Dry Band Formation and Its Influence on Electric
Field Distribution along Polluted Insulator
ZHOU Jian-bo,GAO Bo, ZHANG Qiao-gen,
School of Electrical Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
Abstract— the formation of the dry band has great
influence on the electric field distribution along insulator,
which will result in the partial arc as well flashover. In
order to investigate the characteristics of dry band under
different conditions, a three-dimension model of polluted
insulator is established in this paper. The formation,
location, width and number of dry band and its effect on
the potential and electric field distribution are investigated
based on the analysis of electric field using the finite
element method. The results show that there will be
obvious distortion of the electric field distribution of
insulator when the dry band appears on the surface of
polluted insulator. The maximum electric field of dry band
is related to its location on the insulator surface, it has a
trend of asymmetric U type along the axial direction on the
surface of insulator. The dry band on underside surface of
the insulator has a greater influence on the electric field
distribution than that on upper surface. The maximal
value appears on the center of dry band, which increases
with the growth of dry band angle along the
circumferential direction along the surface of the
insulator, and decreases with the growth of dry band
width along the axial direction on the surface of the
insulator. The increase of dry band number will decrease
the electric field reciprocally.
Key words: insulator, dry band, electric field distribution,
ANSYS, finite method, three-dimension model
I. INTRODUCTION
The conductors with different potential are usually jointed
mechanically and insulated electrically by the insulators In
electrical system that are influenced by some hostile
environment such as dust, industrial pollution, fog, rain and
snow and atmosphere. At a higher humidity conditions, the
flashover voltage will be sharply decreased and the flashover
even happened at the operating voltage that will seriously
affect the safe operation of the system [1-4]. This is because of
the large humidity makes the surface of polluted insulators wet
and causes a sharply increased conductivity and leakage
current on it. The discharge on the surface of wetly polluted
insulators is directly related to the dry band. As uneven
resistance existing on the polluted layer, the position with a
lower resistance becomes dry faster and resistance becomes
larger because of a large amount of heat generated and,
therefore, one or more narrow dry bands will be created there
and a considerable voltage drop will be appeared there that
will cause a partial arc discharge and even develop a complete
flashover on a certain conditions when the potential gradient
978-1-4244-4813-5/10/$25.00 ©2010 IEEE
surpasses the flashover strength [5-8]. The creation of dry
band is closely associated with discharge on the surface of
insulators and the basic to understanding of the mode selection,
parameter optimization and flashover elimination for
insulators can be achieved through the study of field
distribution of insulators with dry bands. Plenty of studies to
the dry band and partial discharge of insulators have been
made at home and abroad. But most of these studies were
based on the idealized model in which the surface of insulators
has been simplified as a straightforward geometry, such as
rectangle or conical contour and the influence of insulators’
complex shape has not been considered and, therefore, they
have a certain deficiency [9-12].
This paper adopts the FEM (finite element method) to build
three dimensional model based on the true form of insulators
and analyses the distribution of 3D electrical field of true
model insulators with dry bands under the AC voltage with the
help of Harmonic Quasistatic Electric Analysis method by
software ANSYS and makes the in-depth study on the
influence of creation, position along the surface, width, radian,
numbers of dry bands to the potential along the surface and
distribution of fields of polluted insulators.
II. COMPUTATION MODEL OF INSULATORS WITH DRY
BANDS
Unlike the polluted insulators with dry bands, the surface
conductivity of clean insulators is very small and its field is a
capacitive distributed and axialsymmetric field that can be
solved by building a 2D cross-sectional model through
electrostatic field method. With the dry bands created, the
field of insulator surface is no longer axialsymmetric one and
the 3D model have to be built. Besides，the field distribution
can not be solved with the conventional static field method or
galvanostatic method due to a large amount of leak current on
the surface of insulators and the field distribution presents
resistive-capacitive one.
