Open Access

Partial discharges may cause damage to electrical insulation of high voltage equipment. They initiate elastic waves in the insulating material, e.g. in the stress cone of an outdoor termination. Localisation of the origin of such elastic waves can help to predict serious damaging processes in the electrical insulation. In order to measure and evaluate the wave propagation effects in typical multilayered elastomeric structures, knowledge of the material properties is required. The propagating velocity and the attenuation of longitudinal waves are important parameters. Values for these quantities found in the literature were not appropriate. Therefore, for cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE) and cured liquid silicone rubber (LSR), the longitudinal wave velocity and the attenuation were evaluated in the temperature interval from -20°C to 50°C and in the frequency range from 200 kHz to 600 kHz using a two-sample ultrasound technique. The loss factor was determined from these measured quantities. Additionally, low frequency Dynamic Mechanical Thermal Analysis (DMTA) was applied to investigate LSR and XLPE in a temperature interval between -100 and 50°C and to check qualitatively the ultrasound data.

Embedded conventional fibre Bragg grating (FBG) sensors with acrylate coating have been chosen for monitoring novel textile-reinforced composite materials with a complicated wavy structure as a result of reinforcing textures. Problems of monitoring this type of material occur due to the harsh fabrication technology of the composite and its complicated structure. Embedded fibre sensors are exposed to the influence of transverse and point-wise deformations. To what extent will these effects influence the measurement signal of a sensor? Temperature cycles, tension and vibration tests were carried out to answer this question. Transverse and point-wise deformation and micromechanical indentation tests on non-embedded FBG sensors were carried out to clarify the reliability of recorded signals.