TECHNIA International Journal of Computing Science and Communication Technologies, VOL.5 NO. 2, Jan.

2013 (ISSN 0974-3375)

Simulation of Potential and Electric Field

Across Faulty Ceramic Disc Insulator String
1

Subba Reddy B, 2Satish Naik B

High Voltage Laboratory, Dept. of EE, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, INDIA
are subjected to a variety of stresses, including
mechanical, electrical and environmental. These stresses
act in unison.

Abstract Ceramic/Porcelain insulators are widely used in

power transmission lines to provide mechanical support for
High voltage conductors in addition to withstand electrical
stresses. As a result of lightning, switching or temporary
over voltages that could initiate flashover under worst
weather conditions, and to operate within interference
limits. Given that the useful life in service of the individual
insulator elements making up the insulator strings is hard
to predict, they must be verified periodically to ensure that
adequate line reliability is maintained at all times.
Over the years utilities have adopted few methods to detect
defective discs in a string, subsequently replacement of the
faulty discs are being carried out for smooth operation. But,
if the insulator is found to be defective in a string at some
location that may not create any changes in the field
configuration, there is no need to replace to avoid
manpower and cost of replacement. Due to deficiency of
electric field data for the existing string configuration,
utilities are forced to replace the discs which may not be
essentially required. Hence, effort is made in the present
work to simulate the potential and electric field along the
normal and with faults induced discs in a string up to 765
kV system voltages using Surface Charge Simulation
Method (SCSM). A comparison is made between simulated
results, experimental and field data and it was found that
the computed results are quite acceptable and useful.

The exact nature and magnitude of these stresses vary

significantly and depends on insulator design, application
and location.
It is known that the performance of the insulator string is
affected by the defective insulator discs which may cause
interruptions to the normal operation of the power
system.
Utilities have adopted few methods to detect defective
discs in a string to ensure normal operation of power
supply [1]-[6].
II. IDENTIFICATION OF NUMERICAL TECHNIQUES
Due to the sensitivity of insulating materials to electric
field, accurate determination of electric field is necessary
while designing and diagnostics of high voltage
apparatus.
Various numerical methods have been employed over the
years for the computation of the electric potential and
field along the insulator string. Basically there are two
methods, Domain based methods and Boundary based
methods. Finite Difference Method (FDM) and Finite
Element Method comes under Domain based methods,
and Boundary based methods includes Boundary Element
Method (BEM), Charge Simulation Method (CSM) and
Surface Charge Simulation Method (SCSM).

Keywords Ceramic/ porcelain Insulators, Defective

insulator disc, Surface Charge Simulation Method

I. INTRODUCTION
Modern society exclusively depends on the electrical
power for industrial, commercial, agricultural, domestic
and social purposes. The electrical energy is generated
mainly at the hydro, thermal and nuclear power stations.
Due to various reasons, the generating stations and the
load centres are geographically far off, which necessitates
transmission of bulk power over long distances. This
important task at present is mostly performed by
overhead power transmission lines. Currently,
underground transmission is also employed however;
capacitive charging current of the cable limits its
application to shorter distances. Hence, it is expected that
power delivery by overhead lines would continue to be
the method of choice for many more years.

For the present work boundary based method Surface

Charge Simulation Method (SCSM) is employed, because
the problem under investigation is of open geometry
(boundary) type. This is based on the fact that these
methods involve: (i) only the discretisation of the
boundary and not the infinite domain, and (ii) the
solution obtained is continuous, hence will be the spatial
variation in electric field.
The SCSM code [8-10] developed earlier was suitably
modified and employed for the present investigation.

It is evident that failure at any single point can bring

down the entire system and hence performance of
insulators used in overhead transmission line plays key
factor in determining the reliability of power
transmission/distribution systems [1]. The insulators used

A Galerkin's approach is made owing to its higher

accuracy. The equations for electric potential and electric
field derived by axi-symmetric charge distribution are
given [10], has been used for the present work.

