Field studies of incipient behavior in damaged underground cable Conference Paper uri icon

abstract

  • The need of a reliable and inexpensive system for detecting and locating incipient failure behavior in underground cable is prevalent. New techniques for detection and location of incipient cable failures in underground power distribution systems are being developed at TAMU. The initial phase of the research involved testing intentionally damaged underground distribution cable and collecting leakage current data during field tests at the Texas A&M University Riverside Campus Downed Conductor Test Facility. Leakage current measurements were recorded using an analog recorder in three formats: unfiltered, 60 Hz notch filtered (amplified at 20 dB), and high pass filtered allowing only signals above 750 Hz (amplified at 40 dB). Preliminary analysis revealed noticeable intermittent spikes on the signals. The changes of certain frequency magnitudes in correlation with current spikes in the time domain shows great promise of a possible `detectable' correlation between the time domain analysis of current spikes and the frequency domain analysis of frequencies produced by each spike. This behavior has shown promise in uniquely characterizing incipient failure behavior in underground cable. Findings and conclusions of updated analysis of field studies of damaged samples of cable will be reported in this paper.

published proceedings

  • PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN POWER CONFERENCE, VOL. 60, PTS I & II

author list (cited authors)

  • Cardoso, J., & Butler, K. L.

complete list of authors

  • Cardoso, J||Butler, KL

publication date

  • January 1998