Brittle fracture is a stress corrosion process of the E-glass/polymer unidirectional rods used in the insulators as the load bearing components
It has been shown by Chughtai et al. [16] that the brittle fracture process can be caused by nitric acid formed in service due to the interaction between ozone, nitrogen, moisture and corona discharges. The brittle fracture process in composite high voltage insulators has been extensively studied by Kumosa et