Abstract
Aging characteristics of 13 years service-aged distribution cable terminations which dismounted from 3 regions were investigated by material characterization and electrical test. All dismounted terminations have propagating micro-cracks on the surface of weathershed and chalking fillers from bulk. Elemental analysis of these terminations showed that the carbon was decreased and the oxygen was increased on the surface of weathershed due to a little oxidation reaction. Contact angle of terminations was abnormally increased with time. In the analysis of anti-oxidation ability and chemical structure, there were no differences between new and dismounted terminations. All terminations showed satisfactory results in electrical test. Therefore, itcan be considered that aging is only propagating on the surface of dismounted terminations. Also, it was confirmed that environmental factors such as UV, pollution and salt have an effect on the aging through the observation of polymer composition change.