IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 28, NO.
3, JULY 2013
Flashover Voltage Prediction of Composite Insulators
Based on the Characteristics of Leakage Current
Shihua Zhao, Xingliang Jiang, Zhijing Zhang, Jianlin Hu, and Lichun Shu
Abstract—Effective prediction of flashover voltage (FOV) of in-
sulators is an important approach to the prevention of pollution
flashover accidents. In order to predict the FOV of insulators and
prevent pollution flashover accidents, first, a large number of ar-
tificial pollution tests, which simulate the impact of contamination
level and hydrophobicity classification (HC) on FOV and leakage
current, have been investigated. Second, based on the experimental
data, the relationship between the FOV and contamination level,
HC, has been obtained; the four characteristics of leakage cur-
rent, namely, the entropy of pulse amplitude ( ), the maximum
pulse amplitude , the energy ration ( ) and the energy ( ),
have been extracted. They jointly reflect how severe the contami-
nation level and the HC of composite insulators are from different
perspectives. Third, the variation laws between the four charac-
teristics and the contamination level, HC, have been obtained. Fi-
nally, the FOV prediction least squares—support vector machines
(LS-SVM) model has been presented, in which the four charac-
teristics are used as the inputs of model, and the FOV is used as
the output of model. The prediction results are basically consistent
with the test results. Therefore, the model is acceptable to predict
the FOV of composite insulators and is of significance for the pre-
vention of pollution flashover accidents.
Index Terms—Composite insulator, contamination level,
flashover voltage prediction, hydrophobicity classification,
leakage current.
I. INTRODUCTION
C OMPOSITE insulators are widely used on transmission
lines for their major advantages over ceramic and glass
insulators: lightweight, high mechanical strength, better pol-
lution-repellent performance, and water-repellent performance
[1]. But if composite insulators are used in contaminative and
wet conditions for a long time, the HC (HC1 corresponds to
a completely hydrophobic surface and HC7 corresponds to a
completely hydrophilic surface) will increase, which will lead
to the decrease of FOV and more pollution flashover accidents.
Therefore, it is urgent to foresee FOV and safety degree of com-
posite insulators before the occurrence of pollution flashover ac-
cidents, and clean or replace the insulators timely. In fact, the
Manuscript received October 08, 2012; revised December 19, 2012 and Feb-
ruary 27, 2013; accepted March 31, 2013. Date of publication June 07, 2013;
date of current version June 20, 2013. This work was supported by National
Basic Research Program of China (973 Program: 2009CB724503). Paper no.
TPWRD-00991-2012.
The authors are with the State Key Laboratory of Power Transmission
Equipment and System Security and New Technology, Chongqing Uni-
versity, Chongqing 400044, China (e-mail: zhaoshihuacqu@yahoo.com;
xljiang@cqu.edu.cn; zhangzhijing@cqu.edu.cn).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2013.2257879
0885-8977/$31.00 © 2013 IEEE
1699
FOV and leakage current of composite insulators mainly de-
pends on the contamination level and HC. Therefore, it is im-
portant to study the characteristics of leakage current and ex-
tract the characteristic parameters of leakage current indicating
the contamination level and HC of composite insulators, which
can provide a scientific theoretical basis for the FOV prediction
of composite insulators.
Currently, research on the contamination level has been
largely explored by scholars. The most widely used methods
to detect the contamination level have been presented in [2]:
the equivalent salt deposit density, the surface pollution layer
conductivity, the leakage current, and the pollution flashover
voltage gradient. Among these methods, the leakage current is
the comprehensive reflection of contamination, environmental
factors, and voltage, and can provide more effective infor-
mation indicating the operating state of insulators; moreover,
it is easy to be monitored online continuously [3]. Papers
[4]–[6] put forward that the insulator performance can be
monitored and assessed based on the pulse number, peak
value, and cumulative charge of leakage current. A method of
contamination level prediction has been presented by analyzing
the mean value, maximum value, and standard deviation of
the effective leakage current in [7]. Generally speaking, the
magnitude of the odd harmonic components of the leakage
current increases in the process of pollution flashover, mainly
including 50-, 150-, and 250-Hz harmonic components [8],
[9]. Two characteristics related to frequency spectrum (the
amplitude ratio of the third harmonic to the first harmonic
and the ratio of the high-frequency energy to the total energy
of the leakage current) have been presented for assessing
the state of insulator in [10]. Leakage current is decomposed
into low-frequency, medium-frequency, and high-frequency
components in [11], whose analysis results indicated that the
high-frequency component was more effective to monitor the
state of insulator than the low-frequency component. In [12],
the high-frequency component of leakage current is used to
monitor the contamination level of insulators.
As for the detection of the composite insulators’ hydrophobic
level, the most widely used method has been proposed by
Swedish Transmission Research Institute, with which the hy-
drophobic performance is separated into seven classifications:
HC1-HC7 [13]. Besides, the methods of static and dynamic
contact angle have been, respectively, proposed in [14] and
[15]. But these two methods can only be used in laboratories
and cannot be used in the field. Digital image analysis methods
have been adopted by some researchers, such as the acronym
average of normalized entropies (ANE) [16], [17] and the shape
1700 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 28, NO. 3, JULY 2013

