Shape and electric performance improvement of an insulator string using particles swarm algorithm

In this study, a particle swarm optimisation (PSO) algorithm coupled with finite-element method (FEM) is implemented to improve the performance of a cap-and-pin insulator by reducing the value of maximum electric field strength. Two goals are set in this work: (i) optimisation of the tangential electric field distribution and magnitude (which is taken as the objectif function to be minimised) to reduce the risk of flashover due to surface pollution, and (ii) reduction of the creepage distance (by adopting adequate constraints) leading to a reduction of the surface area and consequently a decrease in the insulator weight. The investigation is divided into two parts; first, one-unit insulator is optimised with which a chain is constructed, and its performance compared with the reference insulator string. The second part considers a whole chain of four-unit insulator whose performance is optimised and compared to that of a reference insulator string. The main finding of this work indicates that, if an insulator string is constructed using an optimised cap-and-pin unit, the performance of the so-formed string is also optimised. The optimisation of a complete string leads to practically the same performance as that of a string obtained by assembling optimised insulator units.