Research on Cable Insulation Aging Under Acid-base Environment

Abstract

In order to further study the effect of different degree of acidity and alkalinity on cable insulation aging, the aging condition of cable insulation was compared and analyzed under different pH values. The samples of cable insulation material slice and short cable were carried out the accelerated aging test, which were placed in the conditions of different pH values. And then the test results of micro morphology and electrical properties between the different samples were compared and analyzed after aging. According to the test results in this paper, the micro morphology of the cable insulation material slice would change differently under the aging conditions of different acidity and alkalinity, which indicated that the degree of oxidation degradation of insulation material aging was different from the different acidity and alkalinity conditions. In addition, both acid or alkaline environment would accelerate the aging of cable insulation and reduce the service life of cable, while strong acid and strong alkaline environment are more conducive to the formation of interpenetrating water tree in cable insulation material and cause the operation accident of power cable. Furthermore, the test results of electrical properties of short cable samples after aging showed that the aging degree of short cable samples was more serious in alkaline environment, and the decline of electrical properties was faster.