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III. EQUATIONS FOR POTENTIAL AND ELECTRIC FIELD

IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

V r, z

1
4 o

The typical discretisation for type 120N disc is shown in

Figure2, where each line segment is indicated by a
different colour. The segment length is decided by
geometry and the expected local field profile. The
adequacy of the discretisation has been verified by
repeating the calculation with higher level of
discretisation. Typically the number of segments involved
is in the range of 260 to 320 for various discs. The
computation time involved for a 35 disc (765 kV)
insulator string is in the range of 45-50 minutes on a
system comprising of 2 Quad CPU with clock speed of
2.82GHz with 4 GB RAM running on windows XP 64-bit
platform.

r ' F * r ' , z ' dl

(1)

=
F*(r, z)

Figure3 presents the equipotential distribution for type

120AF 3-disc healthy string, while Figure 4 & 5 shows
equipotential and bulk electric stress distribution for type
120AF 3-disc string with 2nd disc defective from line end.
Figure6 and Figure 7 show surface potential and
electric field for 120AF 3-disc string. From results
presented it has been observed that electric stress is high
near pin region and is lower at the cap of disc insulator. It
has been also observed that the stress along string is
varying with faulty discs in it. Figure 8shows the
equipotational plot for 14-disc,2nd &3rd disc fault induced
conditions of 120AF make disc. Figure 9-14 shows
comparison of surface electric field for various discs for
different voltage levels from 132kV to 765kV, it is
observed in all the cases that the stress across 1st disc
from line has enhanced due to defective disc in a string.

Figure 1: Schematic of an axi-symmetric strip L, in the r-z plane

Where L is the length of the segment in r-z plane,

is the elemental segment length, 0 is the permittivity of
free space, s is the linear charge density, (r, z) are the
coordinates of the measuring points and (r, z) are the
coordinates of the source points.
And corresponding electric field is

E r, z

1
4 0

2.2

r ' H * r ' , z ' dl

(2)

cap

H * r' , z'

Segments

2.15

r' r2 z z'
2
K m
1
2
a b
r a b
2

Em a

Ground end Conductor

4 z z'

E m a z
1
2
a b a b

The calculation of field using the above equation on

the source segment leads to singularity. However, the
normal field at the source segment can be directly
calculated by
s
(3)
En
20
Simulations were carried out to study the surface field
and potential distribution for normal and defect-induced
string (insulator shorted to create a defect). Simulations
were carried up to 765kV system voltages for various disc
insulators presently used in the country. The locations of
the faulty discs are chosen randomly as per the data
available from the literature. A maximum of 6 faulty
discs were considered in a string at a time.

Distance in m

Where

corona
ring

2.1

Ceramic/
porcelain
shell

2.05

120N
Portland
Cement

HV conductor end
pin
1.95

0.05

0.1

0.15
0.2
Distance in m

0.25

0.3

0.35

Figure 2: Typical discretisation for single disc type 120N

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TECHNIA International Journal of Computing Science and Communication Technologies, VOL.5 NO. 2, Jan. 2013 (ISSN 0974-3375)

Figure 3: Equipotential distribution for 3-disc healthy string

Figure 6: Potential distribution plot for 3-disc 120AF type string

Figure 4: Equipotential distribution for 3-disc 2nd disc defective string

Figure 7: Surface field distribution plot for 3-disc 120AF type string

Simulation study is further extended for various types of

insulators for different voltage levels viz. 33 kV, 66 kV,
132 kV, 220 kV, 400 kV and 765 kV and corresponding
insulator discs for these voltage levels are 3, 6, 9, 14, 23
and 35(160 kN and 29 discs of 400 kN type) respectively.
For brevity results of 120AF, 120N, 160N and 210N type
of insulator disc are presented.
Figure 9 to Figure 14 presents comparison of surface
electric field for the various discs at different fault
locations for different voltage levels. From comparison it
has been observed that the stress enhancement across 1 st
disc from line end is high when the defective disc is near
to line end, and it is observed to be low when defective
discs are at middle and near to ground end of string.

Figure 5: Bulk stress distribution for 3-disc 2nd disc defective string

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Figure 11: Comparison of surface field between healthy and defective

discs 400 kV 23-disc 120AF type string near line end

Figure 8: Equipotential distribution for 14-disc 2nd & 3rd disc defective
string

Figure 12: Comparison of surface field between healthy and defective

discs 400 kV 23-disc 120AF type string at middle and near ground end

Figure 9: Comparison of surface field for healthy and defective discs near
line end of 14-disc string

Figure 13: Comparison of surface field between healthy and 2nd &3rd &4th
disc defective 765 kV 35-disc 210N type string

Figure 10: Comparison of surface field between healthy and 2nd &3rd &4th
disc defective 400 kV 23-disc 120AF type string

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TECHNIA International Journal of Computing Science and Communication Technologies, VOL.5 NO. 2, Jan. 2013 (ISSN 0974-3375)

