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Published in IET Generation, Transmission & Distribution
Received on 6th October 2009
Revised on 12th July 2010
doi: 10.1049/iet-gtd.2009.0559

ISSN 1751-8687

Humidity and contamination severity impact

on the leakage currents of porcelain insulators
J.Y. Li1,2 C.X. Sun1 S.A. Sebo3
1
China State Key Laboratory of Power Transmission Equipment and System Safety and New Technology, College of
Electrical Engineering, Chongqing University, Shapingba District, Chongqing 400044, People’s Republic of China
2
State Grid DC Project Construction Company Limited, Xicheng District, Beijing 100052, People’s Republic of China
3
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
E-mail: ljy.cyxi@yahoo.com.cn

Abstract: The leakage current is the most important information for monitoring the insulator contamination, and especially for
forecasting the contamination flashovers. Since the contamination severity and the ambient humidity can both result in the
increase of the leakage currents, it is crucial to distinguish the exact reason for the leakage current changes. Experiments,
repeated many times, have shown that the normal range of the leakage currents is less than 50 mA at rated operating voltage.
This normal range is called the security stage, and it occurs far ahead of the contamination flashover. The characteristics of
the leakage currents at that stage have been investigated when changes in the ambient humidity or the contamination severity
were introduced in an artificial fog chamber. A joint approach of fast Fourier transform amplitude and power spectrum
amplitude estimation is used to analyse the leakage currents in combination with the leakage current waveform. The main
purpose is to improve the pre-warning of contamination flashover at the security stage and to obtain more time for the
cleaning or replacement of heavily polluted insulators. Fog chamber test results show that there are two frequency spectrum
related characteristics. Both characteristics play an important role in the state evaluation of insulator surface, considering the
ambient humidity and the contamination severity. The pre-warning thresholds of these two characteristics can be recognised
in case of very severe contamination together with high relative humidity conditions. These thresholds are very helpful for
pre-warning in advance before contamination flashovers.

1 Introduction
Although the contamination flashover has been known and
recognised for over 70 years, most of the studies related to
it were carried out during the last few decades. The
contamination flashovers, which can cause severe damage
to the reliability of the electric power transmission system,
have become the most important limiting factor in the
design of high-voltage outdoor insulation. The
contamination flashover may endanger the operation of a
significant portion of the power transmission system if its
occurrence is not prevented at an appropriate time.
Numerous research studies have dealt with the flashover
mechanism [1– 3]. But so far, there is still no effective way
known how to prevent the occurrence of flashover
successfully.
During the long-term operation of power lines, the
pollution deposited on the surface of the insulators can
result in a reduction of its dielectric strength. Pollutants in
combination with moisture (which may be added by drizzle,
fog or rain) cause the formation of wet conducting films
and the flow of leakage currents. The appearance of dry
bands (which are due to the partially localised drying of the
pollution layer) on the insulator surface causes arcs. Such
arcs may elongate until they bridge the two metal electrodes
of the insulator, and total flashover occurs [4, 5]. Generally,
during the entire process of the contamination flashover,
there are three major factors influencing the final flashover.
They are the operating voltage, contamination severity and
weather conditions mainly referring to temperature and
ambient humidity. Of them, only the surface contamination
can be detected and controlled. Therefore the detection and
control of contamination have been considered an effective
breakthrough towards the prevention of contamination
flashover.
The most widely used methods to detect the contamination
severity recommended by [6–8] have been the measurement
of the equivalent salt deposit density (ESDD), surface
conductance, leakage current, air pollution and non-soluble
deposit density (NSDD), also the method of counting the
leakage current pulses. It has been verified that the leakage
current affected by the operating voltage, temperature and
humidity can provide a description about the surface
condition of the contaminated insulators more comprehensive
than information by other methods. Therefore the leakage
current is called as one of the most effective dynamic
parameters and can be used for on-line detection.
Generally, the leakage current measurements commonly
used include the maximum value of the leakage current
pulses, the amplitude of the leakage currents before the

