IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 13, No.
2, April 1998
Experience with the Detection of Faulty Composite Insulators on
High-Voltage Power Lines by the Electric Field Measurement Method
G.H. Vaillancourt S. Carignan
Senior Member, IEEE Non-Member
Hydro-Quebec (IREQ)
1802, boul. Lionel-Boulet
Varennes, Quebec, Canada J3X 1S 1
Abstract : Hydro-Quebecs experience with polymer insulators
began in 1977. A sixteen km section of a 735 kV transmission line
near Quebec City was then re-insulated with 282 composite insula-
tors of three different makes in equal proportions. The objective was
to study them under real service conditions in order to evaluate their
performance and to assess the relative merits of each make. This
experimentation was later extended to some other lines and/or volt-
age levels and has continued up to now. During all these years,
various methods of testing composite insulators in-service have
been experimented and early in the nineties, the first device devel-
oped at IREQ for in-situ testing of porcelain insulators by the elec-
tric field method was modified and adapted for use on composite
suspension insulators. This paper presents a few cases of insulators
having a particularly dangerous type of failure mode and found on
the lines by the use of the electric field method. Some background
information on the detection of defects by this method is also given
and some of the experiments done in the laboratory on composite
insulators to define the limits of the method are described.
Keywords: composite insulators, insulator scanner, insulator tester,
electric field measurement, power transmission lines, hot line test,
automatic instrument.
I. INTRODUCTION
Hydro-Quebec is one of the electrical utilities in the world,
that has had the longest continuous transmission line experi-
ence with polymer insulator technology. This experience has
been described in more details in reference [I] but will be
quickly summarized here.
Hydro-Quebecs experience with polymer insulators
began in 1977. A 16 km section of a 735 kV transmission
line near Quebec City was then re-insulated with 282 com-
posite insulators of three different makes in equal propor-
tions. The objective was to study them under real service
conditions in order to evaluate their performance and to as-
sess the relative merits of each make. In 1981, the experiment
was extended to a second 735 kV line on which a 120 km
section was equipped with 1100 more composite insulators.
PE-932-PWRD-0-05-1997 A paper recommended and approved by
the IEEE Transmission and Distribution Committee of the IEEE Power
Engineering Society for publication in the IEEE Transactions on Power
Delivery. Manuscript submitted December 31, 1996; made available for
printing May 23. 1007
0885-8977/98/$10.00 0 1997 IEEE
66 1
C. Jean
Member, IEEE
Positron Incorporated
5101, rue Buchan
MontrCal, QuCbec, Canada H4P 2R9
In addition to the 735 kV level, Hydro-Quebec has also
installed over a thousand more composites insulators on
circuits of 120,230 and 3 15 kV in and around the Montreal
area, mainly to improve the visual aspect of the overhead
lines and to gain additional service experience. Although a
few units from other manufacturers were sometimes also
installed, Hydro-Quebec experience has centered mainly on
the three original makes. Monitoring of the insulators was
performed at regular intervals over the years. During each of
the first four years samples were removed from the lines and
subjected to visual examination, occasionally electrical and
mechanical tests were also performed. Starting in 1981,
visual inspection in-situ was carried out about every two
years.
Over the years, the possibility to extend the use of com-
posite insulators to other transmission lines was revisited
periodically, but problems found on the experimental insu-
lators were cause for concerns. The first type of concerns had
to do with the aging of the insulators and the corresponding
degradation in performances both electrical and mechanical,
over the long term. The second type of concerns evolved
around quality control during manufacturing and the main-
tenance problem of being able to detect defective units in
service. Because of these concerns, a moratorium on the use
of composite insulators on new transmission lines was put
into effect in Hydro-QuCbec. In 1991 the planning and oper-
ating personnel met to consider lifting this moratorium. At
that meeting it was concluded that the first type of concerns
had been satisfactorily addressed by the improvements made
to the new generations of composite insulators. However the
maintenance problem of in-service testing still remained. In
order to address this concern a decision was then taken to
proceed with adapting for use on composite insulators, the
detection technique based on the electric field measurement
that had been previously developed in IREQ for porcelain
suspension insulators [2].
