Study on aging of material for GIS sealing ring

Ronghui Huang #, Xin Zhang,
Qiaodi Zeng
Shenzhen Power Supply Bureau
Shenzhen, 518001, P.R.China
Wei Tao#, Zhaofang Zhu, Yongpeng Shengjun Lin
Meng, Xiaohua Wang Henan Pinggao Electric Co., Ltd
State Key Laboratory of Electrical Pingdingshan, 467001, China
Insulation and Power Equipment
School of Electrical Engineering, Xi’an
Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710049, P.R.
China
email: xhw@mail.xjtu.edu.cn

#: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Abstract—Gas insulated metal-enclosed switchgear (GIS) is new materials and to assess the long-term aging of the
widely used in recent years for its high reliability, less products[4]. Li Yongjin studied the law of the properties
maintenance and excellent insulation properties. But with the changing after long time artificial accelerated aging test and
increasing use of GIS, the defects and failures also appear. the natural aging[5].
According to the statistics, 30%~40% of the GIS defects are
caused by SF6 leakage. And the main reason of SF6 leakage is the This paper considers not only the temperature, but also the
defect of the sealing ring. This paper selects two common humidity as a influence factors. It’s different from lots of
materials for GIS sealing ring: NBR and EPDM, and puts them in research mentioned before. And this paper doesn’t focus on
the environment with high temperature and humidity at the same every property of the materials, but the properties which can
time for aging. After a certain period of time, they are taken out affect the sealing property.
and put to some experiments to test their properties. We can also
analyze how the properties change with the aging time by The remaining part of the paper is as follows. Section 2
adjusting the experiment period. And it can also be found which discusses the aging test of the EPDM and NBR used for sealing
material is better as the sealing ring by comparing the properties ring in GIS. Section 3 analyzes the result of the aging test, and
of NBR and EPDM. compares the properties of NBR and EPDM. Finally Section 4
concludes the paper.
Keywords—GIS; Sealing ring; EPDM; NBR
II. AGING TEST
I. INTRODUCTION
A. Test material
Gas insulated metal-enclosed switchgear (GIS) is widely
used in recently years for its high reliability, less maintenance Lots of rubber materials are used in GIS, different
and excellent insulation properties. But with the increasing use manufacturers have different preferences. We select two most
of GIS, the defects and failures also appear. In addition, as GIS common materials for GIS sealing ring, NBR and EPDM,
is operated in key transformer substations and serves in critical based on the communication with the GIS manufacturers.
regions, one accident can cause massive loss. To test the different properties, the materials need to be
According to the statistics, leakage of SF6 in the GIS made into different shapes. The different shapes for testing
equipment defects accounted for 30%~40%. And most leakage different properties are stipulated by national standards[6-9].
of SF6 is caused by the defect of the sealing ring[1]. The different test samples are showed in Figure 1.
It’s necessary to do some research on the sealing ring to
improve the reliability of GIS. As we know, the sealing ring
used in GIS is always O-rings. So the influence of the shape
can be ignored. The material of the sealing ring is the key
factor of the reliability of GIS. To select the most reliable
sealing ring, we decide to do the aging test on the materials
which are most common used in GIS sealing rings.
Lots of research have been done on aging process of the
rubber material. Schoch considered that accelerated aging in
the oven is most closed to the natural aging after long time
compared with other artificial accelerated aging methods.
[2-3]. After that, research about aging test for the rubber
material is mostly based on the accelerated aging in the oven
Fig. 1 different test samples
which rises temperature. Thomas S. Gates thought the
artificial accelerated aging test is important for selecting the B. Test equipment

copyright notice: '978-1-4799-8641-5/15/$31.00©2015 IEEE'

 The most important equipment is the aging oven. And analyzer and hardness meter. The model and manufacturer of
there are also some other equipment to test the properties such the equipment are showed in Tab. 1
as universal tensile testing machine, thermal gravimetric
Tab. 1 Test Equipment

Name Model Manufacturer

Ageing Oven KLTH-2015 Wuxi Kelong Testing Equipment Co., Ltd.
Hardness Meter LX-A Kunshan Creator Testing Instrument Co. Ltd.
Universal Tensile Testing Machine Unkown Unkown
Compression permanent deformation device Type A Kunshan Creator Testing Instrument Co. Ltd.
Thermal Gravimetric Analyzer TGA/SDTA851 Mettler Toledo
Thickness gauge WHS-10A Kunshan Creator Testing Instrument Co. Ltd.

