(covered conductor and spacer) are the same, the field is considerably
higher compared to the field seen on the surface of the
conductor away from the spacer, as shown in Figure 5. In addition,
conductive pollution plays a significant role in the increase
of electric field, as it will be shown later.
Compatibility tests, in which the tracking resistance of spacers
and covered conductors is measured, become very important
to evaluate the performance of these systems under polluted
conditions. Recent investigations have pointed out the importance
of this test to evaluate the performance of SCS in the field
[5], [9] and the need to clarify certain conditions during the test
in order to confirm that such a test will reproduce the field operation
properly [5]