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occurrence of flashover and the leakage current root-mean-
square values [9]. Besides, the number of pulses and the
highest peak currents are also often used as methods for
pollution monitoring [10]. These traditional methods only
focus on the analysis of leakage current characteristics in
the time domain. Recently, it has been found that the
intensification of the low-frequency odd harmonic
components, for example, 50, 150 and 250 Hz, is high, and
a prediction threshold exists. However, these results have
been obtained only from a single suspension insulator unit
[11, 12]. In the development of surface discharges, the
growth rates of these low-frequency odd harmonic
components are different, so they are seen as an indication
better than the number of pulses [13]. Besides, because of
the randomness of the leakage current of actual insulators
under field conditions, the linear stochastic analysis of the
leakage current in the frequency domain was the subject of
a paper [14]. All these studies listed show that the
frequency domain of the leakage current does contain a
large amount of relevant information related to the
contamination severity of the insulator surface. Therefore
the analysis of the leakage current must be related to the
characteristics in both time domain and frequency domain
at the same time.
The leakage current can go through three stages, that is,
security stage (,50 mA), forecast stage (,150 mA) and
danger stage (.150 mA), during the entire contamination
flashover process [15, 16]. Although the leakage currents
during the forecast stage and the danger stage are larger than
in the security stage and can be detected easier, their duration
is too short to obtain sufficient time for pre-warning. On the
contrary, the duration of the security stage is longer, and it
can be detected far ahead of the final flashover. Therefore it
is possible to obtain a more effective time for pre-warning if
the surface condition of insulators can be evaluated in a
timely manner during this stage. All features and
characteristics of the leakage current in this stage are topics
of further research and comprehensive analysis.
The relationship between the leakage current, humidity and
temperature is complex. The influence of the humidity on the
leakage current is greater than the temperature [17]. So the
humidity is the main weather factor for the leakage currents.
It is critical to evaluate the actual contamination condition
by monitoring the leakage current to prevent or pre-warn a
coming contamination flashover. So, the first step is to find
the relevant features of the leakage current through in-depth
analysis. Although the flow of the leakage current on the
insulator surface is influenced by the ambient humidity and
the contamination severity, it is not easy to distinguish the
two different effects because of these parameters, and to
identify the true reason for the increase of the leakage
current, whether it is due to the contamination severity or
the relative humidity. Only a few studies have focused on
this topic.
This paper describes fog chamber measurements
performed under the condition that only one factor is
changed, whereas other factors known are kept constant.
The leakage current during the security stage was recorded
in detail. The characteristics of the leakage current in the
time domain and the frequency domain were studied by the
combined use of waveforms, fast Fourier transform (FFT)
amplitude and power spectrum amplitude estimation.
The paper describes two innovative features:
1. The results of the measurement phase of this research
show that it is possible to find and obtain the information
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‘hidden’ in the leakage current. In other words, the reasons
for the leakage current increase can be identified. This
increase is caused by either the humidity or the
contamination severity. It is necessary (and very useful) to
prevent a false alarm based on this increase if it is the result
primarily of the humidity, not of the contamination severity.
2. In addition, two important characteristics of the leakage
current, that is, the ratio of the amplitude of its third
harmonic to the amplitude of its first harmonic, and the
ratio of its high-frequency energy to its total energy, can be
identified under heavy contamination conditions where their
pre-warning thresholds have been established. This provides
a new approach for the contamination flashover pre-
warning, based on the actual contamination conditions on
the insulator surface.
2 Artificial contamination experiments
2.1 Test setup and sample insulators
The simulation tests were performed in a fog chamber
(volume 4.0 × 3.7 × 4.0 m height) in the high-voltage
laboratory of Chongqing University. Its schematic diagram
is shown in Fig. 1. The main power supply includes a
shifting coil voltage regulator (TDJY-1000/10) and a test
transformer (YDJ-900 kVA/150 kV) with the rated current
of 6 A and the maximum short-circuit current of over 30 A
that meets the requirements for the power source of
artificial pollution tests of high voltage insulators [18]. The
high voltage supply is connected to the fog chamber
through a 110 kV wall bushing. The high-voltage terminal
of the fog chamber is connected to an AC capacitive
voltage divider (SGB-200 A, the divider ratio is 1000 : 1)
which can record the applied voltage. A glass door
(1.2 × 2.5 m height) of the fog chamber is used for visual
observation purposes. The current sensor was specially
designed for monitoring small broad-band signals like the
leakage current with its range from mA to A and its
frequency bandwidth from Hz to MHz [19]. The leakage
currents can be monitored and recorded by this current
sensor that is at the grounded end of the insulator string
under test without any direct electrical contact with the high
voltage supply, and then amplified by an AC amplifier and
stored in a computer continuously.
Five sample insulator strings were used for the
experiments. A sample string includes seven porcelain
suspension insulators with the same structural parameters
(see Table 1). The unit profile is shown√in  Fig. 1 as well.
The energising voltage was 110 4 3 = 63.5 kV rms
(phase-to-ground voltage), applied to simulate the 110 kV
transmission line voltage.
2.2 Test procedures
The leakage current of a polluted insulator can increase
because of the increase of the surface contamination or that
of the ambient humidity at the operating voltage. It is very
significant for the prevention of flashover to distinguish the
precise reason for the increase of leakage current between
the two main influencing factors, contamination severity
and relative humidity. The leakage current is the most
valuable information for the evaluation of the insulator’s
condition. The main purpose of this experiment was to
analyse the characteristics of the leakage currents, and to
improve or perfect the monitoring of the surface state of the
insulator.
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Fig. 1 Schematic diagram of the fog chamber system and the sketch of a single suspension insulator unit