C. Test condition III. DATA ANALYSIS

This aging test is carried out under 90℃ and 90%RH.
Though most aging tests just take temperature to be the
influence factor, considering the muggy weather in the south
of China, not only temperature but also humidity is
considered in this aging test.
To exclude the contingency of the experiments which tests
the properties of the materials, there are three samples for
every property. We will select the median one as the final
performance parameter.
The aging time of this test is shown as in Tab. 2.
A. Compression set
Figure 2 gives the relationship between the compression set
and the aging time. The compression set is increasing with the
increase of aging time. It says that when the aging time is long,
the samples are hard to return to the original height. As for
sealing ring, it will decrease the contact force and it will reduce
sealing property. So it will increase the defect of the sealing
ring.
40
Compression set/%

Tab. 2 Aging time. 30

Aging time/d 20
Compression set 1 2 3 4 5 7 10 10
Other properties 1 2 3 5 7 14 28
0
Aging time is chosen in this way because the properties of 0 2 4 6 8 10
rubber materials are exponential changed with time. Generally, Aging Time/day
at the beginning of the aging test, the properties of rubber
materials change quickly, while they change smoothly and EPDM NBR
slowly later.
Fig. 2 Compression set of EPDM and NBR
D. Test properties
From figure 2, it’s obvious that the compression set of
Five properties will be tested after aging. They are tensile
NBR is higher than that of EPDM. In the same environment,
stress-strain properties, compression set, thermogravimetric
EPDM has the better ability to return to the original property
analysis, compression stress-strain properties and hardness.
than NBR.
Compression set is the most important property. Lots of aging
tests choose compression set as their performance parameter. B. Tensile stress-strain properties
Compression set is calculated as follow: Figure 3 gives the relationship between the changing rate of
the tensile stress-strain properties and the aging time. Figure
ε 100% （1） 3(a) shows the changing rate of EPDM while figure 3(b) shows
the changing rate of NBR.
where ε is compression set, is the initial height of the
sample, is the height of the sample after aging, is the It’s unexpected that the tensile properties which include
height of the sample when it is aging in the fixture. tensile strength and elongation at break are not always
should be measured half an hour later after the sample is taken decreasing with the increase of aging time. At the first aging
out. time, the tensile properties change randomly, sometimes
increase and sometimes decrease. It’s because when the
Other properties should be measured between 1 to 5 days. samples are aging, they are vulcanizing at the same time, the
tensile properties may increase and may decrease[12]. But as
the increase of aging time, the tensile strength and elongation at
break finally decrease.

EPDM
10
Changing rate/%

0
0 10 20 30
-10

-20
Aging Time/day
(b)
tensile strength elongation at break

(a)

NBR
10
Changing rate/%

0
0 10 20 30
-10

-20
Aging Time/day
(c)
tensile strength elongation at break
Fig. 4 TGA of NBR at different aging time
(a) t=0h (b) t=336 (c)t=672h
(b)
Fig. 3 tensile stress-strain properties of EPDM and NBR Figure 5 shows the same result of the thermal property of
EPDM. The TGA of EPDM at different aging time is almost
C. Thermogravimetric analysis the same. But compared to the TGA of NBR, it can be seen that
Figure 4 and figure 5 respectively shows the result of the inflexion point of the curve comes later. It’s clear that the
Thermogravimetric analysis of NBR and EPDM at different initial decomposition temperature of EPDM is higher than
aging time. NBR.

