Basalt fiber and its resin composites have gradually supplanted traditional steel and glass fiber composites due to their superior strength, heat resistance, and corrosion resistance. However, basalt fiber still has significant flaws that restrict the functionality and use of its composites, such as less active functional groups and poor resin adherence. This study examines the effects of sizing agent on the characteristics of basalt fiber/epoxy resin composites. Epoxy resin emulsion and acrylate emulsion are employed as the primary auxiliary film-forming agents in this study. Polyurethane emulsion with various content levels is also used. The findings indicate that a 1% wt. of polyurethane emulsion concentration produces the greatest results, increasing the composite’s flexural strength, flexural modulus, tensile strength, and interlaminar shear strength by 122%, 34.0%, 102%, and 10.2%, respectively. At the same time, the storage modulus and Tg of the material will decrease. In addition, the breakdown strength can be raised by 112%, and insulation parameters such as leakage current and dielectric loss factor can be decreased by 26.4% and 15.6%, respectively. The effect of sizing agent B is the best.

Epoxy-resin-based composites in the field of current electrical materials often work in high temperature, high humidity or salt spray conditions. In order to improve the operation reliability of the composite insulator cross arm in a high temperature, high humidity and high salt spray environment, and analyze the aging mechanism and performance characteristics of resin, in this paper, wet heat aging and salt spray aging experiments were carried out on the blended resin system composed of bisphenol A type epoxy resin (E-51), aliphatic epoxy modified bisphenol A epoxy resin (2021P/E-51) and dimeric acid modified bisphenol A epoxy resin (EPD-172/E-51). Among them, 10 wt% and 20 wt% of 2021P blend resin and 10 wt% of EPD blend resin have superior thermo-mechanical properties. Under humid and hot conditions, the dielectric loss of 10 wt% EPD blend system before and after aging is 39.9% and 49.5% lower than that of pure E51 resin system, respectively. Under the condition of salt spray, the dielectric loss of 20 wt% and 10 wt% EPD blends decreased by 73.1% and 74.6% after aging. The leakage current of 10 wt% 2021P blend resin and 10 wt% EPD blend resin decreased by 7% and 3.8% before aging, respectively. After aging, they decreased by 3.7% and 2.2%, respectively. The bending strength of 2021P blend resin before and after aging reached 29.3 MPa and 26.6 MPa, respectively. The above three blending resin systems exhibit good electrical properties and good mechanical properties, their ageing resistance performance is strong and they are suitable as the matrix resin of compound cross arm mandrel material.