INSULATORS
One would have to think long and hard to find an example of a product that was leading edge technology more than a century ago and still widely considered as the state-of-the art today. But glazed electrical porcelain is exactly such a product.
Yet, while looking much the same as what was crafted by hand decades ago, porcelain insulators in use today share little in common with their relatively crude‘ ancestors’. As a result of constant refinements in composition, processing and testing, modern porcelain found at HV substations is by any standard impressive, in some cases measuring nearly 12 m in length.
In this first of a two-part article, INMR pays tribute to this durable and remarkable material that, in spite of constant inroads by more technologically advanced alternatives, has so far succeeded to remain the dominant insulator technology in use at substations the world over.
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