In real life, the surface pollution of an insulator is non- (over 80%), respectively. The temperature range of the fog
uniform and the leakage current magnitude is random. chamber was kept constant, between 15 and 208C, during
Authors realise that a real-life non-uniform pollution cannot both test series (relative humidity and contamination
be replaced fully by a uniform pollution distribution. It is very severity experiments) described below.
difficult to simulate the non-uniform pollution distribution of The pre-contaminated samples were completely dried for 24 h
an insulator string in any experiment because there is no before entering the fog chamber. Then one by one they were
known method that would model (or replace) a non-uniform suspended vertically and wetted by clean steam fog distributing
pollution distribution for an experiment reliably. Therefore uniformly around the insulator string in the fog chamber, and
using a uniform pollution distribution for an experiment is then tested in the fog chamber. As soon as the surface pollution
only an approximation of the real-life conditions. However, layer was wetted for 10–15 min, the operating voltage was
the uniform pollution distribution can be realised easily, so it applied and the continuous recording of the leakage current
is convenient for experiments. Naturally, it would introduce started. Detailed procedures for the preparation of the insulator
errors, but the results would be still useful. The advantage of samples have been presented [15, 16]. The measurement results
using the uniform pollution distribution is that it would make within the test series were very consistent.
valuable qualitative comparisons possible. Two test procedures have been designed, their descriptions
Based on the IEC-60518 standard [20], the solid layer are as follows:
method was used to produce the pollution layers of the
insulators. Five levels of ESDD were applied to simulate 1. The relative humidity experiments: It has been shown that
five contamination states, namely, very light, light, medium, to investigate the development of the leakage currents under a
heavy and very heavy, summarised in Table 1. Each one of moderate pollution level for the prevention of contamination
five insulator strings was treated with a specific flashovers is of special (or maybe critical) interest. If the
contamination (ESDD) level. Distilled water, kieselguhr and contamination severity is too light, it is difficult to record
silicone dioxide were used. The amounts of the kieselguhr the leakage current since it might be too small. If the
and silicone dioxide were of a fixed ratio of 10 : 1. contamination severity is too heavy, the contamination
The relative humidity of the air was kept in three ranges, flashovers might occur too frequently, and it is difficult to
called light (30 – 50%), moderate (50 – 80%) and heavy prevent them. Here, sample string No. 3 of moderate
contamination severity with the ESDD level 0.1 mg/cm2
was selected as the main sample insulator string for
Table 1 Structural parameters of a single porcelain observations. A few more sample strings with
suspension insulator, and the contamination severity levels ESDD ¼ 0.1 mg/cm2 were tested repeatedly, maintaining
expressed by ESDD and NSDD the three different ranges of the relative humidity, light,
moderate and heavy (see above).
Data of suspension Sample ESDD, NSDD,
2. The contamination severity experiments: It was useful to
insulator sample strings mg/cm2∗ mg/cm2
maintain the ‘heavy’ relative humidity (over 80%) during the
diameter, mm 255 No. 1 very light: 0.03 0.3 contamination experiment. It is hard to detect the leakage
height, mm 146 No. 2 light: 0.05 0.5 current if the humidity is too low. Here, five sample strings,
leakage 320 No. 3 medium: 0.1 1 each with a different ESDD level shown in Table 1, were
distance, mm tested one by one with leakage currents in the security stage.
weight, kg 3.9 No. 4 heavy: 0.2 2
height over 0.182 No. 5 very heavy: 0.3 3 3 Power spectrum analysis of the
circumference leakage current
ratio
The leakage current is a random signal in nature that follows
∗
With names of pollution levels as defined in IEC 60518 the statistical laws in the time domain and represents the

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power feature in the frequency domain. The power spectrum insulator string was at a specific ESDD level listed in
amplitude estimation cannot only reflect the power spectral Table 1. The range of the ESDD levels was from 0.03 to
density of the signal in frequency domain, but also the 0.3 mg/cm2.
power distribution as a function of [13, 14]. The power
spectrum characteristics of the leakage current can be used
as another new approach to explore the influence of relative
humidity and contamination severity, respectively, on the
leakage current. The power spectrum analysis, used in this
paper, is described in [15, 16].

