Hydrophobic Coating Development For HV (High Voltage) Insulators And Aging Analysis By Artificial Chamber

Hydrophobic Coating Development For HV (High Voltage) Insulators And Aging Analysis By Artificial Chamber

      Our project Objectives are :

• To perform aging analysis on ceramic insulators in Experimental Chamber by artificial environmental effects.
• To create 5 different artificial environmental effects in experimental chamber including Heat, cold, rain, dust and fog effect.
• An improved hydrophobic coating will be developed for ceramic insulators to increase its hydrophobic strength on the basis of aging analysis.
• Comparison between the uncoated and coated ceramic insulator’s results of aging analysis.

Firstly, the structure of our Experimental chamber has been created using 5mm thick Acrylic sheet. To perform Aging analysis on ceramic insulators we will create 5 different artificial environmental effects which are Heat, cold, rain, dust and fog effect. We have used four sensors Temperature sensor,Humidity sensor,Flow sensor and PH sensor. For Heat and Cold Effect we have used two Peltier modules on left and right side of the experimental chamber with heat sinks and fans.The insulator will be placed in the cenre of experimental chamber,  both peltiers are being controlled by Relay logic PCB circuit and 2-channel Relay module which is controlled by using Arduino Mega. For measurement of Temperature value, we have used DHT22 sensor.In this Heat and cold effect system the input value of required temperature will be set by us using a TFT touchscreen, This heat and cold effect system is a closed loop system.

For Raining effect, we have a water storage compartment at the bottom of the chamber in which we have placed a 50W DC submersible pump which pump the water up to the shower which is placed on top of the insulator and from shower the water falls back in the water storage compartment. Here Flow sensor is used to measure the flow rate of water, by this flow rate we can set the rain rate value, Rain rate can be change by changing the speed of pump which is done by using BTS7960 motor driver.The rain rate input value can also be given through TFT touchscreen. For Dust effect we have used a Blower which is mounted in front of insulator, it will throw the dust straight on the insulator.

For Fog effect we have used an Ultrasonic mistmaker fogger which uses water to create fog, And to measure the humidity in chamber we have used a humidity sensor which is DHT22 as it has a humidity sensor in it also with Temperature sensor. we have also used a small camera which is mounted in front of insulator for monitoring the aging analysis. PH sensor is also used to measure the PH value of the water, because water that we will use in raining effect will include some salts in it.

As our experimental chamber is completed, We will first perform aging analysis on uncoated ceramic insulators and in parallel we will be working on the improvement of coating for Ceramic insulator then we will perform aging analysis on coated ceramic insulators. The results that we will get from aging analysis of coated and uncoated insulators will be compared with each other. Which will show that hydrophobic coating on insulators can cause less contamination, and less contamination means less leakage current which means less power losses in electrical transmission system.

As our project is a reasearch based project, we designed and developed our experimental chamber according to that so that we can perform differennt tests of aging analysis on ceramic insulators and gather the results related to uncoated and coated ceramic insulators. Our experimental chamber is beneficial for performing those tests which include environmental effect testing on Ceramic insulators, by using this experimental chamber one can also perform testing on polymer insulators.

The aging analysis tests on ceramic insulators that we will perform will show that how Hydrophobic coating can increase the hydrophobic strength of ceramic insulators. By increasing hydrophobic strength of insulator there will be less contamination on insulators. When there will be less contamination on insulators it will become resistant to tracking and errosion. There will be less pollution flashovers also there will be less leakage current. And all this will decrease power losses in electrical transmission system.

Our final deleiverable will include an experimental chamber made of 5mm thick acrylic sheet with dimensions of 2x2x2 ft and a control panel containing all microcontrollers,circuits and modules for running and controlling of the artificial environments in experimental chamber.

In centre of the experimental chamber a ceramic insulator will be placed in a holder, on which the testing will be performed. At bottom of the chamber we placed a 50W DC submersible pump whose outlet is connected to a pipe which goes to the flow sensor and from the other side of flow sensor pipe go to the shower on top of the chamber,the flow sensor is mounted on right side of chamber water will flow through that flow sensor. On left and right side of the chamber we have fixed Peltier modules with heat sinks and fans mounted on both sides of those two peltiers. We also placed a 500W halogen light on top of the chamber which is facing downward,it is for boosting the heat effect in chamber.The intensity of halogen light can be controlled by dimmer.In front side of insulator we have mounted a Blower for dust effect and a small camera for monitoring aging analysis. DHT22 Temperature and humidity sensor is also mounted on top of the chamber.Ultrasonic mistmaker fogger is also placed inside of the chamber for creating Fog effect.

On control panel we have placed our main microcontroller Arduino Mega in centre with 2.4'' TFT touchscreen LCD. TFT LCD is used for setting the input value of Temperature and rain rate and also for setting the runtime. TFT LCD will also shows the information related to raining, Heat and cold effect. The information that we are displaying on TFT LCD include current temperature,set temperature,Humidity value, raining rate,Flow rate and Runtime for both Peltiers and Raining. On right side of control panel we have placed our Relay logic PCB circuit ,2-channel relay module which is connected to the  peltiers and Arduino mega. We have also placed the BTS 7960 motor driver and it is connected to DC submersible pump and Arduino Mega. On left side we have the setup for reading PH value using PH sensor and we are displaying its value on a 20x4 LCD.

The aging analysis tests on ceramic insulators that will be perform in experimental chamber will show that how Hydrophobic coating can increase the hydrophobic strength of ceramic insulators.one can perform all those tests in this experimental chamber which include environmental effect testing on HV insulators.