factor method [18], [19]. However, these detecting methods

only focus on nonelectric characteristics rather than the charac-
teristics of leakage current and insulators surface’s discharge.
In [20], the leakage current has been separated into sinusoidal,
local arc, and transition components, whose cumulative charge
was calculated, respectively, to estimate hydrophobic perfor-
mance. In [21], a noncontact method has been proposed to
estimate hydrophobic performance based on the relationship
between the pattern characteristic of surface discharges and the
hydrophobic performance.
It follows that past studies have greatly pushed ahead the de-
velopment of the research on the contamination level and HC of
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the ac test circuit.
the composite insulator. However, most of them mainly focus
on the detection and estimation of the contamination level and
HC separately [2]–[21], which leads to the failure of compre-
hensive reflection of the insulators’ operation state. As a matter
of fact, research on the combination of contamination level and
HC can help to obtain more direct and reasonable characteristic
parameters, namely, flashover voltage which indicates the op-
eration state of insulators. Therefore, this paper deals with the Fig. 2. Configuration of sample.
impact of contamination level and HC on FOV and leakage cur-
rent, and tries to build the relationship between leakage current
TABLE I
and FOV. By analyzing the test results, the characteristics of MAIN DIMENSIONS AND PARAMETERS OF THE INSULATOR
leakage current, which indicate the variation of contamination
level and HC from different perspectives, will be extracted, and
the variation laws among them will be obtained; the relationship
between FOV and the contamination level HC will be obtained.
Then, the FOV prediction model will be established. Finally, the
correctness and reliability of the FOV prediction model will be
verified by test data. in Fig. 2. One string of composite insulators was tested for
simulating the 35-kV voltage class in each test.
II. TEST FACILITIES, SAMPLES, AND TEST PROCEDURES B. Test Procedures and Methods
1) Preparation: Before being polluted, all samples were
A. Test Facilities and Samples
cleaned so that all traces of dirt and grease were removed
The experiments, whose schematic diagram is shown and dried naturally. Then, the surfaces of samples were pre-
in Fig. 1, were carried out in the artificial fog chamber processed by taking the following steps [24], [25]. Firstl the
(4.0 3.7 4.0 m) of the High Voltage and Insulation Techno- surfaces of samples were coated with a layer of dry kieselguhr
logical Laboratory of Chongqing University. The main power by using banister brush; second, redundant kieselguhr was
supply, including a shifting coil voltage regulator (TDJY-1000 blown off by using a gas blowing device, which makes the
kVA/10 kV) and a test transformer (YDJ-900 kVA/150 kV) surfaces of samples to be coated with a very thin layer of
with rated current of 6 A, the maximum short-circuit current of hydrotropic substance. Since the layer of kieselguhr was very
more than 30 A, and rated voltage of 150 kV, meet the require- thin, the effect of kieselguhr on the nonsoluble deposit density
ments of the power source stipulated by IEC 60507 [22] and could be neglected. Artificial pollution must be completed one
GB/T 4585-2004 [23]. The applied voltage was recorded by hour after the aforementioned preparation.
an ac capacitive voltage divider (SGB-200 A, the divider ratio 2) Artificial Pollution: The samples were polluted by
is 10000: 1). The leakage current was recorded by two serial adopting the solid-layer method [22]–[25], in which sodium
noninductive resistances, with the noninductive resistance of chloride with a purity of 99.5% simulating the soluble material,
50 recording the smaller leakage current and 2 recording kieselguhr simulating the inert material, and the ratio of salt
the larger leakage current. The data-acquisition (DAQ) system deposit density (SDD) to nonsoluble deposit density (NSDD)
with a sampling frequency of 5 kHz was composed of personal was 1:6. The operating steps of the solid-layer method are as
