Diagnostic comparison of water tree growth in XLPE insulated power cables produced in GCC countries | ||||
| The International Conference on Electrical Engineering | ||||
| Article 63, Volume 6, 6th International Conference on Electrical Engineering ICEENG 2008, May 2008, Page 1-11 PDF (171.63 K) | ||||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||||
| DOI: 10.21608/iceeng.2008.34302 | ||||
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| Authors | ||||
| A. A. Al-Arainy1; M. I. Qureshi1; N. H. Malik1; M. N. Saati2; O. A. Al-Nather3; S. Anam4 | ||||
| 1College of Engineering, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. | ||||
| 2Riyadh Group of Cables, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. | ||||
| 3King Abdualaziz City for Science and Technology, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. | ||||
| 4Saudi Electricity Company, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. | ||||
| Abstract | ||||
| Abstract: Electric power utilities and industrial units in Saudi Arabia are extensively using XLPE cables produced in the Arabian Gulf region. Due to prevailing high temperatures and high sulphate content in the soil coupled with high sub surface water table, these cables have suffered serious breakdowns in a short time span after their installation. This investigation was undertaken to compare the resistance to water treeing in of kV, XLPE insulated cables of four regional manufacturers that are producing these cables according to international standards. In first stage, aging was carried out under high electric stress and temperature cycling in the presence of deionized water. After 120 days of this aging, their remaining dielectric strength was determined. These results showed poor performance of one type while the others exhibited close values. In the second stage, the cables were aged in the presence of aqueous ionic solution of CuSO4 for aging periods that lasted in the range of 500 to 1500 hours. Water tree population and tree lengths were compared and their number and length distributions were subjected to statistical Weibull and Log-normal models. Water tree population and their length distributions were found to fit better on Log-normal model. This suggests that the most likely mechanism for environmentally induced water tree degradation is electromechanical fatigue based. On the other hand, water tree density as a function of aging period was found to obey a log-linear relation. These data also show that water tree density in these cables as evaluated in the second stage of aging, comparatively varies significantly and leads to better segregation and selection of the cable that will serve the best in such environmental conditions. | ||||
| Keywords | ||||
| XLPE Power Cables; Accelerated multifactor aging; aqueous ionic CuSO4 solution; retained dielectric strength; water tree statistics; water treeing | ||||
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