FEM Analysis of the Electric Field and Potential of Various Types of Insulators under Uniform Pollution

This work aims to present an analysis of the behaviour of the electric field and the potential for three different types of insulators, the glass, the porcelain and the polymeric. Since pollution is an important factor for their insulation performance and reliability in high-voltage systems, it is essential to understand how a uniform pollution layer could influence the distribution of the field and the electric potential for each of these insulators. For this purpose, COMSOL Multiphysics was used to study these distributions in both clean and polluted conditions, using the finite element method. The results show that the uniform pollution layer reduces the distribution of the electric field of insulator. Keywords: COMSOL Multiphysics; electric field; finite element method; glass insulator; porcelain insulator; silicone insulator; uniform pollution