computer, NI USB-6215 data-acquisition card and Labview follows. First, the values of sodium chloride and kieselguhr
Software. were calculated based on the values of SDD, NSDD, and the
The sample is the composite insulator (FXBW4-35/70), area of sample; second, sodium chloride and kieselguhr were
whose main dimensions and parameters are shown in Table I, measured with a BT 224S electronic scale, and the measured
and its material is silicone rubber. Its configuration is shown deviation was 0.1 mg; third, sodium chloride, kieselguhr, and
ZHAO et al.: FLASHOVER VOLTAGE PREDICTION OF COMPOSITE INSULATORS BASED ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF LEAKAGE CURRENT
TABLE II
FLASHOVER VOLTAGE RESULTS OF
Fig. 3. Photos of surfaces with different HC.
a moderate amount of distilled water were put into a beaker,
and the mixtures were well stirred and evenly brushed on the
surface of the sample.
3) HC Test: In order to obtain different hydrophobicity
status, the samples were dried for a certain period of time under
standard environmental conditions (ambient temperature being
20 C–25 C, with the relative humidity being 40%–70%) after
pollution. Then, the hydrophobic performance could be mea-
sured by the HC method proposed by the Swedish Transmission
Research Institute [13]. Photos of the surface of different HC
are shown in Fig. 3.
4) Wetting: The pressure in the artificial fog chamber was
99.5 kPa, and the ambient temperature was C. The fog
was produced by the ultrasonic fog generator by taking the fol-
lowing steps. First of all, the fog water was prepared after deion-
izing water. Then, in order to distribute the fog evenly, the four
ultrasonic fog generators were placed at four corners of the arti-
ficial fog chamber. Finally, fog particles with a diameter of 1–10
m were generated. After the relative humidity reached 100%
and stayed the same, the samples with a different contamination
level and HC were hung up vertically and wetted in the chamber.
5) Flashover Tests: The of all samples was obtained by
adopting the up-and-down voltage method [22]–[24]. That is to
say, each test ended when the flashover occurred; if no flashover
occurred in 30 min, the applied test voltage would be maintained
until the leakage current reduced to about 70% of the peak value
of leakage current. The samples were subjected to at least ten
valid individual tests at a specified contamination level and HC.
The value of and the relative standard deviation % were
1701
THE SAMPLE
calculated by analyzing the ten valid data. The equations are
shown as follows:
(1)
% %
where is the 50% ac pollution flashover voltage, kV; is
the total times of the valid tests, is the pollution
flashover voltage for the th time, kV; and % is the relative
standard deviation of the test data.
6) Withstand Voltage Test under Operation Voltage: After
the samples were wetted for 15–20 min, the operating voltage
( kV) was applied. Then, the leakage current
was continuously recorded for 15 min (with the applied voltage
unchanged and the ambient temperature being C and the
relative humidity being 100%). At least five groups of samples
were tested under the same conditions, and the results were the
mean value of their test data.
III. FLASHOVER TEST RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
As for composite insulators, the SDD and HC are the main
factors influencing the decreasing of FOV; therefore, the
flashover tests were carried out by changing SDD and HC,
respectively, with SDD being 0.05, 0.1, 0.15, 0.2, 0.25, 0.3
mg/cm and HC being HC7, HC6, HC5, HC4, HC3, HC1-HC2
(ambient temperature being C, relative humidity being
100% and the ratio of SDD to NSDD being 1:6). As shown in
Table II, the test results are as follows: 1) the decreases
with increasing SDD; 2) the decreases with increasing of
HC; and 3) the relative standard deviation of the test results is
less than 7%.
The relationship between FOV and SDD, HC is shown in
Fig. 4. According to the test data in Table II, the formula be-
tween FOV and SDD under different HCs are obtained as fol-
lows [26], [27]:
(2)
1702 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 28, NO. 3, JULY 2013

Fig. 4. Relationship between FOV and SDD at different HC.

