
IV. THE DC EXPERIENCE
The very first installation of RTV coated insulators (field Fig. 2. Cracks in a first generation RTV field coated insulator from the
SACOI 200 kV DC line.
coated) on HVDC lines by TERNA dates back to 2003 on a
few towers of the SACOI DC 200 kV line. The aim was to
reduce the high number of late summer pollution outages - un-coated to RTV coated insulators. Such a wide change-out
more than 100 per night in some cases in a particular section has been preceded by two years of pilot installation of some
of line that led to continuous short interruptions of the DC strings that have been monitored by laboratory tests. In
link. After the first outages, the intertie was operated at 150 Sardinia the pollution is quite different compared to
kV instead of 200 kV, to keep the HVDC intertie in Tuscany. Insulators installed in Sardinia are subjected to
operation at the expense of reducing the power transfer from strong marine winds (sometimes > 100 km/h from the coast)
300 to 225 MW. Since increasing the insulator string length and also to long periods without rain and often high
was not possible because of conductor clearance, RTV humidity. Sections of the SACOI DC line that are more
insulators were installed on several towers. exposed to pollution are insulated with toughened glass
insulators with grease applied. The high pollution level
These insulator units are severely aged now but there are necessitates grease replacement yearly or every two years.
no signs of electrical activity. However, some problems of The expectation is that with RTV insulators no annual
coating adhesion became evident and some units showed maintenance will be required. However, the ageing and
cracks in the coating (Fig. 2). As a result, today, TERNA degradation will be different, as confirmed by laboratory
does not accept field coated insulators. tests, since the pollution in Sardinia differs from that in
Factory coated RTV insulators were first applied to DC Tuscany.
in 2008 in Tuscany [8]. After yearly monitoring the V. HALF-COATED RTV INSULATOR
degradation and ageing of the installed units, the installation
of RTV insulators today stretches over the entire overhead The long AC experience has revealed the increase of
system in Tuscany. Such overhead lines are subjected to a hydrophobicity recovery time with ageing, particularly for
combination of marine and industrial pollution. The lines the insulator top surface. In [13] laboratory tests showed how
previously equipped with un-coated glass insulators needed the half-coated RTV silicone insulators (rubber applied to the
frequent washing, but experience has shown that RTV bottom surface only) performs almost as well as the full-
insulators do not require water washing. coated insulators. Hence the half-coated RTV insulator can
be devoted to heavily polluted environments leaving the fully
Based on the experience gained in Tuscany, about 20 km coated RTV insulator to very heavily polluted environments.
of the SACOI line in Sardinia are being changed-out from

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In this respect, TERNA started the first trial installation on
one tower of a 132 kV line located at a site whose pollution
level is classified as “very heavy” due to the presence of both
strong marine winds and industrial pollution from a nearby
steel mill. At this tower, two out of three phases have been
insulated with a double string of half-coated insulators while
the other has been equipped with a double string of fully-
coated RTV insulators. Leakage current is continuously
monitored on all strings.
Half-coated RTV insulators have economic and handling
advantages versus full-coated RTV insulators; indeed, the
service experience has highlighted that fully-coated RTV
insulators are prone to damage while being transported to the
field and also in handling during installation (Fig. 3).
Packaging and coating costs are expected to be significantly
reduced as normal insulator crates for shipment can be used
as opposed to styrofoam lined crates are now used for
shipment. Furthermore, as damage to the coating is
significantly reduced, no touch-up of the coating is required
in the field. However, TERNA’s experience has shown that
if the degree of damage to the coating is limited to small
scrapes or tears along the insulator string, the string
performance is not altered.
VI. SUMMARY
The experience gathered by TERNA in the application of
RTV coated insulators on AC and DC lines and the
laboratory tests on strings sampled from lines in very harsh
conditions with years of service has helped to understand the
degradation and ageing of RTV insulators. Based on this
experience, the following can be stated for toughened glass
cap-and-pin suspension insulators:
• The controlled coating conditions, attainable in a factory
environment, are a prerequisite for a long life of RTV
insulators.
• The ideal coating thickness is in the range 300–400 μm
as below this range the coating can be easily damaged
and above this range the visual detection of shattered
insulators may not be possible.
• A hydrophobicity recovery time longer than 200 hours
does not mean that the RTV insulator is at its end-of-life.
• The pollution withstand, the hydrophobicity class, and
the hydrophobicity recovery of one insulator sampled
from a string is not representative of the entire string.
• At the end-of-life of a RTV insulator string, the string
has a residual pollution withstand essentially the same as
the same number of uncoated units.
• Coating damage in the form of tears or scrapes that
sometimes occurs due to rough handling or
transportation have no effect on the RTV insulator
performance provided that they are localized and do not
extend from unit to unit in a string.
• The end-of-life in very harsh pollution conditions is
more than 10 years.
• RTV insulators reduce audible noise from arising from
dry band arcing and is a good application on towers very
near to residential areas.
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Fig. 3. Example of the extent of damage to a RTV insulator attributed to
rough handling.
• Half-coated RTV insulators may be a good alternative to
fully-coated RTV insulators in heavily polluted areas
and since they are significantly less expensive, their
application should become common place.
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