4 Leakage current waveforms and frequency

spectrum analysis and discussion of the two
experiment series
4.1 Characteristics when only the relative
humidity changes
The characteristics of leakage currents in the humidity
experiments can be demonstrated by the waveforms, FFT
amplitudes and power spectrum amplitude plots. First, the
leakage currents of sample string No. 3 in the course of
the security stage (,50 mA) are analysed as an example.
They are shown in Fig. 2 when the relative humidity was
light, moderate or heavy, respectively. The contamination
severity applied was kept constant at the ESDD level
of 0.1 mg/cm2.
Fig. 2 shows that all leakage current waveforms are close to
smooth sinusoidal waves without spikes or pulses under the
three humidity conditions. The peak value of the sine wave
increases by about a factor of 500, from 26.72 mA to
14.2 mA. In the FFT amplitude plots, the amplitude of
50 Hz harmonic component grows significantly, also by
about 500 times from 26 mA to 13.4 mA. That is similar to
the growth of the peak value of the waveform in the time
domain. However, the increase is not same for the other
harmonic components such as, for 150 and 250 Hz. Their
analysis reveals that the growth of the 50 Hz harmonic
component is the main reason for the increase of the
leakage current with relative humidity. Inspecting the power
spectrum amplitude plots, the smooth lines show that there
are only a few pulses during the entire test process. The
small local peak at about 1.5 kHz shows that some weak
pulses occur near that frequency. The three power spectrum
amplitude plots increase gradually with the increase of
relative humidity, shown in Fig. 2d. That means the energy
of the total leakage current also increases with the
humidity. Since the conductivity on the contaminated
insulator surface is rather high in the heavy relative
humidity condition, the resistive currents must be dominant
when the total energy mainly concentrates in the low-
frequency range. Thus, the reason for the increase of
the leakage current is mainly because of the increase of the
relative humidity, considering the three characteristics of the
leakage current from the waveforms, FFT amplitudes and
power spectrum amplitudes.

4.2 Characteristics when only the contamination
severity changes
The waveforms, FFT amplitudes and power spectrum
amplitudes of the five sample strings in the course of the
security stage (,50 mA) are shown in Fig. 3. The relative
humidity in the fog chamber was kept in the ‘heavy’ level
(over 80%) during this test series. The five insulator strings
were tested one by one. The contamination applied to each
Fig. 2 Waveforms, FFT amplitudes and power spectrum
amplitudes in the relative humidity (RH) experiment series
a Light relative humidity range (30–50%)
b Moderate relative humidity range (50 –80%)
c Heavy relative humidity range (over 80%)
d Power spectrum amplitude plots at three relative humidity (RH) ranges, and
at ESDD ¼ 0.1 mg/cm2
Note: This experiment series was performed using sample string No. 3, at
medium contamination severity level (at ESDD ¼ 0.1 mg/cm2), and at
three relative humidity ranges (light, moderate and heavy)

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Fig. 3 Waveforms, FFT amplitudes and power spectrum amplitudes in the contamination severity experiment series
a Sample string No. 1, ESDD level is 0.03 mg/cm2
b Sample string No. 2, ESDD level is 0.05 mg/cm2
c Sample string No. 3, ESDD level is 0.1 mg/cm2
d Sample string No. 4, ESDD level is 0.2 mg/cm2
e Sample string No. 5, ESDD level is 0.3 mg/cm2
f Power spectrum amplitude plots at the five ESDD levels and at the same relative humidity range (over 80%)
Note: This experiment series was performed using the five sample strings (No. 1– No. 5), at five contamination severity levels (with the ESDD levels from 0.03 to
0.3 mg/cm2), and at the heavy relative humidity range (over 80%)