Fig. 6. Typical waveforms of the leakage current with different HC (

0.30 mg/cm ).

also gradually increases. The leakage current changes with the

change of HC under the same SDD, which is caused by de-
creasing HC, and the insulator surface is harder to be wetted; the
water droplets are separated from each other and cannot form
continuous water film.

B. Extraction of Leakage Current’s Characteristic Parameters

It can be seen from the aforementioned analysis that the
leakage current changes with a different contamination level
Fig. 5. Typical waveforms of the leakage current with different SDD (HC6).
and HC; therefore, it is crucial to extract characteristic param-
eters of leakage current, which reflect the contamination level
and HC, to predict the operation state of composite insulators.
where SDD is the salt deposit density (in mg/cm , and is 1) The entropy of pulse amplitude reflects the complexity
the 50% ac pollution flashover voltage (in kilovolts). of pulse amplitude of leakage current. The higher the con-
tamination level is and the higher the HC is, the more ob-
IV. LEAKAGE CURRENT CHARACTERISTIC ANALYSIS AND vious is the discharge of insulators will be. The greater the
CHARACTERISTIC PARAMETERS EXTRACTION nonuniformity of pulse amplitude, the smaller the will
be. And vice versa
A. Typical Leakage Current Waveforms With Different SDD
and HC
As shown in Fig. 5, which presents the typical leakage cur-
rent waveforms of samples with different SDD under the con- (3)
dition of HC6, the pulse amplitude of leakage current increases
with increasing SDD under the same applied voltage. Moreover,
with increasing SDD, the leakage current waveform contains
more peak pulses for the reason of more frequent discharges where is the pulse amplitude [in milliamperes (mA)],
of insulator surface. The reason for the effect of SDD on the is the sum of pulse amplitude (in mA), is
leakage current can be stated as follows. The higher the SDD is, the amplitude ratio of the th pulse to , and is the
the greater the electrolytes of the insulator surface will be, thus entropy of pulse amplitude.
leading to the increase of surface pollution layer conductivity. Sampling data are taken every other second (50 pulses am-
As a result, the leakage current is changed. plitude, 50) to calculate each time; therefore, a total
The typical leakage current waveforms of samples with dif- of 900 are obtained in 15 min, whose average values are
ferent HC are presented in Fig. 6 under the condition of the SDD the final .
being 0.3 mg/cm . As shown in Fig. 6, the amplitude of leakage 2) Maximum pulse amplitude is the peak value of
current increases with increasing HC and the frequency of pulse leakage current and reflects the strength of discharge
ZHAO et al.: FLASHOVER VOLTAGE PREDICTION OF COMPOSITE INSULATORS BASED ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF LEAKAGE CURRENT
Fig. 7. Different frequency band waveforms of leakage current.
of the insulator surface, and is a notable characteristic
parameter influenced by contamination level and HC. The
increases with an increasing contamination level and
increasing HC. In order to reduce the errors produced by
the randomness of leakage current and the jamming signal,
the average value of the maximal 10 pulses amplitude of
leakage current is taken as the maximum pulse amplitude.
is defined as follows:
(4)
where is the maximum pulse amplitude (in mA) and
is the maximal 10 pulses amplitude of leakage
current (in mA).
3) Energy ratio reflects the distortion degree of leakage
current waveform caused by the extinction and reignition
of partial arc. 0–100 Hz frequency band waveform and
100–1000 Hz frequency band waveform are extracted from
original leakage current waveform with an infinite impulse
response (IIR) filter. As shown in Fig. 7, where (a) is the
original leakage current waveform, (b) is the 0–100 Hz fre-
quency band waveform, and (c) is the 100–1000 Hz fre-
quency band waveform. is defined as follows:
(5)
where is the instantaneous sampling value of the
0–100 Hz frequency band leakage current (in mA); is
the energy of the 0–100 Hz frequency band leakage cur-
rent (in mA) S; is the instantaneous sampling value
of the 100–1000 Hz frequency band leakage current (in
mA); is the energy of the 100–1000 Hz frequency band
leakage current (in mA S); is the energy ratio of the two
frequency band; is the sampling frequency of 5000 Hz;
is the number of sampling points for a total of 9000
points in 15 min.
4) The energy of leakage current reflects the overall trend
of leakage current. The higher the contamination level is
1703
Fig. 8. Relationship between and SDD, HC.
and the higher the HC is, the larger the conductivity of the
insulator surface and the smaller the resistance of the insu-
lator surface. Therefore, under the same applied voltage,
there is larger current flowing through the insulator sur-
face, which leads to the larger energy. is defined as
follows:
(6)
where is the energy of the 0–100 Hz frequency band
leakage current (in mA S); is the energy of the
100–1000 Hz frequency band leakage current (in mA S);
is the sum of and , that is, the energy of the
0–1000 Hz frequency band leakage current (in mA S).
According to the aforementioned analysis, the four char-
acteristic parameters ( , and ), which reflect the
characteristics of leakage current and pollution flashover
discharge from different perspectives, are proposed. The
four characteristic parameters of leakage current comple-
ment each other and jointly reflect the contamination level
and HC which cannot be accurately reflected by the single
characteristic parameter. Therefore, it can provide a theo-
retical basis for FOV prediction based on the relationship
between the four characteristic parameters and contamina-
tion level, HC.
C. Relationship Between the Four Characteristic Parameters
and SDD, HC
The relationship between and SDD and that between and
HC are shown in Fig. 8. It can be seen that decreases with
increasing SDD, and decreases with increasing HC.
The relationship between and SDD and that between
and HC are shown in Fig. 9. It can be seen that increases
with increasing SDD, and increases with increasing HC.
The relationship between and SDD and that between
and HC are shown in Fig. 10. It can be seen that increases
with increasing SDD, and increases with increasing HC.
The relationship between and SDD and that between and
HC are shown in Fig. 11. It can be seen that increases with
increasing SDD, and increases with increasing HC.
V. LS–SVM MODEL FOR FOV PREDICTION BASED ON
LEAKAGE CURRENT CHARACTERISTICS
A. LS–SVM Regression Algorithm
The SVM is a kind of algorithm for classification and re-
gression analysis based on statistics theory. It is widely used
1704 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 28, NO. 3, JULY 2013

