Hygrothermal Aging of Organic Insulators.

The development of 'organic' insulators for high tension applications is related to the increasing progress in the field of polymer technology which led to the production of materials with good electrical and mechanical properties. The utilization of such materials is convenient for their good performance in polluted areas and for the low cost production of high tension plants. On the other hand, the aging due to atmospheric agents is a limitation to the development of further applications of these materials. In this paper the physical phenomena and the mathematical correlations, relative to the mechanism of damaging of epoxy based thermosetting resins as a consequence of water sorption is analyzed.