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When the relative humidity remains stable, the peak value of
leakage current increases gradually by about 150 times from
100 mA to 15 mA, with the increase of the contamination
severity. The waveforms are no longer smooth. Many pulses
are superimposed around the wave crest where the distortion
is particularly severe. That means some electrical discharges
start to occur. The amplitude growth of the 50 Hz harmonic
component is the largest, by about a factor of 145, from
100 mA to 14.5 mA shown in Fig. 3 by the FFT amplitude
graphs. The increase of the third and fifth harmonics is less
and that of the other higher-order harmonics is even less.
The power spectrum amplitude plots are moved towards
larger values with the increase of contamination severity (see
the power spectrum amplitude plots of Fig. 3f ), which
reveals that the total energy increases together with the
contamination severity. A sharp peak at about 2.3 kHz
shows that many pulses with similar frequency and higher
energy levels occur at that frequency.
4.3 Discussion of the two experiment series
There is an important point that should be explained. It is that
the two experiment series described above (the relative
humidity experiment series and the contamination severity
experiment series) were conducted separately, at different
times, although using the same fog chamber. Their main
objective was to monitor and compare the trends of leakage
current changes in each experiment series.
For the relative humidity experiment series, the same
outside conditions during the three tests were the
contamination severity level (it was ‘moderate’, i.e.
ESDD ¼ 0.1 mg/cm2) and the operating voltage. The same
sample insulator string (i.e. sample string No. 3) was used.
The changing factor was the relative humidity. The relative
humidity was divided into three ranges, namely, light,
moderate and heavy. Their ranges were 30– 50, 50– 80 and
over 80%, respectively. The reason that the relative
humidity ranges are wide is to show the impact of the
relative humidity change on the leakage current and to
enhance the differences between the results. During the
entire testing period, the relative humidity value could be
changing in time, but it was maintained to remain in the
appropriate range. For instance, for a specific experiment,
the relative humidity had to remain (and, in fact, did
remain) between 50 and 80% for the ‘moderate’ range.
For the contamination severity experiment series, the same
outside conditions during the five tests were the range of the
relative humidity (heavy i.e. over 80%) and the operating
voltage. Five sample insulator strings were used, one for
each experiment. The changing factor was the
contamination severity level. It was from very light, light,
medium, heavy, to very heavy, with EDSS levels from
0.03 to 0.3 mg/cm2. In other words, altogether there were
five contamination levels, and five sample insulator strings.
For the two experiment series described above, the most
difficult feature was to control the relative humidity of the
fog chamber accurately. Under the same outside conditions,
such as the heavy relative humidity range (over 80%), the
leakage currents were monitored and saved for the two
experiments shown in Figs. 2c and 3c, respectively.
The results shown in Figs. 2c and 3c are not identical,
though, because the relative humidity in the fog chamber
was controlled only to stay within its range. In the cases
described by Figs. 2c and 3c, the relative humidity range
was ‘over 80%’, the so-called ‘heavy’ range. It was not
possible to maintain a precise value. Specifically, during the
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experiment shown by Fig. 2c (i.e. case ‘2c’) the relative
humidity was 95% and during the experiment shown by
Fig. 3c (i.e. case ‘3c’), 83%. Both of these per cent values
were in the ‘over 80%’ relative humidity range – but they
were not the same. It is possible, of course, that the
contamination of the insulator strings used for cases ‘2c’
and ‘3c’ were not exactly the same, since there was a time
difference between the two experiment series.
Fig. 2d shows the three individual power spectrum
amplitude plots for the relative humidity experiment series
together. Fig. 3f shows the five individual power spectrum
amplitude plots for the contamination severity experiment
series together. These two figures show a clear and orderly
change of the power spectrum amplitude plots for both
experiment series. Although the plots for cases ‘2c’ and
‘3c’ are not the same, their trends within the two
experiment series are correct and significant. The two
families of curves of Figs. 2d and 3f demonstrate the
leakage current change trends clearly and meaningfully.
5 Analysis
5.1 Analysis of the relationship between leakage
current and relative humidity
In order to further investigate the relationship between the
leakage current and relative humidity at a practically
constant temperature, and to reveal the characteristics of the
leakage current when only the relative humidity changes,
four more sample insulator strings with different ESDD
levels, sample strings No. 1, 2, 4 and 5, were tested at three
ranges of relative humidity. These additional tests show that
the time and frequency characteristics of the leakage current
are similar to the characteristics of sample string No. 3
shown in Fig. 2.
The 50, 150 and 250 Hz harmonics as the main frequency
components can give an excellent response to the entire
development trend of the leakage current, especially the
50 Hz component. Therefore these three harmonic
components monitored during the humidity experiment are
worthy of more attention and further analysis. Fig. 4 shows
the percentage contents of 50, 150 and 250 Hz harmonic
components by expanding the information given in Fig. 2.
For the three relative humidity ranges listed above, the
percentage contents of the 50 Hz component are over 90%
and decrease only slightly with the increase of relative
humidity. The percentage contents of the 150 Hz harmonic
component are under 10%, and they show a slight increase
Fig. 4 Percentage contents of the 50, 150 and 250 Hz components
for sample string No. 3 during the relative humidity experiment
series
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with the increase of the relative humidity. The percentage
contents of the 250 Hz harmonic are much smaller with a
small decrease of its amplitude. It can be seen that the 50 Hz
harmonic is the main frequency component of the leakage
current in the humidity experiment, and the other frequency
components are very small. This is a significant result; that is,
all waveforms in Fig. 2 are sinusoidal for the same sample
insulator string when only the relative humidity increases.
The amplitudes of the 50 and 150 Hz components at the
three humidity ranges for the five sample insulator strings
are presented in Fig. 5. Taking sample string No. 3 for
example, the amplitude of the 50 Hz component is 26 mA
in light relative humidity and it is up to 13.4 mA in heavy
relative humidity. The amplitude of the 150 Hz component
is 1.04 mA and 2.0 mA in the light and heavy relative
humidity ranges, respectively. So, the amplitude of the Fig. 6 Percentage contents of 50, 150 and 250 Hz components for
50 Hz component increases significantly with the relative five sample insulator strings during the contamination severity
humidity, and conversely, the increase of the 150 Hz experiment – for the contamination severity level of each sample
component is more modest. The overall growth trend of the string, see Table 1
leakage current for each one of the five sample insulator
strings is consistent with that of the 50 Hz component. On
current for the same operating voltage and relative humidity
the other hand, for all insulator strings tested at the same
condition, especially for the amplitude of the 50 Hz
humidity, the heavier the contamination severity is, the
component. By comparing Figs. 5 and 6, it can be seen that
faster the increase of the amplitude of the 50 Hz
the growth of the leakage current mainly depends on the
component. The contamination severity on the surface can
increase of the 50 Hz harmonic component. If the growth
be identified by comparing the growth ratio of the leakage
ratio of the 50 Hz component is very significant, it can
show that the corresponding insulator string is heavily
polluted compared to other insulator strings, and it needs
more attention, such as replacement or cleaning when needed.
One characteristic value, K, is obtained based on the FFT
amplitudes of Fig. 2 shown in (1)