The prevalent opinion in Hydro-Quebec, is that most
visible problems with composite insulators can be found by
visual inspection made from the tower, and these represent
the largest percentage Of Inspection done from the
ground using binoculars is not sufficient because it does not
allow examination of the insulators from all sides. Therefore
the towers must be climbed anyway in order to m a k e the
visual inspection and it is then convenient to also perform the
electric field testing allowing detection of non-visible de-
fects which are the most dangerous. These defects usually
662
occur at the interface between the fiberglass rod and the
covering material that has become loose. Discharges due to
the electric field occur and carbonize the rod. This weakens
the rod mechanically by burning the fibers. The carboniza-
tion also progresses gradually along the rod thus effectively
reducing more and more the total insulating length of the
insulator. A few cases of insulators presenting this kind of
failure mode and found by the use of the electric field
method, are discussed in the paper. Some background infor-
mation on the detection of faulty insulators by the electric
field method is also given, and some of the experiments done
in the laboratory on composite insulators to define the limits
of the method are described.
11. BACKGROUND OF THE METHOD
The development by Hydro-Qu6bec of a novel type of in-
sulator tester to replace the buzz method was completed in
1991 [2]. Its principle of operation was based on the auto-
matic measurement and recording of the longitudinal electric
field occurring along a string of suspension porcelain insula-
tors. A computer simulation of the global electric field sur-
rounding such an insulator string is shown in Fig. 1, It can be
clearly seen that there is a considerable decrease in the field
value near the edge of the defective unit which is the eighth
one from the top. This local decrease is due to the fact that
insulator No. 8 sits at the same electrical potential as insu-
lator No. 7 which precedes it. Under service conditions, this
is usually due to an intemal short-circuit caused by cracks in
the porcelain under the cap. The insulator tester or scanner
consists of a specially designed electric field probe which is
transversally mounted on a plastic sled which is moved along
the insulator string by means of a hot stick. The probe
Fig. 1. Computer simulation of the relative electric field distribution around
a string of 15 porcelain insulators containing one defective unit.
contains a data logging unit. The value of the electric field
measured at the edge of each insulator shed is automatically
recorded. At the same time, an insulator counting circuit
using two infrared beams automatically keeps track of the
probe position along the string. Data interpretation is done
later at the office where data is first uploaded into a personal
computer. A curve showing the electric field value as a func-
tion of the insulator position is then plotted by the computer.
The curve can be interpreted by a person or by software. A
defective insulator appears as a minimum on the curve.
Even though the insulator tester for porcelain insulators
could not be used directly to test composite insulators, the
working principle is the same. As demonstrated in [3], a
composite insulator on a HV line can be seen as a continuous
elongated piece of insulating material placed in between two
conductive electrodes, the sheds can be neglected because
they have a almost negligible effect on the overall electric
field distribution. A similar model has been reproduced in
Fig. 2 where the associated curve of the electric field distri-
bution along the length of the insulator is also shown. A
conductive defect is illustrated as a dark spot. The potential
along the length of the conductive spot is about constant.
Since the electric field is the derivative of the potential, it
should theoretically be equal to zero along the defect. Be-
cause a practical electric field probe is not 100 % directional
and it is not infinitely small, and it cannot be placed at dis-
tance zero, the defect will produce a relative minimum in the
electric field value at this location rather than a zero.
Modifications to redesign the tester for use on composite
insulators consisted in reducing considerably the size of the
electric field probe since composite insulators have usually a
much smaller diameter than that of porcelain insulators. The
shed counting circuit also had to be modified to allow
counting a larger number of very thin sheds. A new mold for
injection molding also had to be built in order to produce a
much smaller and shorter sled.
