Technical Report No.1277

No. 1277

Technology Trend and Issue of Rust Measure for Steel-materials Distribution Facilities

Investigating R&D Committee on Technology Trend and Issue of Rust Measure for Steel-materials Distribution Facilities

Keyword :

Distribution Facilities, Steel Materials, Rust, Plating, Painting

In recent years, distribution facilities are losing their chances to be replaced, due to the moderation of growth in electricity demand. As a result, number of ageing facilities is increasing gradually on the field.
Principal equipments, such as transformers and switches, end up with lack of durability or even with destruction of airtight ability, if steel-materials that make these facilities corrode through rusting. In order to maintain these deteriorated equipments, inspections are carried out from the ground, repairing or replacing them according to their condition.
However, there are some problems in this conventional method. Firstly, it is difficult to find rusting parts that cannot be seen from the ground. Secondly, in the near future, we may not be able to manage with the vastly increasing number of deteriorating equipments necessary to be replaced. Thus, degradation of steel-materials by rusting is a common issue to every electric power company and investigating it systematically is of a great interest.
In this report, we researched in various fields about rust on steel-materials that make distribution facilities; starting with the investigation on the mechanism of rusting through case studies, and how rust affects their performances; life expectancy estimation; current technological trends on materials, plating and painting; last of all, measures against deteriorating facilities and issues to be solved.