K = Am3 /Am1 (1)

where K is the amplitude ratio of the third harmonic to the first

harmonic; Am1 and Am3 are the amplitudes of the 50 and
150 Hz components of the leakage current, respectively.
Table 2 shows the change of K with the three relative
humidity values.
It can be seen from Table 2 that for sample string No. 3
with ESDD ¼ 0.1 mg/cm2, K changes from 0.04 to 0.15
with the increase of the relative humidity and the change of
K is (0.15 – 0.04) ¼ 0.11. For the other four sample strings,
the maximum and minimum values of the changes of K are
from 0.08 to 0.11, respectively. In other words, all changes
of K are basically close to about 0.10 at the five
contamination conditions.
According to the power spectrum amplitude plots in
Fig. 2d, another characteristic value related to the power
spectrum domain, a, is shown in (2).
1 1
a=
fg
P(w)dw / 0
P(w) dw (2)

Table 2 Amplitude ratio, K, at various relative humidity

levels
Relative humidity K for the five sample strings
level
Fig. 5 Amplitudes of the 50 and 150 Hz components for five No. 1 No. 2 No. 3 No. 4 No. 5
sample insulator strings for the three relative humidity ranges –
light 0.03 0.03 0.04 0.06 0.07
for the contamination severity level of each sample string, see
moderate 0.09 0.09 0.10 0.12 0.13
Table 1
heavy 0.11 0.12 0.15 0.16 0.18
a Amplitude of the 50 Hz component change of K 0.08 0.09 0.11 0.10 0.11
b Amplitude of the 150 Hz component

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where a is the ratio of the high-frequency energy to the total
energy of the leakage current within a certain sampling
period; P(w) represents the frequency-domain power of the
leakage current signal; fg is the boundary frequency
between the high-frequency energy and the low-frequency
energy. Based on the test results repeated for many times,
fg = 750 Hz is considered as the boundary frequency.
With the increase of the relative humidity, a changes only
2%, from 56 to 58% for sample string No. 3. The experiments
show that the change of a is between 1 and 3% for the five
ESDD levels used for the tests. That reveals that the high-
frequency energy of the leakage current is reasonably stable
when only the relative humidity increases. It can be seen
from Fig. 2d that the power spectrum amplitude plots are
smooth with few pulses during the humidity experiment.
The number of pulses also can be estimated directly by
observing the peaks of power spectrum amplitude plots.