LOW-VOLTAGE ELECTNC FIELD PROBE HIGH-VOLTAGE
ELECTRODE ELECTRODE
-I"-' I : 1 . . , I F X
DISl4NCE FROM GROUND ELECTRODE
Fig. 2. Electric field distribution along a composite insulator model to
illustrate the working principle of the electric field method. A defect ap-
pears as a relative minimum on the curve.

111. LABORATORY EXPERIMENTATION
In order to prove the feasibility and the practicality of the
method, a series of experiments were conducted in a high
voltage laboratory. Conditions similar to those in service
were simulated by suspending two insulators from a hori-
zontal metallic crossbeam in a V configuration as shown in
Fig. 3. The same insulator hardware as in service conditions
was used. The scanning of the insulator was performed
manually by a technician located in a metallic cage that was
attached to the crossbeam and kept electrically grounded.
Although all insulators tested were designed for a 735 kV
line voltage, tests were done at a voltage level of 300 kV
phase to ground, due to the laboratory safety rules. Two
types of tests were done, In the first type, simulated insulator
defects were experimented ; and in the second type, defective
insulators removed from service were tested.
Fig. 3. View of the test set up used to conduct the laboratory tests
A. Tests with Simulated Defects
Conductive defects were simulated by making crosswise
cuts in the sheds of a new generation EPDM insulator down
to the insulator body, over a total length of 35 cm and after-
wards fitting different pieces of conductive and semi-
conductive material, one at a time into these cuts. A first cut
was made in the middle of the insulator and a second one was
made at the HV end. A first test was made with nothing in
the slot, to verify that these incisions had no effect on the
electric field distribution. This was done by placing an un-
modified insulator in one leg of the V and the insulator with
the incisions in the other leg. The test confirmed that there
was no effect. Next a 26 cm long piece of fine copper wire
was placed in the incision at the HV end and connected to the
end electrode and a test was done. In the second test the wire
was disconnected from the electrode and left floating. The
tests results are shown in Fig. 4 where a reference curve
obtained with an unmodified insulator is also shown. It can
be seen that the effect of the wire is to displace the point of
maximum electric field value from shed 43 to 41, and to
decrease the field at the extremity by 38 YOfor the connected
663
700
- 600 o w i r e 26 cm+
:
a
>
500
f
1
I
400
L!
300
P
ii
200
100
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45
Shed No.
Fig. 4 Graph of the relative electric field values measured along a modified
new generation EPDM composite insulator at 300 kV, in a high voltage
laboratory using the new device. In two of the three tests, a 26 cm long
piece of copper wire was fitted into a groove made along the HV end of the
insulator. The curve marked with squares shows the results when an electri-
cal connection of this wire to the insulator HV electrode was made.
wire, and by 28 % for the floating wire. This test showed
that a conductive defect electrically connected to the HV end,
lowers the electric field value more than a floating defect of
same size.
In the next series of tests, pieces of conductive and
semi-conductive materials were tried while placed in the
middle slot of the modified insulator. The results of these
tests are shown in Fig. 5 and 6. In can be seen from Fig. 5 on
which four graphs obtained from tests made on the same
insulator have been plotted, that the device makes very re-
producible measurements. The four curves almost match one
another perfectly excepted at the location of the defect. The
expanded graph in Fig. 6 is given to illustrate the effect of the
simulated defects on the electric field. It can be seen that the
deepest minimum was obtained with a 4 cm by 32 cm piece
of semi-conductive plastic material which is normally used to
wrap electronic circuits. The DC electrical resistance of this
antistatic semi-conductive material made by FORCEFIELD
180
A
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41
Shed No.
Fig. 5. Graph showing the effect of three types of simulated defects placed
in the groove made in the new generation EPDM insulator center. Note that
here, values on the vertical scale are given directly in kV/meter.
664
defects in the other two insulators at the first test and we
I A wondered why ? After some thoughts, we came to the con-
35 -+I6 cm
-32 cm clusion that since the insulators had been in dry storage for
-none nearly a year, the humidity in the defects had all dried up.
