Experiment No.

8
Study of Relationship between String Efficiency & the no. of Insulator
(units) used in a String Insulator

Introduction:
The insulators for overhead lines provide insulation to the power conductor from the ground.
The insulators are connected to the cross arm of the supporting structure and the power
conductor passes through the clamp of the insulator. These insulators are mainly made of
either glazed porcelain or toughened glass. The materials used for porcelain are silica 20%
feldspar 30% and clay 50%. The porcelain should be ivory white, sound and free from
defects. The dielectric strength of porcelain should be15 kV to 17 kV for every one-tenth
inch thickness. Normally it is difficult to manufacture homogeneous porcelain and, therefore,
for a particular operating voltage two, three or more pieces construction is adopted in which
each piece is glazed separately and then they are cemented together. Porcelain is
mechanically strong, less affected by temperature and has minimum leakage problem.

Toughened glass is also sometimes used for insulators because it has higher dielectric
strength (35 kV for one-tenth inch thickness) which makes it possible to make use of single
piece construction, whatever be the operating voltage. Glass being transparent, it is very
easy to detect any flaw like trapping of air etc. It has lower coefficient of thermal expansion
and; as a result, the strains due to temperature changes are minimized. The major drawback
of glass
is that moisture condenses very easily on its surface and hence its use is limited to about 33
kV.

Types of Insulators:
There are three types of insulators used for overhead lines:
(i) Pin type,

(ii) Suspension type, and Fig 1: Pin

Type Insulator
(iii) Strain type.

Pin type insulator (Fig.1) consists of a single or multiple shells (petticoats or rain sheds)
adapted to be mounted on a spindle to be fixed to the cross arm of the supporting structure.
Multiple shells are provided in order to obtain sufficient length of leakage path so that the
flash over voltage between the power conductor and the pin of the insulator is increased.
The design of the shells is such that when the uppermost shell is wet due to rain the lower
shells are dry and provide sufficient leakage resistance.
It is to be noted that the power conductor passes through the groove at the top of the
insulator and is tied to the insulator by the annealed wire of the same material as the
conductor. The pin type insulators are normally used upto 33 kV. In any case it is not
desirable to use them beyond 50 kV as the cost of such insulators then increases much
faster than the voltage. The cost beyond 50 kV is given by

x
Cost V
where x > 2.

The pin type of insulators are uneconomical beyond 33 kV operating voltage. Also the
replacement of these
insulators is expensive. For these reasons for insulating overhead lines against higher
voltages, suspension insulators (Fig. 2) are used. These insulators consist of one or more
insulator units flexibly connected together and adapted to be hung for the cross arm of the
supporting structure and to carry a power conductor at its lowest extremity. Such composite
units are known as string insulators. Each insulator is a single disc-shaped piece of porcelain
grooved on the undersurface to increase the surface leakage path between the metal cap at
the top and the metal pin at the bottom of the insulator. The cap at the top is recessed so
that it can take the pin of another unit and in this way a string of any required number of
insulators can be built. The cap and the pin are secured to the insulator by means of
cement.

Fig 2: Suspension Type Insulator

Suspension insulators being free to swing, the clearances required between the power
conductor and the supporting structure are more as compared to pin type insulators. This
means the length of the cross arm for suspension
insulators is more as compared with the pin type.

The suspension insulators, in addition to being economical as compared to pin type for
voltages more than 33 kV, have the following further advantages:

1. Each insulator is designed for 11 kV and hence for any operating voltage a string of
insulators can be used. For example, for 132 kV transmission, the number of insulators
required is 12 (maximum).
2. In case of failure of one of the units in the string, only that particular unit needs
replacement rather than the whole string.
3. Since the power conductor and string swing together in case of wind pressure, the
mechanical stresses at the point of attachment are reduced as compared with the pin type
of insulator where because of the rigid nature of the attachment fatigue and ultimate
brittleness of the wire result.
4. The operating voltage of the existing transmission can be increased by adding suitable
number of discs in the string instead of replacing all the insulators as is necessary in case of
pin type insulators.

Potential Distribution over a String of Suspension Insulators:

The thumb rule for finding the number of insulator discs for a particular operating voltage is
to have one disc for every 11 kV. This does not mean that the voltage across the discs of the
string is uniformly distributed. This is because of the capacitances formed between the
metal parts of the insulators and the tower structure. These capacitances could be made
negligibly small by increasing the distance between the insulators and the tower
structure which requires larger lengths of cross arms. This will result into bigger size of the
towers and hence it becomes uneconomical. Therefore, in practice the insulators are not
very far from the tower structure and hence these capacitances affect the voltage
distribution across the string. The capacitance of each unit is known as mutual capacitance.

Potential Distribution over a string of 4 insulators

The derivation of voltages across each insulator shows that V1 < V2 < V3 < V4 . This means
the voltage drop across the unit nearest the cross arm is minimum and it goes on increasing
as we go towards the power conductor. The voltage drop across the unit nearest the power
conductor is maximum.

It is clear that the lowermost unit in a string of insulators is fully stressed or utilized. As we
go towards the cross arm the units are less stressed as compared to their capacity and
hence they are not utilized fully. String efficiency is a measure of the utilization of material in
the string and is defined as

Voltage across the string

String Efficiency=
nx Voltage across theunit near the power conductor
where n is the number of insulators in the string.

Methods of Equalizing the Potential:

1. Selection of m: One of the methods for equalizing the potential drop across the various
units of the string is to
have a larger value of m which as is said earlier needs longer cross arms and hence taller
supporting structures and hence it is uneconomical to go beyond certain value of the length
of cross arm. It has been found that the value of m= 10 is about the maximum which may
be obtained.

2. Grading of Units: It can be seen in fig, below;

that unequal distribution of voltage is due to the leakage current from the insulator pin to
the tower structure. This current cant be eliminated. The other possibility is that disc of
different capacities could be used such that the product of their capacitive reactance and
the current flowing through the respective unit is same.

Fig 3: Potential distribution over a string of (n+1) insulators

This requires that the unit nearest the cross arm should have the minimum capacitance
(maximum capacitive reactance) and as we go towards the power conductor the
capacitance should increase. By this grading it can be shown that complete equality of
voltage can be obtained. Refer to Fig.3. Here again the capacitance between the metal work
and the power conductor is neglected.