PH Based Smart Sensor for Condition Monitoring of Overhead Insulators

In this paper a real time monitoring system is presented for predicting flashover voltage of overhead insulator, it uses pH level as the pollution severity indicator and a smart sensor is used for measurement of pH level. The performance of insulator is examined under artificially polluted conditions with different contaminants. The contaminants chosen for artificial pollution test is on the basis of the presence of different types of salts in natural polluted conditions. Flashover voltages (FOV) of the insulator for different pH value have been recorded to relate FOV with pH of the contaminants and designed a pH based condition monitoring system for predicting flashover voltage of the contaminated insulator