Composite Insulators

Composite Insulators

Trench is a recognized world-wide

leader in design and manufacture
of high voltage equipment for
electrical and industrial systems.
In its long history while utilizing
several insulation mediums, e. g.
epoxy resin, traditional oil-paperinsulation Trench Germany
decided to focus on SF6-gas as an

insulation medium for its whole

product range.
In 1980, Trench Germany introduced composite technology for
hollow composite insulators.
This type of insulator consists of a
tube of filament reinforced plastic
(FRP) for mechanical support, with

a housing made of silicone rubber

to withstand various environmental conditions.
Today, more than 10,000 units
with ratings up to 800 kV are in
service worldwide, operating
successfully under varying environmental conditions.

Basic Structure of
Hollow Composite
Insulators

Flange

FRP-tube

Silicone Housing

Application

The main use of hollow composite

insulators at Trench Germany is for
free-standing SF6-gas-insulated
instrument transformers and
bushings.

Due to the increased demand

for composite technology in high
voltage devices, Trench Germany
also manufactures the composite
insulators for a wide range of high
voltage applications such as:

Instrument Transformers
Circuit Breakers
Disconnectors
Post Insulators
Lightning Arrestors
Bushings
Cable Terminations

Application of 420 kV
Current Transformers under
different environmental
conditions
A location with less pollution accumulation on the
insulator surface

A location with heavy pollution:

The insulator (originally grey) is covered totally
with a layer of high conductive minerals.
Nevertheless, the insulator surface shows excellent
hydrophobicity.

Features

Hydrophobicity
If the surface of a high voltage
insulator is hydrophobic, the leakage currents as well as the surface
discharge activities will be reduced
significantly.
In co-operation with its subsupplier, Trench Germany has
developed a special high quality
silicone for its insulator sheds.

This silicone provides not only a

hydrophobic surface when it is
clean; it also transfers its hydrophobicity quickly into and onto pollution
layers which may accumulate on
the surface.

A cleaning process is not necessary.

Tests on Trench Germany insulators
that have been in service under
severe conditions for many years
prove that the transfer properties
remain unchanged.

Therefore even under the worst

pollution conditions the insulator provides excellent performance
without any failures.

Clean Insulator Surfaces:

The degree of water repellency on hydrophobic silicone rubber is much higher when compared to
hydrophilic porcelain.

Polluted Insulator Surfaces:

On a porcelain surface, water penetrates totally into the hydrophilic pollution layers; however, insulators with
silicone sheds still have a very good water repellency due to the hydrophobicity transfer.

Creepage Distance
As there are no standards for measuring creepage distance for composite insulators, the IEC 815 for
ceramic and glass insulators often is
applied. However, this standard
does not refer to hydrophobic

surfaces and the transfer of

hydrophobicity under pollution.
Due to these hydrophobic properties it is possible to reduce creepage distances according to the
customers requirements.

Trench Germany measures the

creepage distance based on
20 years experience, considering
the individual electric and climatic
conditions of the operation location.

Mechanical Strength
The mechanical strength of a
composite insulator is met by
the FRP-tube.
The tube data (winding angle,
wall thickness etc.) are calculated
carefully based on many
years of know-how and a
special software program.
This results in outstanding mechanical strength.

The Trench insulator is:

earthquake resistant
resistant against vandalism
explosion proof
easy to handle during transport
and installation

The porcelain insulates after the Los Angeles earthquake in 1994.

While porcelain equipment was destroyed almost totally, Trench
current transformers were still ready for operation.

Unique Single Mould Method

Trench uses a unique method to

assemble the silicone sheds:
One shed is moulded on top of
the other. The mould rotates,
putting an inclination also on the
lower side of the shed.
There are no moulding lines on
the silicone surfaces which might
effect the pollution and erosion
performance.

With the single mould method the

seamless insulator can be designed
for to different shed geometry or
shed distances without requiring
special tools. This provides the
highest flexibility in meeting the
customers requirements.

Moulding Equipment

Moulding Principle

Typical FRP-Tube/ Shed Data

Internal diameter
I.D. (mm)
Outer diameter
O.D. (mm)
Insulator length
L (mm)

120 150 174 190 190 240 248 250 288 300 340 350 500 756 762 770
130 180

198

206

257

272 312 308

362

516

790

one stack up to 4620, cascading possible

Preferred types are printed in bold. Additional data on request.

Lifetime
Trench Germany was one of the
first manufacturers to use composite materials for high voltage
hollow composite insulators.
Now, the hollow insulator is a
well-established product in the
high voltage industry world-wide.

Trench Germany has years of

experience with electrical and mechanical design, material selection,
production and testing. Having
installed more than 10000 units,
we have experience in different climatic zones and at all high voltage
levels.

No deterioriation ageing of our

composite insulators has been
reported.
With this background, Trench
is in a position to guaranteelong
life for all its composite insulators.

Trench Austria GmbH

Paschinger Strasse 49, Postfach 13
A-4060 Linz-Leonding/Austria
Phone +43.732.6793-0
Fax
+43.732.6713 41
E-Mail sales@TrenchAustria.at
Trench Brasil LTDA
Via Expressa de Contagem, 2685
CEP: 32370-485
Contagem, Minas Gerais/Brasil
Phone 55. 31. 391-5959
Fax 55. 31. 391-1828
E-Mail
trenchbrasil@ca.trenchgroup.com
Trench Limited
Coil Product Division
71 Maybrook Drive, Scarborough
Ontario, Canada M1V 4B6
Phone (416) 298-8108
Fax
(416) 298-2209
E-Mail sales@ca.trenchgroup.com
Trench Limited
Instrument Transformer Division
390 Midwest Road, Scarborough
Ontario, Canada M1P 3B5
Phone (416) 751-8570
Fax
(416) 751-6952
E-Mail sales@ca.trenchgroup.com
Trench France S.A.
16, rue du Gnral Cassagnou
B.P. 70
F - 68302 St-Louis Cedex/France
Phone +33.3.89 70 23 23
Fax
+33.3.89 67 26 63
E-Mail sales@trench-france.com
Trench Germany GmbH
Nrnberger Strasse 199
96050 Bamberg/Germany
Phone +49.951.1803-0
Fax
+49.951.1803-224
E-Mail sales@trench.de

www.trenchgroup.com

Trench Switzerland AG
Lehenmattstrasse 353
CH - 4028 Basel/Switzerland
Phone +41.61.315 51 11
Fax
+41.61.315 59 00
E-Mail sales@trench.ch
Subject to change without notice
04.2000

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