Polymeric Insulators

25kV Polymeric Insulators for Railways – overcoming Sea Salt flashover problems - 14025 25kV Polymeric Insulators for Railways– overcoming Sea Salt flashoverproblems

WT Henley Ltd. has, during its 30 yearsof servicing the utility market with its EPDM clad composite insulators, gained a wealth of field experience in a varietyof environmental conditions. We have supplied our extensive range ofEPDM based polymeric insulators to the4 major continents of the world, from the iced expanses of Canada, to thedesert conditions of the Sudan. Duringthis time, WT Henley has successfully engineered their insulators to cope withanything our prospective customers haverequired, whether that is a particular specification, product test regime, or a specific environmental condition. Some of the harshest environments WT Henley has encountered are thoseof the Ayrshire coast in Scotland. At thisparticular location the 25kV electrified railway catenary network runs parallelwith the coast for some 20 miles. As a result, the overhead system is continually subjected to a sea saltenvironment. At its worst, the sea-waves crash over the catenary system. To help overcome flashover problemsunder these conditions when using traditional ceramic insulator technology,washing, replacement and / or anincreased number of units are required. In using WT Henley’s polymeric technology with its open profile design,50mm/kV creepage and unique EPDM cladding formulation the flashoverproblem can be dramatically reduced.WT Henley is presently into a successfulsite trial in the area. To date thecustomer has not experienced any system outage due to WT Henley’spolymeric insulators flashing over. Under the harshest environmentalconditions only the best-engineeredproducts will produce the system reliability desired by the train / networkoperators.

A Subsidiary of TT electronics plc

WT Henley Limited