5.2 Analysis of the relationship between leakage

current and contamination severity

When the relative humidity range is kept constant at over

80%, at a practically constant temperature, the percentage
contents of the 50, 150 and 250 Hz components in the five
contamination severity ranges are shown in Fig. 6.
It can be seen from Fig. 6 that with the increase of the
contamination severity level, the percentage content of the
50 Hz component is decreasing. However, for the same
changes, the other two harmonic components, 150 and
250 Hz, are increasing. Recalling Fig. 3, the leakage current
waveforms show severe distortion of the sinusoidal wave.
The changes in the percentage contents of various harmonic
components in Fig. 6 illustrate the waveform distortion very
well. Comparing Figs. 5 and 7, the increase in the
contamination severity leads to the change of harmonic
contents, but the increase in the humidity does not result in
such a change. So, the percentage content changes can be
considered a significant indicator in order to identify the
reason for the changes of leakage current, whether it is
because of the contamination severity or the relative
humidity.
Also, Fig. 7a shows the K amplitude ratio of the 150 Hz
harmonic to the 50 Hz harmonic component of the leakage
current when the contamination severity changes and the
relative humidity is in the ‘heavy’ range.
It is clear based on Fig. 7a that K has increased by 0.31
(from 0.09 to 0.4) when the contamination level increased
from ESDD ¼ 0.03 mg/cm2 to ESDD ¼ 0.3 mg/cm2.
Therefore K can be considered as a prediction characteristic
for the estimation of contamination severity. For the heavy
relative humidity condition (over 80%), K increases with
the contamination severity. The relationship between K and
ESDD can be obtained by fitting the data of Fig. 7a as
shown in (3)
Fig. 7 Five levels of contamination severity and the two
characteristics, K and a, at heavy relative humidity range (over
80%) – for information related to the five sample insulator
strings, see Table 1
a Contamination severity level and K
b Contamination severity level and a
The power spectrum amplitude estimation can reflect the
energy distribution situation of various frequency
components, especially for the high-frequency pulse
number. When a large number of pulses occur, the peak
can be observed in the power spectrum amplitude plot.
After a number of experiments described in the paper, it
was reasonable to select 750 Hz as the boundary frequency
between the high-frequency energy and the low-frequency
energy. The pulses are always concentrated in the high-
frequency part which means that the frequency is more than
750 Hz. In other words, the ratio of the high-frequency
energy to the total energy can reflect the number of pulses
in the leakage current.
Fig. 7b shows that a, the energy ratio, increases by 9%
from 76 to 85% with the increase of the contamination
severity level. After curve fitting, the relationship between
a and ESDD based on tests on five insulator strings at the
high relative humidity range is

K = 0.061 × e0.368S (3) a = 0.74 × e0.028S (4)

where K is the amplitude ratio of the third harmonic to the
first harmonic; S is the ESDD (mg/cm2), namely the
contamination severity level on the insulator surface. Here
the fitting degree is 0.97 between K and ESDD, so it is
very high. The conclusion based on the contamination test
series is that the surface condition can be assessed as
‘heavy’ contamination when K is close to 0.4. So K ¼ 0.4
can be seen as a reference threshold of heavy pollution.
where a represents the ratio of the high-frequency energy to
the total energy of the leakage current within a certain
sampling period; and S is the contamination severity level,
or ESDD (mg/cm2).
The fitting degree of (4) is 0.96, so it is very good. The
conclusion is that the contamination severity on the
insulator surface can be judged by measuring the ratio of
the high-frequency energy to the total energy. When a, the

26 IET Gener. Transm. Distrib., 2011, Vol. 5, Iss. 1, pp. 19– 28

& The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2011 doi: 10.1049/iet-gtd.2009.0559

