Study on ageing characteristics and evaluation methods of RTV silicone rubber in high humidity area

PLoS One. 2021 Jun 4;16(6):e0251092. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0251092. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

Due to high humidity, the ageing of room temperature vulcanized silicone rubber (RTV) has been a serious problem in Southwestern China. In order to solve the problem of RTV life prediction, the aging classification method was established by analyzing the microtopography of RTV samples in this paper. Besides, the comprehensive analysis of RTV element content, partial element content ratio, and major chemical groups of RTV samples in each aging level were conducted. It is found that as the ageing level increases, the element contents of C, Si, O, Al change accordingly and the ratio of C:Si drops from 2.39 to 1.54, and absorption peaks of the chemical groups of Si-(CH3)2, Si-O-Si, Si-CH3 and C-H in CH3 decrease. This work can enrich the investigation of RTV, and may provide useful reference for performance evaluation and replacement of RTV in substations.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Humidity
  • Rubber / chemistry*
  • Silicone Elastomers / chemistry*
  • Temperature

Substances

  • Silicone Elastomers
  • Rubber

Grants and funding

This work was supported by Electric Power Research Institute, State Grid Shaanxi Electric Power Company in the form of salaries for LZ and YC. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. No additional external funding was received for this study.