The effect of non-sinusoidal voltage on intrinsic aging of cable and capacitor insulating materials

This paper investigates the effect of non-sinusoidal voltage, i.e. voltage affected by the presence of harmonics, on intrinsic aging of cable and capacitor insulating materials, i.e. crosslinked polyethylene (XLPE) and polypropylene (PP). The results of life tests under sinusoidal and distorted voltage, the latter obtained superimposing one or more harmonics on the 50 Hz component, are processed by statistical techniques derived from design-of-experiment procedures. It is shown that the factor predominant on aging acceleration due to the voltage distortion is voltage-peak increase, but also waveform slope and voltage rms value have statistical significance. Life models are obtained for XLPE and PP insulating materials, which show the endurance of the two materials to aging under non-sinusoidal conditions. © 1999 IEEE.