Fig. 9. Relationship between and SDD, HC.

Fig. 12. LS–SVM parameter optimization process based on the GA.

The Lagrange multiplier is introduced to solve the aforemen-

tioned functions, and the Lagrange function can be expressed as
Fig. 10. Relationship between and SDD, HC.

(8)
where is the Lagrange multiplier.
By calculating the partial derivative for each variable of the
aforementioned function and making the partial derivatives
equal to 0, the following equations can be obtained:

Fig. 11. Relationship between and SDD, HC.

in pattern recognition and classification, fault diagnosis, trend (9)

prediction, etc. [28]–[32]. The LS-SVM, which converts the
After eliminating the variables of and , the dual linear
quadratic programming problem of SVM into the solution of
system is obtained
linear equations and improves the convergence speed and accu-
racy of solving equations, is an extension of standard SVM. (10)
Given data set: , where is the
th sample input, is the corresponding output, and is the
where , , ,
number of samples. First, samples are mapped from the original
,
space to the high dimensional feature space with nonlinear map-
is a Kernel function that satisfies the Mercer condition.
ping. Then, the optimal decision function is designed in the high
Finally, the estimation formula of LS–SVM can be obtained
dimensional feature space. The function of nonlinear estimation
is converted into the function of linear estimation in the high
dimensional feature space. Based on the principle of structural (11)
risk minimization, the regression prediction of LS-SVM can be
expressed as the following constrained optimization equations:
B. LS–SVM Parameters Optimization Based on GA
It is crucial to select the suitable penalty parameter
(7) and Kernel function parameter for the performance of the
LS–SVM prediction model [33]. Therefore, and need to
be optimized. In this case, the GA with strong global search
where is the weight vector, is error variables, is the adjust- ability is used to optimize and for the prediction model in
ment factor, is the nonlinear mapping function, and this paper [34]. The optimization process is shown in Fig. 12.
is the deviation value. The implementation process is described below:
ZHAO et al.: FLASHOVER VOLTAGE PREDICTION OF COMPOSITE INSULATORS BASED ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF LEAKAGE CURRENT 1705

