An Amendment of the VLF tanδ Criteria to Improve the Diagnostic Accuracy of the XLPE-insulated Power Cables

Abstract

VLF diagnosis technology is introduced in IEEE Std 400 and proposed as evaluation criterion in an effective way of detecting water tree which mainly causes the failure of XLPE insulated cables. In order to inspect the accuracy of the VLF method for XLPE insulated power cables in Korean distribution system, diagnosis for 41 cables which were being serviced in the fields has been carried out and they were removed for AC breakdown voltage test after. Regarding the 41 cables, it was hard to confirm any relation between the VLF values and AC breakdown voltages and also water tree in the insulation was not detected. However, the other cables were failed several days after the diagnosis of the 41 cables. Water trees were found and their VLF values were also much higher than the criterion of IEEE standard. It has been ascertained that we need to change the IEEE criteria in order to improve the accuracy of detecting water trees by additional analyzing of field examples of failure and case studies from overseas countries and therefore amended VLF test voltage and evaluation criteria have been proposed.