Based on the above analysis the 3D field analytical model for
insulators built by using the FEM is shown on fig 1. The
creeping distance of insulator is 320 mm. On the study of
position influence the dry bands are located at 10 mm, 30 mm,
50 mm, 70 mm, 180 mm, 230 mm and 260 mm away from the
low voltage end (iron cap) respectively in which the former 4
positions are located on the upper surface and the later 3
positions, lower surface. The several dry bands existing
conditions are simulated by using a combination of the above
positions. 90°, 180°and 270°are chosen as angle of the dry
bands, and 3 mm, 5 mm, 9 mm and 12 mm, as the width. Set a
certain resistivity for a thin layer on the surface of insulator to
simulate the pollution and set 6 and 1 as the relative
inductivity for porcelain fittings and air respectively. Body
sweeping is used for subdivision so that the subdivision rule is
ensured, degree of closeness for grid can be controlled and the
computational effort is reduced. The accuracy in computation
can be ensured by adopting free subdivision of high
precision[14-16].
(a)Dry Band on Upper Surface
(b) Dry Band on Lower Surface
Fig.1 3D Model of Polluted Insulator with
Dry Bands
As described above, the field distribution can not solved by
using the static field method or galvanostatic method. In this
paper the Harmonic Quasistatic Electric Analysis method is
adopted for computation by which the effect both of
capacitance and resistance is considered at the same time and
the field distribution caused by alternating current, electric
charge or voltage can be analyzed.
III. EFFECT OF DRY BANDS AND ITS ANALYSIS
A. Variation of Potential on the Surface after Formation of
Dry Bands
With the dry band formed at the position of 70 mm away
from the iron cap (angle is 90°and its width is 3 mm) the
distribution of potential on the surface is shown on fig. 2.
Before formation of the dry band, the pollution on the
insulator surface is evenly distributed with same potential
distribution on the surface along the circumferential direction.
After dry band formed, as the resistivity increased sharply the
voltage drop (on the position with angle in circumferential
direction 135°-225°shown on Fig 2 (b) ) and strength of field
enlarged, and the potential on the position from the dry band
to the high voltage end sprang up that is higher than the same
position along the circumferential direction. But the potential
on the position from the low voltage end to dry band is lower
than that on the conforming layer. Meanwhile, the potential
distribution varies according to different positions on dry band
along the circumferential direction. The strength of field at the
center of dry band is 8.52kV/cm（Fig. 2（b）with angle of
180°）and is dropping to 1.87kV/cm at the edge which is
22% of that at the center. Fig. 3 is an equipotential contour at
the axial section showing that the equipotential line at the
center of dry band is intensive and the field strength is at the
maximum value.
(a) Uniform Wetted Pollution
(b) After Forming of Dry Band
Fig. 2 3-D Expanded View for Potential Distribution along Surface of
Insulator
B. Effect of Dry Band Position
As a complete uniform polluted layer and their wet extent is
impossible, narrow dry band will be created at the place where
surface resistance is larger and, therefore, much heat produced
and the position of dry band is a random one in some degree
[17]. The dry bands are formed on the position that are 10 mm,
30 mm, 50 mm and 70 mm (located on upper surface) and 180
mm, 230 mm and 260 mm (on lower surface) from the iron
cap respectively (with angle of 90°and width of 3 mm). Fig 4
shows the potential distribution along surface of the dry bands
centers formed on several different positions in which x-
coordinate represents the distance along surface from the zero
point at the iron cap that shows the different positions on the
insulator surface. From the Fig. 4 we have learned that all dry
bands have large voltage drops and the voltage drop created at
position of 230 mm from iron cap is larger than that of 30 mm
and 50 mm from iron cap. It explains that field strength of dry
band with the same width on lower surface is larger.
