Polymer insulator design includes three main parts, housing design, core design, and Prototype and Design Testing. To meet these criteria the following steps were taken during the polymer insulator design.

Polymer insulator design - Housing:
The market has a need for both EPDM and Silicone materials depending on application environment. Orient decided to develop insulators with both materials so that the needs of customers could be met in the most economical way.

An extensive review process of available materials was conducted and the suppliers chosen based on years of successful supply to the industry were:
EPDM: Colonial Rubber
Silicone: Wacker Silicones

Formulations were chosen to provide the optimum in performance in the field combined with ease of injection molding and complete bonding to the fiberglass core.

Polymer insulator design - Core:
Orient specified 11/16 inch diameter polyester fiberglass for the core rod (larger diameter than most suppliers) in order to provide the best mechanical (tensile and torsion) resistance. Glasforms was selected as the suppler of the core based on that company's experience in this type of product.

The use of a solid rod type core instead of the "matrix" type offered by some suppliers provides much greater resistance to permanent deformation under torsion loading and also enables the insulator to meet the SML rating after the application of rated torsion load.

Polymer insulator design - Prototype and Design Testing:
Ontario Hydro Technologies was selected as the independent laboratory to perform the necessary prototype and design testing. This laboratory has all necessary equipment to complete the testing and is very experienced in the qualification testing for polymeric insulators.

Prototype and design tests were performed to ANSI, IEC and LWIWG standards on both silicone and EPDM insulators.
 

Relative Articles:
◆polymer insulator production details
◆Effect polymer insulators
◆polymer insulator manufacturers