1) Population initialization. Coding is the first question to be

solved in the application of the GA, because it directly af-
fects the follow-up genetic operation. The binary encoding
method is used to code population in this paper, and the
population size is 96.
2) The fitness function is used to evaluate individual perfor-
mance and guide the search for GA. Therefore, it is crucial
to select the suitable fitness function which directly affects
convergence speed and whether the optimal solution can
be found. The relative average error is used as the fitness
function of the GA in this paper

(12)

where is the number of training samples, is the desired

output of the th sample, and is the actual output of
the model.
3) Genetic operation includes three basic genetic operators:
selection, crossover, and mutation.
The fitness proportional model is used for the selection Fig. 13. FOV prediction flowchart.
operator. Assumed population size is , the fitness value of
the th individual is , and the selection probability
of the th individual is and output data need to be normalized before training data ac-
cording to (15).

(13) (15)

where and are the maximum value and minimum

Arithmetic crossover is applied between and . Then, value of , respectively, and is the normalization result of
two new individuals will be generated .

D. Training Model and Analysis of Results

(14)
Ninety-six groups of test data are selected to train the model,
while the other 24 groups are used to verify the performance of
where is the uniformly distributed random number in the
the model. Then, the optimal FOV prediction model is obtained.
interval [0,1].
The comparisons between test results and prediction results are
Gaussian mutation is used for the mutation operator. A
presented in Table III, where is the FOV of prediction,
random is selected according to the uniform distribution,
is calculating FOV of (2), is the FOV of test,
then the disturbance , which obeys the Gauss distribu-
is the absolute values of the relative error between and
tion is added, where is the standard deviation
and is the absolute value of relative error between
of Gauss distribution.
and . and can be calculated by.
4) The evolution is stopped and the optimal parameters are
obtained when one of the following two termination con- %
ditions is satisfied: 1) the maximum evolution generation is (16)
reached and 2) the fitness value of successive generations %
does not change obviously; otherwise, the aforementioned
steps would be repeated. As shown in Table III, the absolute values of the relative error
between and are less than 6.5%, and the absolute
C. Building of the LS–SVM Model for FOV Prediction values of relative error between and are less than
The LS–SVM model, in which the radical basis function 7.0%. That is to say, the prediction results based on the LS–SVM
(RBF) is used as a Kernel function and GA is used to optimize model are basically consistent with the test results. Therefore, it
and , is selected for FOV prediction. The four characteristic is not difficult to draw the conclusion that the FOV prediction
parameters ( and ) are selected as the input layer of LS–SVM model is acceptable, which is significant in the pre-
the prediction model, while the FOV is selected as the output vention of pollution flashover accidents.
of the prediction model. The entire process of FOV prediction
is shown in Fig. 13. E. Verification of the Model
The magnitude order of input and output parameters is incon- In order to further verify the correctness of the FOV pre-
sistent. Therefore, in order to reduce prediction errors, the input diction model, six polluted composite insulators of the 35-kV
1706
TABLE III
COMPARISON BETWEEN TEST RESULTS AND PREDICTION RESULTS
TABLE IV
COMPARISON BETWEEN TEST RESULTS AND PREDICTION RESULTS
Chao–San transmission line of Hunan Power Grid were taken
down and tested under the following conditions: the air pressure
in the artificial fog chamber was 99.5 kPa; the ambient temper-
ature was C, and the relative humidity was 100%. The
test steps are as follows: first of all, the samples were wetted for
15–20 min. Then, the operating voltage ( 20.2 kV)
was applied, and the leakage current was continuously recorded
for 15 min at the same time. Third, the flashover tests, whose in-
tervals were about 2–3 min, were carried out three times with the
even-rising voltage method and the step-up rate was 3 kV/s, and
the minimum FOV was taken as the FOV of samples. The pre-
diction results and test results are shown in Table IV, where the
meaning of symbols is the same as that in Table III. As shown
in Table IV, the absolute values of relative errors between
and are less than 13%, and the prediction results are gener-
ally less than the test results. The reasons for the latter are as fol-
lows: 1) the samples were tested with withstand voltage method
to measure leakage current for 15 min before the flashover test.
In this case, some contamination was washed away, but for nat-
ural polluted insulators, the loss of contamination is small, and
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 28, NO. 3, JULY 2013
2) the even-rising voltage method was adopted in the flashover