-&antistatic 32 cm This hypothesis was verified by wetting the defects slightly
25 with water mist from a spray can and then repeating the test
iz
._
0 about 30 minutes later. This time, the 16 cm defect was
5 20 clearly visible on the graph but the 8 cm defect on the third
J
insulator could not be detected. It could be that the limit in
15 I I I I I I I ~I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15
~

17 19 21 23 25
~

27 29
the resolution of the device, which is better than 8 cm in the
Shed No.
middle of the insulator, could be slightly more at the HV
extremity due the shielding effect of the corona electrode.
Fig. 6 . Graph showing an expanded portion of the curves of Fig. 5 to
compare the relative effects of the simulated defects.
IV. FIELD TESTS
in US, was so high that it was impossible to measure it with The fmal version of the new tester was delivered to the line
an ordinary multimeter. It was possible to get a reading of its people of Hydro-QuCbec in September 1993. Since then, it
dissipation factor only at 1000 Hz using an impedance has been tried on 315kV and 735 kV line sections on which
bridge. It was found to be 0.01 1. The smallest defect (curve composite insulators are utilized. On the 735 kV line section
not shown in Fig. 6) that could be detected during these tests near Quebec City, about 100 insulators were tested by this
was an 8 cm piece of copper wire. method in December 1993, and again in September 1996 (see
Fig.8). In both instances, one insulator with a defect not visi-
B. Tests with Real Defects ble from the tower was found. On the one found in 1993, all
The next series of tests was on three defective insulators that was visible externally were three small cracks each about
with visible defects that had been taken down from a 735 kV one cm long. During dissection a carbonized defect extend-
line about a year previously. They were of the same make ing over 45 cm from the metallic end piece was found. This
and model and had split weather sheds beginning at the HV defect was bad enough that if it had not been found, it proba-
end, over total lengths of 8 cm, 16 cm, and 42 cm, respec- bly would have caused a major problem with the line within
tively. The splits were deep and extended down to the fiber a year or two, During the second series of tests on the same
glass core that could be seen. On the one with the 42 cm line section in September 1996, a second badly damaged
defect, some carbonization marks were visible at places along insulator was again found. Again the defect was not visible
the cores. The three were tested and the curves shown in Fig. from the tower even though the insulator covering was later
7 were obtained during the fxst test for the insulator with the found to be open in 16 places where the sheds had become
42 cm defect which can be seen clearly on the graph. It was separated. There were also two large burn holes in two of the
not possible to test the insulators over more than two thirds
of their entire length because they had a total of 90 sheds and
the counting circuit at that time, could only handle a maxi-
mum of about 70 sheds. It has since then been modified to
count up to 150 sheds. It was not possible to detect the

-2 loo0 -
4-Backwnrd Scan

-=> +Good Insulator

0 : ; i : : : : : : ; : : ; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ; : : : i ; ; ; ; ; > : :; : : ,
' * C Z " - ' , e a a w z a s s a 4 8 e a
Shed No.

Fig. 7. Graph showing the curves obtained for a defective first generation
EPM alloy insulator removed from service, having a 42 cm long visible Fig. 8. View showing two linemen using the new tester to test a first
defect at the HV end. A healthy insulator curve is given for comparison. generation EPDM composite insulator on a Hydro-Quebec 735 kV line.

Fig. 9. View of a portion of a damaged first generation EPDM composite
insulator found on a 735 kV line with the new tester, showing a burn hole in
one of the sheds.
sheds, the largest of these is shown in Fig. 9. An autopsy
was performed and the total carbonized length starting at the
HV end was found to be over 110 cm. A view of the HV end
after dissection is shown in Fig. 10. It can be seen that the
burn mark starts at the metallic end piece on the right hand
side (not shown) and then rotates in a spiral around the insu-
lator fiber glass core. The electric field curves that were ob-
tained from the tests on this insulator that were done in 1993
and in 1996 are given in Fig. 11. Note that the curves ob-
tained in 1993 (solid black squares) indicate a sound insula-
tor. On the other hand, the curves from the test done in 1996
indicate an insulator with a defect extending from shed No.