Fig. 3 Equipotential Contour of Dry Band Axial Section
Fig. 4 Potential Distribution of Dry Band Center on Different Location
Carry out the quantitative analysis to find the maximum
field strength on dry band as shown on Fig. 5. On the
insulator’s upper surface, the maximum field strength
decreases as the distance along surface increased. The
maximum strength on the position of 70 mm is 33% less than
that of 10 mm, but on the lower surface, the maximum
strength increases as the distance along surface increased that
shows the maximum strength on dry band is related to its
position along surface and the variation trend appears to a
asymmetric U-type curve. The field strength of dry bands
created at two electrodes is larger and fast changes in relation
to the position along surface and the more close to the edge
the dry bands are, the less field strength is and the slower
change is. The field strength on lower surface is changed
faster and the largest strength occurs on the dry bands near the
high voltage electrode. The maximum strength on the position
of 230 mm is 76% larger than that of 70 mm and 17% larger
than that of 10 mm.
As the surface of wet polluted insulators has higher
conductivity and surface potential is mainly depends on the
resistance distribution, in the analysis of this paper the
polluted layer is considered as a series of serial parallel
resistors with different resistance values to build an equivalent
resistance model combining the effect of shape of the
insulators that is shown on Fig. 6 in which Rij represents the
resistance of unit lengths and unit angle of different positions
(i(1~n) is distance and j(1~m) is angle). As the equivalent
radius of polluted layer on the edge of insulators increased the
resistors near the edge have less values i.e. R1k>R2k>…>Rnk
that causes the voltage drop of unit length on polluted layers
near the electrode increased and the equipotential lines
distribution there become thicker, and the more near the edge
of insulators the more sparse the equipotential lines are. The
dry bands near the electrode are located on the part of thicker
equipotential lines on which the voltage drop increased
consequently and the field strength becomes higher. The
equipotential lines on lower surface are thicker than that on
upper surface at the conditions of uniform pollution that
makes the lower surface of dry bands have higher field
strength.
Fig. 5 Relationship between Maximum Field Strength of Dry Band and
Position
Fig. 6 Serial Parallel Resistors Model of Polluted Insulator Surface
C. Effect of Width and Angle of Dry Band
The leak current distribution affected by the formation of dry
band makes its extent expanded [18-19] that includes increase
of angle along circumferential direction and width along the
axial direction. Take the effect analysis of width and angle on
the field strength by taking the dry bands with width of 3 mm,
6 mm, 9 mm and 12 mm ( angle is 90°) created on the position
of 50 mm from the iron cap into consideration and by
increasing the angles to 180°and 270°respectively, and the
result has been achieved as shown on Fig. 7. The maximum
field strength on the dry band is decreased nonlinearly with
increased width that is related to the insulator’s shape and
potential distribution on it. Nonlinear potential distribution on
the surface of insulators causes a nonlinear change of the field
strength following the width change of dry band. The voltage
drop of dry band increases with the angle, and 180°and
270°correspond to the maximum field strength of 12.57kV/cm
and 17.77kV/cm respectively.
Fig. 7 Relationship between Maximum Field Strength of dry band and width
Fig. 8 Potential distribution of dry band center on different angle
Based on the Serial Parallel Resistors Model as shown on Fig.
8, suppose a dry band is located on position R11 as shown on
the Fig., quickly increased R11 with the dry band appeared
here makes the voltage drop on it increased and the resistance
R12~R1n in parallel with R11 increase along with the
increased angles makes the parallel resistance value of
R11~R1n increased and its percent over the series resistance
enlarged. The more angle of dry band is, the more parallel
resistance of R11~R1n and voltage drop becomes, that shows
the extension of dry bands along the circumferential direction
makes its maximum strength increased and creation of local
arcing intensified. But the extension of dry bands along the
axial direction makes its maximum strength decreased and
creation of local arcing obstructed. As a matter of fact, little
drying-up point created first and then expanded and the local
arcing generated if a specific condition is fulfilled.