energy ratio, increases faster, there must be a large number of
high-frequency pulses in the leakage current. If the
characteristic a reaches about 85% at high humidity, the
corresponding contamination severity level on the surface is
heavy. Therefore a ¼ 85% can be seen as another pre-
warning threshold at heavy contamination severity after the
evaluation of the experiment series.
5.3 Analysis of the two frequency spectrum
characteristics of the leakage current
The two frequency spectrum characteristics proposed in this
study, K and a, play an important role in the distinction and
identification related to the relative humidity and the
contamination severity on the insulator surface. These two
characteristics are valuable for the engineering application
and at the same time they have their own definite physical
meaning. They are also a perfect supplement to other
recognised detection methods of the leakage current.
Some critical thresholds were obtained after the two
experiment series. In the relative humidity test series, K
changed between 0.08 and 0.11, and a remained quite
stable between 56 and 58%. The percentage contents of
three main harmonic frequency components remained
almost stable with the increase of the relative humidity, and
the 50 Hz components were dominant. But in the
contamination severity test series, K increased up to 0.4,
and a rose to 85%. The percentage contents of three main
frequency components changed because of the waveform
distortion. It is a well-known fact that the leakage current
must increase when the relative humidity increases or the
contamination severity increases. The comparison of the
two important characteristics, K and a, and the percentage
contents of the main frequency components can determine
reliably which factor, relative humidity or contamination
severity, is the main contributor for the increase of the
leakage current. Therefore the values of the main frequency
spectrum characteristics, K and a, can be considered as
predictive characteristics of the contamination severity and
relative humidity.
The leakage current results in an unwanted loss in the
power system and its inherent properties are consistent with
the system current, namely, it is sinusoidal under normal
conditions. In case of asymmetrical half-cycles (positive
and negative) of the leakage current, there might be a short-
term DC component. There are also multiple harmonic
components, for example, 50, 150, 250 Hz etc., where the
50 Hz harmonic component has the largest influence on the
leakage current amplitude. Whether the time-domain
waveforms of the leakage current are distorted or not is
mainly determined by the proportion of the 50, 150 and
250 Hz components, especially of the 150 Hz component. It
is very clear that the waveforms are distorted in the
contamination experiment (see Fig. 3) and the increase of
the percentage contents of 150 Hz component shows that.
The amplitude ratio, K, can well represent the distortion
degree of the waveform and also reflects the characteristic
of the waveform in the frequency domain. In Fig. 3, the
increase in the relative humidity can lead to the increase of
the time-domain amplitude of the leakage current. At the
security stage (,50 mA), the waveform is still mainly
sinusoidal. The amplitudes of the third harmonic and other
high-order harmonics did not increase during the humidity
test series very much, so K remained stable between 0.08
and 0.11. On the other hand, when the contamination
severity increase was accompanied by the high humidity,
IET Gener. Transm. Distrib., 2011, Vol. 5, Iss. 1, pp. 19 –28
doi: 10.1049/iet-gtd.2009.0559
www.ietdl.org
the waveforms were distorted as shown in Fig. 3. The
amplitude of the 150 Hz component in particular increased
visibly among all harmonic components, so K, one of the
frequency spectrum characteristics, reached 0.4. Therefore
the value of the amplitude ratio K can display the distortion
degree of the waveforms and also has its own distinct
physical meaning.
Since the leakage current contains many pulses as well in
the high-frequency range, another frequency spectrum
characteristic, the energy ratio, a, can be used to reveal the
pulse number included in the leakage current. In the relative
humidity experiment series, the waveforms are smooth
without pulses, so a remained stable between 56 and 58%.
In the contamination severity experiment, a increased to
more than 85%. The increase in the ratio of high-frequency
energy can be explained, since the number of pulses in the
leakage current increases with the increase of ESDD.
Therefore the frequency spectrum characteristic a can
reflect the number of pulses in the time-domain waveform.
The two frequency spectrum characteristics, K and a, can
be used as an effective guidance for the contamination
severity forecast and also to show the difference between
the two reasons for the increase of the leakage current on
the insulator surface during the security stage.
6 Conclusions
The contamination severity and the relative humidity both can
lead to the increase of the leakage current of the power line
insulators. How to distinguish the two different kinds of
increases of the leakage current is the primary issue for the
prediction of contamination severity and even for the pre-
warning of contamination flashovers. This research has
resulted in a new method to assess the characteristics of the
leakage current during the security stage (,50 mA)
influenced by the relative humidity and contamination
severity, respectively. Several test series were conducted
and they confirmed that the comprehensive method
proposed in this paper is more powerful than the time-
domain analysis alone. The reason for that is that the
proposed method can distinguish the two kinds of changes
of the leakage current, caused by the relative humidity and
the contamination severity.
The important conclusions of this paper are as follows:
1. In the relative humidity experiment series, the leakage
current in the security stage increases with the relative
humidity. The leakage current waveforms remain basically
smooth and sinusoidal. For the same humidity change
range, the heavier the contamination severity is, the faster
the leakage current increases. In the contamination severity
experiment, the leakage current increases with the increase
of contamination severity at the same heavy relative
humidity level. The leakage current waveforms, originally
sinusoidal, become distorted in the contamination
experiment series, primarily around the wave crest.
2. When only the relative humidity increases rapidly, the
increase of the 50 Hz harmonic component is most
remarkable among all harmonic components of the leakage
current shown by the FFT amplitude plots. The power
spectrum amplitude plots are also smooth because the
number of pulses is low. The total energy of the leakage
current also increases with the relative humidity.
3. In the contamination severity experiment series, the
amplitudes of the 50 Hz component increase significantly
shown by the FFT amplitude plots. The 150 and 250 Hz
27
& The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2011
www.ietdl.org
components also gradually increase, but the increase of other
higher-order harmonics is small. The total energy of the
leakage current increases together with the contamination
severity. A large number of pulses can occur, shown at
about 2.3 kHz.
4. In the relative humidity experiment series, the percentage
contents of the three main frequency components are stable.
The two characteristics remain basically the same in this
case. Numerically, the change of K is about 0.1, and the
change of a is 2 – 3%. Under the condition of high relative
humidity (over 80%) in the contamination experiment
series, with the increase of contamination severity, the
percentage content of the 150 Hz component is increasing
and that of the 50 Hz component is decreasing. K and a
both increase significantly, and both of them have a high
fitting degree (0.96– 0.97) with ESDD. The thresholds of
the heavy contamination severity are 0.4 for K, and 85% for
a, respectively, at the high relative humidity range condition.
5. Based on the four items above, the comparison of the
characteristics K and a, combined with the percentage
contents of the three main frequency harmonic components,
makes it possible to identify the primary reason for the
increase of the leakage current, whether it is the relative
humidity or the contamination severity.
7 Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Key Basic Research
Development Program – 973 (2009CB724503) and the
Postgraduates’ Science and Innovation Fund of Chongqing
University (200707C1C0070244).
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