45 to No. 57, and this was later confirmed by the autopsy.
The two minima in the electric field located around sheds
No. 46 and No. 52 corresponds to the location of the two
bum holes mentioned above. These results indicate that a
composite insulator of the type shown, can degrade very
rapidly once a defect starts. Therefore, performing test at
least every second year seems to be required.
Fig. 10. Another view of damaged composite insulator also shown
in Fig. 9. This time the HV end is shown after the autopsy.
665
350
Joo
-E 250
p
I 200
U
150
-
Y
1w
50
0
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 28 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49 51 53 55
Shed No.
Fig. 11. Graph showing the electric field distribution on a first generation
EPDM composite insulator measured,during forward backward
ning respectively, with the new tester at three year interval (1993 1996)
on a Hydro-Quebec 735 kV line
The approach with using the new tester on 315 kV lines
has been different from the one for the 735 kV line where the
procedure has been to test systematically all composite insu-
lators on a line section. On the Hydro-Quebec 3 15 kV lines,
composite insulators are found mainly in the Montreal area.
Therefore maintenance is the responsibility of a different
group of employees. Their approach so far has been to use
the new tester whenever they had doubts about the health of a
particular group of insulators. For example, in one place on
the Montreal South Shore, large post insulators were used.
On one tower supporting two three-phase lines there were six
of them. Visual inspection had revealed that five of these had
deep long cracks in them. These insulators were of a discon-
tinued type so no replacement was immediately available.
The maintenance people decided to use the new tester on
them to measure their electric field distribution. It was found
that only two out of the five had an abnormal field distribu-
tion over about 10 % of their total length, and those two were
located on the same line. The conclusion was that on one line
the insulation was still completely sound, and it was still
sufficient on the other line. This meant that maintenance
action could still be delayed without unacceptable risks.
Within a year, a suitable type of replacement insulator had
been found, and the six insulators were replaced during a
scheduled line shut down.
Another example of the usefulness of the new tester for
making decisions about maintenance intervention, was a
report made in winter by a customer who claimed that at
night, he saw flashes on many composite insulators on a very
strategic 315 kV line close to his home. It was impossible to
conclude whether the discharges were due to surface pollu-
tion or to some intemal insulator defects. The new tester was
then used to check the electrical field distribution along about
50 of the insulators in the area. Since there had been rain just
before testing began, and all the measured electric field dis-
tributions were completely normal, it was concluded that the
observed discharges had probably been due to surface pollu-
666
tion that had been washed off by the rain. So the mainte-
nance personnel were reassured and could forget about the
problem.
V. CONCLUSIONS
0 The method of detection of line insulator defects by
electric field measurement and recording, first developed
by Hydro-Quebec for porcelain insulators, has been
adapted for use also on composite insulators.
e Tests made in the high voltage laboratory have shown
that a composite insulator electric field distribution can be
measured easily and conveniently with the new tester and
repeatable results can be consistently obtained.
0 In the high voltage laboratory, simulated conductive de-
fects as short as 8 cm long, and real conductive defects
down to 16 cm long have been successfully detected.
0 The new tester has been applied in service on a 735 kV
line and on 3 15 kV lines, hidden composite insulator de-
fects have been found and later confirmed by autopsy.
0 The tester has also proved usekl for making decisions in
determining the urgency of carrying out needed mainte-
nance interventions on composite insulators used on
transmission lines.
VI. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors gracehlly extent their thanks to Jean-Pierre
Bellerive for his faith in the project and his support. The
work of Daniel Pineau in making the computer simulation for
Fig. 1 is acknowledged and very appreciated.
VII. REFERENCES
trical Association, Report No. ST-276, March 1992, 14 pages.
