Electric Field and Voltage Distribution On a glass Insulating Surface Covered With Pollution and different shapes of electrodes by Using a Finite Element Method

This research paper aims to simulate on 3D the potential distribution and electric field on insulating surfaces of different sizes uniformly polluted for a comparison between them, moreover, it is aimed to find equivalence between multiple rods-rods and plane-plane configurations. This work is devoted to study the effects of many parameters on the electric strength of the considered air gap system configurations are presented; these parameters are the length of the flashover distance; the pollution degree and the contaminated surface. Glass rectangular surfaces are used for the tests. Finally, the obtained results show that there is a width limit approximately equal to 8 cm between two critical points, parallel, consecutive and independent can develop. This limit represents the minimal electrical performance of the insulation and we did not observe any effect of the volume conductivity on it. A numerical method is developed for analyzing the influence of the system configurations on the electric field, the electric discharge activities of the insulation. To evaluate the distribution of the electric field along the insulator's flashover distance and to identify the main regions of the critical field, the COMSOL Multiphysics software has been exploited. A numerical method via a COMSOL Multiphysics 6.0 has proven to be one of the best solutions. For this purpose, the finite element method was better adapted to the constraints imposed by the operating conditions of the insulators.