D. Effect of Dry Bands Numbers
A number of drying-up points may exist on the surface of
polluted insulator that may develop into many dry bands. Take
some positions above combined to create several dry bands
with equal width and equal angle. Fig. 9 is a vector graphics of
field strength of an insulator along its surface that shows the
electric field are centralized at all dry bands. For many dry
bands, the field strength on each one is usually less than that
of each one when it is individually exists. For example, the
maximum strength on the dry band at position of 30 mm is
9.37kV/cm, but this figure is decreased to 6.85kV/cm /
4.06kV/cm respectively when the dry bands created at position
of 30 mm and 50 mm / 10 mm, 30 mm and 50 mm at the same
time. The similar case also appears when the dry bands are
located at combination of several deferent positions. Fig. 10
shows the change of maximum strength along with the
numbers of dry bands from which it can been seen that
maximum strength on the dry bands is decreased along with
increase of numbers of dry bands. This explains that several
dry bands created at the same time have ability to weaken the
field strength of one another and the new created dry band will
impede the creation and expansion of electric arc on the earlier
created dry bands.
Fig.9 Vector Diagram of Partial Insulator Surface with Three Dry Bands
Fig.10 Relationship between maximum electric field of dry band and number
E. Discussion
The formation of dry bands leads to redistribution of potential
on insulators along surface. It is certified through the
simulation that position, width, angle and number of dry bands
all affect such distribution. The electric arc is most readily
created on the dry bands with large angle and small width near
the steel foot. For example, the dry band on the position of
260 mm will withstand 60% of applied voltage even if it is at
angle of 90°. Based on the result from Fig.5 and the model in
Fig. 6, when the number increased the dry bands will have
higher resistance. Therefore, the weakening in degree of
number to the field is related to the position, that is to say, the
dry bands on the edge area have a weaker influence on other
ones and the strength weakening in degree to the dry bands
near electrode is weaker than that of the dry bands at the edge
area. Through the calculation, after four dry bands created on
the upper surface, the strength on them will be reduced by
57.0%, 65.3%, 73.9%, and 78.4% ( from electrode to the edge)
respectively if they are existing individually. Therefore, the
dry bands created at the intermediate section may be
considered as a potential barrier which may effectively
weaken the strength near the electrode and may obstruct the
formation of large voltage drop on their outer dry bands.
The aforementioned results may be useful to improving the
performance of pollution proof insulators. For example,
improve the shape of insulators at the position near the steel
foot to eliminate the forming of narrow dry area, make a
suitable design for easy to create a wider dry or clean area at
the intermediate section of insulator used as a potential barrier
and increase the number of dry areas to strengthen the field
weakening in degree of one another.
IV. CONCLUSION
Based on the structure of genuine insulator the paper has
built the 3D field analytical model to study of the effect of dry
bands on the potential along surface and field distribution of
polluted insulators by adopting the finite element analysis
method and has reached the following conclusion:
1) The creation of dry bands has distorted the potential
distribution on the surface of insulators that makes the field
strength of dry bands area increased. The strength is very
different at different positions on the dry band along the
circumferential direction with a maximum value on its center
and dwindles from the center to the edge areas.
2) When the dry bands create on different positions of
insulator’s surface along the axial direction, the maximum
field strength assumes an asymmetric variation trend of
U-type, i.e. the lager field strength appears on the dry bands
created near the two electrodes with faster change on positions
along surface and smaller strength on the dry bands appears
near the edge area with slower change on positions along
surface, and the maximum strength appears on the dry bands
created near the high voltage electrodes.
3) The maximum field strength on the dry band is
nonlinearly decreased with its increased width and increased
with the increased angle. The expansion of dry band along the
circumferential direction will cause a increased field strength
and the expansion of dry band along the axial direction,
decreased strength.
4) The maximum field strength on dry band will decreased
with its increased number and several dry bands created at the
same time have ability to weaken the field strength of one
another. The new created dry band will impede the creation
and expansion of electric arc on the earlier created dry bands.
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