Figure 15: Experiment arrangement

Figure 14: Comparison of surface field between healthy and defective
discs 765 kV 35-disc 210N type string near line end

From simulation results it has been observed that,

enhancement in stress across 1st disc from line end is
~42% for 33 kV with 2nd disc defective and ~54% for 220
kV, ~44% for 400 kV string of type 120AF discs with 2nd
& 3rd discs defective, while for 2nd & 3rd & 4th discs faulty
case enhancement observed is around 88%.
Similarly for 765 kV 210N disc type string with 2nd & 3rd
& 4th discs faulty, the enhancement across 1st disc is
around 62% and is ~40% for 2nd & 3rd disc defective
string. It has been also observed that, the stress along the
string is minimal with defective discs located at middle
and ground end.

Figure 16: Insulator String with Faulty Disc

V. EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATION
Experimentation was carried out in the laboratory to
verify the simulation results with the setup shown in
Figure 15. By using the facility, Voltage distribution
across the insulator string was measured using a
spheregap method. The percentage voltage distribution
along the string as well as the corona current was
measured.
Figure 17: Comparison of % voltage distribution of experimental &
simulation results for 2nd disc faulty string (9-discs)

Defective insulator is created by connecting the cap and

pin of insulator disc by a conducting wire as shown in
Figure 16. Figure [17-18] presents the comparison of
simulation and experimental results for 160N type disc
with 2nd disc and 2nd & 4th disc defective in a 9-disc
string. The measured corona current for 2nd & 3rd disc
defective string (9-disc 160N type) for voltage application
80kV is presented in Figure 19.
A sample comparison of the available field data for 400
kV transmission systems:Tirchy-Nyveli and Gooty-Hoody
transmission lines [17] for healhty and faulted conditions,
is made with the results obtained from the simulation
study for the same discs which were used in the field.
Figure 20 show the simulated data for type 120N discs.
The simulated curve follows the field cmeasured curve.

Figure 18: Comparison of % voltage distribution of experimental and

simulation results for 2nd & 4th disc faulty string (9-discs)

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is found to be (48-102)% for 400 kV and (62-110)% for

765 kV string for various disc types.
It has been found that the stress on the normal insulator
string is dependent on the location of the defective
insulators in the string.
The stress across the normal insulator string was found to
be high when the location of defective insulator is near
to the high voltage conductor (line end), and it is less
when the defective insulator discs are located at the
middle or near to the ground end of the string.
The simulation data presented is for all the disc types
presently used in the country, hence it is believed that
these results will be helpful for the power utilities in
making proper judgment while replacing the faulty discs
in a string.

Figure 19: Corona current pulses in a string with 2nd&3rd disc defective
with 80 kV application

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors are thankful to Prof L Satish and Prof Udaya
Kumar, Dept. of EE, IISc for their constant help and
useful discussions.
REFERENCES
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Insulators, Phoenix, USA, 1999.
[2] S. Birlasekaran, H. J. Li, 2000, Detection of Faulty
Insulators on Power Transmission Line, procedings of
PESW, vol. 4, pp 2817-2821, 2000.

Figure 20: Simulated surface field for a 400 kV healthy Transmission line

[3] CIGRE Task force 33-04-01, Polluted Insulators: A

review of current knowledge, 2000.

From the comparision of simulated results with

experimental and field data, it has been observed that the
simulation results are closely following the experimental
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available.

[4] C. Nyamupangedengu, 2007, Acoustic and HF detection

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VI. CONCLUSION
For the present study seven types of porcelain insulators
have been considered for brevity results of some insulator
type were presented. The surface potential and field
distribution study is carried for single disc and string of
insulators for normal and with defective discs in a string.

[6] S. M. A. Dhalaan and M. A. Elhirbawy, 2003, Simulation

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From the simulation studies it is found that the electric

stress enhancement across the first disc from the line end
for 3-disc string (33 kV) with 2nd disc defective from the
line end is in the range of (42-48) % for different disc
types. Similarly, the electric stress enhancement for
2nd&3rd defective discs (from the line end) was (50-58)%
for 66 kV, (15- 60)% for 132 kV, (54-66)% for 220 kV,
(30-68)% for 400 kV and (40-78)% for 765 kV string for
various types of disc insulators. In case of faults located
at 2nd&3rd&4th discs (from the line end) the enhancement
in the electric stress across the first disc from the line end

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Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA-USA -1993.

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[9] U. Kumar and M. Vasu, 2002,"Studies on Voltage

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