[2] G. H. Vaillancourt, J. P. Bellerive, M. St-Jean, and C. Jean, New Live
Line Tester for Porcelain Insulators on High-Voltage Power Line,
IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 9, January 1994, pp. 208-
219.
[3] R Parraud,ComparativeElectric Field Calculations and Measurements
on High Voltage Insulators, Report of CIGRE WG 22.03, ELECTRA
no. 141, April 1992, pp. 68-77
VIII. BIOGRAPHIES
Georges N. Vaillancourt (M79, SM91) was
born in 1941 in the province of Quebec in
Canada He received the B Sc degree in
Mathematics and Computer Science from
Concordia University, Montreal, in 1977 and
the M Sc.A. degree in Electrical Engineering
from Ecole Poly-technique of Montreal in
1984 The same year, the Ecole also awarded
him the Prize for the Best Master Thesis. He is
the author of many technical papers and
holder of several patents in Canada and in
the United States. In 1971, he joined the
Hydro-Quebec Research Institute (IREQ)
where his main line of work until 1979 was
participation in HVDC system simulator
studies in the Power System Study Group, and development work to im-
prove the HVDC systems simulator. In 1979, he transferred to the IREQ
High Voltage Laboratory where he is now working as a Senior Researcher.
His main line of work, is the development of new instrumentation for high
voltage testing, principally in the domain of partial discharge measurement
in power transformers and shunt reactors. He has been also conducting
studies and research projects on problems associated with insulators on
power lines. He is currently pursuing research on the application of com-
puter control acquisition systems in high-voltage related problems in the
test laboratory or for in-the-field monitoring of power apparatus.
Mr Vaillancourt is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Elec-
tronics Engineers (IEEE) in which he is very active in the Power Engineer-
ing Society (PES). He is currently Vice-chairman of the Standards Sub-
committee of the IEEERES Transformers Committee where he is responsi-
ble for assisting the Chairman in the coordination of the development work
on IEEE Standards for transformers. He is also responsible for the IEEE
Transformers Committee WEB Page.
Since February, 1995, Mr. Vaillancourt is the secretary of Technical Com-
mittee 42 (TC 42) of the International Electrotechnical Commission on high
voltage testing techniques.
Simon Carignan was born in 1966 in the
province of Quebec in Canada. In 1990, he
received the B. Ing. degree in Electrical
Engineering from University de Sherbrooke,
Quebec. In 1994, he registered again at the
same university to work towards the Master of
Engineering degree with specialization in
Engineering Management where he is now
continuing part time on this program In 1991,
he joined Hydro-Qutbec to work at the Gen-
tilly nuclear power plant. His main line of
work there has been design improvement of
part the plant auxiliary electrical system. In
1993, he transferred to Institut de Recherche
dHydro-Quebec (IREQ) where he now works as an engineer performing
research on problems associated with insulators used on AC and DC power
transmission lines. He is currently also engaged in the development of new
Charles Jean 93) was born in 1948, in
Sayabec, in the province of Quebec, in Can-
ada. He received the B.S:.A degree in Elec-
trical Engineering from Ecole Polytechnique
of the University of Montrkal in 1973.
From 1973 to 1979, he was employed as a
design engineer by Automatec of Montreal, a
division of BG Checo Engineering. In 1976,
he participated at the Merlin Gtrin plant in
France, to the development of a non-
interruptible power supply to be used in the
Hydro-Qukbec Network Control Center In
1979, he joined Positron Incorporated as a
senior electronic design engineer, where he is now responsible for the
power utilities line of products Mr. Jean has taught several short courses in
the field of power electronics, microprocessors applications, and digital
signal processing (DSP) in many universities and colleges in the Province
of Quebec. He is the author of three papers and the holder of two patents.
Since 1993, Mr. Jean has participated as a member of a working group in
the Power System, Instrumentation and Measurement Committee of PES in
the development of a new guide on insulators testing. He is also a member
of IOrdre des Ingenieurs du Quebec.