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Icing poses a serious threat to power transmission in many countries. Various studies on the icing mechanism and icing growth process of transmission lines have been carried out all over the world, whereas there are few reports about the icing growth mechanism and its influencing factors on insulators to date. In this paper, artificial tests of insulator icing were carried out; the influences of temperature, median volumetric diameter (MVD), and wind velocity on the icing accretion process, ice shape, and ice type on the surface of insulators were analyzed systematically; and the icing growth performance of different types of insulators were also analyzed. Test results show that under different icing environments, the icing growth of insulators is always nonlinear; the growth rates of icicles and ice layers increase with the decrease of temperature; with the increase of wind speed, all of the ice thicknesses and the length and diameter of icicles increase significantly; for wet growth, the impact of MVD on icing growth of insulators is not significant; the structure of the insulator has some influence on the icing growth process; and with the increase of length and diameter of icicles, the growth rate of the ice layer on the insulator surface decreases significantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]