test, where the FOV obtained is higher than that obtained by
adopting the up-and-down voltage method [35], [36].
VI. CONCLUSION
1) For composite insulators, the FOV decreases with in-
creasing SDD, and it also decreases with increasing HC.
The formulas between FOV and SDD under different HC
are obtained.
2) The four parameters of the leakage current ( , and
), which reflect the characteristics of leakage current
from different perspectives, are presented to predict the
FOV of composite insulators.
3) The decreases with increasing SDD, the increases
with increasing SDD, the increases with increasing
SDD, and increases with increasing SDD.
4) The decreases with increasing HC; the increases with
increasing HC; the increases with increasing HC; and
increases with increasing HC.
5) Based on the relationship between the contamination level
and the four characteristics of leakage current (
and ) under different HC, a new LS–SVM model has
been proposed to predict the FOV. The prediction results
are basically consistent with the test results. Therefore, the
LS–SVM model is acceptable to predict the FOV of com-
posite insulators, and is of significance for the prevention
of pollution flashover accidents.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Y. Xie, C. Yuan, Z. Li, B. Ni,
and C. Jiang for their contributions to the completion of tests.
ZHAO et al.: FLASHOVER VOLTAGE PREDICTION OF COMPOSITE INSULATORS BASED ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF LEAKAGE CURRENT
The authors would also like to thank all members of the external
insulation research team at Chongqing University for their con-
tributions to this paper.
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Shihua Zhao was born in Hunan Province, China,
on May 23, 1983. He received the B.Sc. and M.Sc.
degrees in electrical engineering from Chongqing
University, Chonqing, China, in 2006 and 2009, re-
spectively, where he is currently pursuing the Ph.D.
degree in electrical engineering.
He was with the Power Company of Hunan,
Hunan, China, from 2009 to 2010. He is the
author or the coauthor of several technical papers.
His main research interests include high-voltage
technology as well as external insulation and
pollution of transmission lines.
Xingliang Jiang was born in Hunan Province,
China, on July 31, 1961. He received the M.Sc.
and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from
Chongqing University, Chongqing, China, in 1988
and 1997, respectively.
His employment experience include the Shaoyang
Glass Plant, Shaoyang, Hunan Province; Wuhan
High Voltage Research Institute, Wuhan, Hubei
Province; and the College of Electrical Engineering,
Chongqing University. His research interests include
high-voltage external insulation and transmis-
sion-line pollution and protection.
Dr. Jiang has published two books and more than 150 papers about his pro-
fessional work. He received the Second-Class Rewards for Science and Tech-
nology Advancement from the Ministry of Power in 1995 and 2009; Beijing
Government in 1998; Ministry of Education in 1991 and 2001, respectively; the
1708
First-Class Reward for Science and Technology Advancement from the Min-
istry of Power in 2004 and 2005; the Second-Class Reward for Science and
Technology Advancement from the Ministry of Technology in 2005; the First-
Class Reward for Science and Technology Advancement from the Ministry of
Education in 2006; and the First-Class Reward for Science and Technology Ad-
vancement from Chongqing City in 2006 and 2008.
Zhijing Zhang was born in Fujian Province, China,
in 1976. He received the B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. de-
grees in electrical engineering from Chongqing Uni-
versity, Chonqing, China, in 1999, 2002, and 2007,
respectively.
He is an Associate Professor of the College
of Electrical Engineering, Chongqing University.
He is the author or coauthor of several technical
papers. His main research interests include high
voltage, external insulation, numerical modeling,
and simulation.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 28, NO. 3, JULY 2013
Jianlin Hu was born in Fujian Province, China, in
July 1978. He received the B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D.
degrees in electrical engineering from Chongqing
University, Chonqing, China, in 2001, 2003, and
2009 respectively.
He is an Associate Professor of the College of
Electrical Engineering, Chongqing University. His
main research interests include fault diagnosis and
maintenance for transmission line, high voltage,
external insulation, numerical modeling, and
simulation. He is the author or coauthor of several
technical papers.
Lichun Shu was born in Chongqing, China, in 1964.
He received the B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in
engineering from Chongqing University, Chonqing,
China, in 1985, 1988, and 2002, respectively.
He became a Professor at Chongqing University
in 2000. He came to Canada and joined the Research
Group on Atmospheric Environment Engineering
(GRIEA), Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, as an
invited professor from 2001 to 2002.
Dr. Shu is author and coauthor of several scientific
publications.