Study of the effects of accidentally released carbon/graphite fibers on electric power equipment. Program final report, June 5, 1978-June 5, 1980

Technical Report · Thu Jun 05 04:00:00 EDT 1980

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6882095· OSTI ID:6882095

Mauser, S F; Bankoske, J W; Cooper, J H; Davies, D G; Eichler, C H; Hileman, A R; Mousseau, Jr, T E; Rackliffe, G B

The program to study the effect of accidentally released carbon fibers on electrical power equipment consisted of determining the vulnerability of system outage rates to carbon fiber contamination, and performing tests to quantitize the contamination required to cause flashover of external insulation. Part One of this final report describes an assessment of the vulnerability of power systems to accidentally released fibers from a composite burn. The assessment describes the effect of carbon fibers on individual component failure rates and discusses the effect the change in component failure rates has on the power system reliability. Part Two describes in detail testing performed to determine the vulnerability of external insulation to carbon fiber contamination. Testing consisted of airborne contamination tests on distribution insulators, limited tests on suspension insulators which are commonly used for transmission class voltages, and various tests to quantify the influence of fiber length, voltage stress, etc. on flashover characteristics. The data obtained and analysis performed during this project show that the change of system reliability due to an accidental release from burned carbon fiber composite is negligible.

• Research Organization: Westinghouse Electric Corp., East Pittsburgh, PA (USA). Advanced Systems Technology Div.
• DOE Contract Number: AC01-78ET29193
• OSTI ID: 6882095
• Report Number(s): DOE/RA/29193-1
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS
200104 -- Fossil-Fueled Power Plants-- Components
200300* -- Electric Power Engineering-- Power Transmission & Distribution-- (-1989)
24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION
ACCIDENTS
AIR POLLUTION
CARBON
CONTAMINATION
CURRENTS
DATA
ELECTRIC CURRENTS
ELECTRIC DISCHARGES
ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT
ELECTRICAL INSULATION
ELECTRICAL INSULATORS
ELEMENTS
ENERGY SYSTEMS
EQUIPMENT
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FAILURES
FIBERS
FLASHOVER
GRAPHITE
INFORMATION
NONMETALS
NUMERICAL DATA
PERFORMANCE TESTING
POLLUTION
POWER PLANTS
POWER SUBSTATIONS
POWER SYSTEMS
POWER TRANSMISSION LINES
TESTING