Articles
  • Mechanical properties of porcelain insulator enhanced with spherical mullite powders

  • Yonggang Yuea,*, Xiaoyun Tiana, Xiaochuan Chongb, Donghai Dingb, Guoqing Xiaob, Liming Wangc, Bin Caoc and Lanjun Yangd

  • aInner Mongolia Ultra High Voltage Power Supply Branch, Inter Mongolia Power (Group) Co., Ltd., Hohhot 010080, China
    bCollege of Materials Science and Engineering, Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi'an 710055, China
    cTsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School, Shenzhen 518055, China
    dSchool of Electrical Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710055, China

  • This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

To enhance the mechanical properties of high-voltage porcelain insulator, the columnar mullite agglomerated spherical powder was introduced as a reinforcing phase. High-alumina based porcelain insulator containing varying spherical mullite powder contents (0–30 wt.%) were fabricated by cold isostatic pressing. The effects of reinforcing phase content on physical and mechanical properties, phase composite and microstructure were investigated, and the underlying strengthening and toughening mechanisms were elucidated. The results show that the 12 wt.% spherical mullite powders (S12) added sample exhibited optimal overall properties. The compressive strength and flexural strength of S12 reached 321 MPa and 107 MPa, respectively, showing an obvious improvement over the reference sample S0. Especially, the fracture toughness of S12 increased by 45.4% to 5.1 MPa·m1/2 and the critical crack size improved by 60.1% to 714 μm compared with S0. Microstructural analysis revealed that the original columnar mullite in spherical particles interlaced with in-situ generated mullite forming a three-dimensional interlocking network. The formed unique microstructure effectively absorbed elastic strain energy and suppressed crack propagation, achieving strengthening and toughening of the porcelain insulators.


Keywords: Porcelain insulators, Spherical mullite powders, Enhancing and toughening.

This Article

  • 2025; 26(6): 975-985

    Published on Dec 31, 2025

  • 10.36410/jcpr.2025.26.6.975
  • Received on Jul 22, 2025
  • Revised on Oct 5, 2025
  • Accepted on Oct 12, 2025

Correspondence to

  • Yonggang Yue

  • Inner Mongolia Ultra High Voltage Power Supply Branch, Inter Mongolia Power (Group) Co., Ltd., Hohhot 010080, China
    Tel : +86-15947713617 Fax: +86-15947713617

  • E-mail: hvyue@163.com