From figure 4, it can be found that the TGA of NBR at

different aging time has almost no difference. Compared to the
original property of NBR, the thermal property of NBR has
little difference after aging 336 hours or 672 hours.

(a)

(a)

(b)
(c)
Fig. 5 TGA of EPDM at different aging time
(a) t=0h (b) t=336 (c)t=672h
D. Other properties
Besides the above mentioned properties, there are
compression stress-strain properties and hardness. From the
result of the experiments, modulus of compression and
hardness are both increasing with the increase of aging time.
These changes of material properties are similar with the
previous studies[10-12]. The changes of compression
stress-strain properties and hardness are both harmful to the
material to be the sealing ring.
IV. CONCLUSION
In this paper, the properties of EPDM and NBR after aging
are compared with which before aging. For the same material,
it can be found the tensile stress-strain properties including
tensile strength and elongation at break is decreasing with the
increase of aging time. And hardness, compression
stress-strain properties and compression set show the opposite
feature. And from the result of thermogravimetric analysis, it
can be seen that the high temperature and humidity aging
effects little to its thermal property. Two rubber materials show
the same rule.
However, comparing with the properties of EPDM and
NBR, it can be seen that the initial decomposition temperature
of EPDM is higher than NBR. According to this result, it can
be told that EPDM has better thermal property than NBR. And
concerned the comparison of compression set between NBR
and EPDM, it can finally be told that EDPM is better as the
sealing ring in the high temperature and humidity environment
than NBR.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors appreciate the support from Mr. Shengjun Lin
of Henan Pinggao Electric Co., Ltd, Pingdingshan, China, for
his help in providing the materials.
REFERENCES
[1] Xin Zhang, Gaoyang Li, Wei Tao, et al. Statistical Analysis of Defects
and Mechanical Characteristic Data for GIS above 110kV in Different
Operating Years, IEICE Technical Report Vol.114 No.342 pp.133~138,
Nov. 2014
[2] Youmans R A. Et al. Ind Eng Chen., 1995, 40(7):487
[3] Cloutier J R. Rubber Age, 1964, 95(2): 245
[4] Gates, T. S., & Grayson, M. A. (1999). On The Use Of Accelerated Aging
Methods For Screening High Temperature Polymeric Composite
Materials. 40th AIAA Structures, Dynamics and Materials
Conference(pp.99--1296).
[5] Yongjin Li. Study on Degradation Rule of Physical Mechanical Property
of Vulcanizate During the Period of Heat Ageing[J].
Special Purpose Rubber Products, 1998, 19(3):44-48
[6] GB/T 7759-93, Rubber, vulcanized or thermoplastic-Determination of
compression stress-strain properties[S]
[7] GB/T 7759-1996, Rubber, vulcanized or thermoplastic-Determination of
compression set at ambient elevated or low temperatures[S]
[8] GB/T 528-1998, Rubber, vulcanized or thermoplastic-Determination of
tensile stress-strain properties[S]
[9] GB/T 531-1999, Rubber-Determination of indentation hardness by means
of pocket hardness meters[S]
[10] A.M. Kucherskii. New Characteristic of Tensile Stress-Strain Proprtties
in Rubbers. Polymer Testing, 2003, 22(5): 503~507
[11] D.Deng Huang, LaCount, B.J.Bart J., et al. Development of a
Service-Simulating, Accelerated Aging Test Method for Exterior Tire
Rubber Compound I: Cyclic Aging. Polymer Degradation and Stability,
2011, 74(2): 353~362
[12] Yajuan Gao, Xuanbo Zhao, Wenchang Wang. Comparsion and Analysis
of Physical Properties among EPDM, NBR and CR O-Rings Used in Gas
Insulating Switch[J]. High Voltage Apparatus, 2008,02:118-121+125(in
Chinese)