Reliability is increasingly becoming a key aspect of electricity system management, especially in light of an ever-increasing electrification of energy usage. System reliability often involves the study of the reliability of the relevant components; in this report we will detail the research on four different aspects relating to the diagnostics and modeling of the insulating systems of key components of the electrical system.
We have improved the modeling of the aging of insulating materials through the use of first-principles methods and advanced the simulation to deal with some simple cases of treeing in the first stages of propagation. The chemical modeling of the interaction of plasma with polymer matrices in isolated defects has been improved, especially as far as the cycling of carbon-based species that affect the conductivity of the medium is concerned. Furthermore, measurements and simulations were conducted to better diagnose the problems relating to composite insulators. Finally, a measurement campaign was carried out on medium-sized resin-insulated transformers, in order to verify possible signs of aging.