Breakdown of MV Cable Jackets under Impulse Conditions Caryn Riley, Ray Hill, Nigel Hampton Spring ICC 2010 - Sub Committee A 1
Background It has been suggested that URD circuits can experience abnormally high voltages between the neutral and the ground resulting from power system switching, faults, and lightning. The concern is that if these voltages are sufficiently high then they may cause puncture of the jacket. If the puncture is large enough then this may admit water The water would Accelerate the growth of water trees Cause corrosion of the neutral 2 2
Tasks Determine impulse characteristics of cable jackets Breakdown levels Evidence of time dependence Probabilistic criteria Model likely voltages across jacket Subject of this presentation Account for probabilistic nature of lightning and impulse failure Determine potential mitigation solutions 3
Test Objects Geometry Plaques + simple to make & test, many materials, - not cable geometry Cables + replicates geometry & processing - terminations, length scaling, limited materials Materials Insulating LLDPE Commercial Manufacturers blend PVC HDPE Semiconducting 4
Test Program 1/0 175mil WTRXLPE 50mil LLDPE compounded ins jacket 20 samples Active lengths of 30 ft Three rates of voltage rise Failure area located Postmortem dissection to determine jacket thickness at puncture location. 5
Impulse Characteristics of Jackets Cables tested in water Impulse voltages applied to neutral wires 6
Impulse Standard Wave Reduced #1 10000 0-10000 -20000 Voltage (V) -30000-40000 -50000-60000 -70000-80000 -90000-2.50E-05 2.50E-05 7.50E-05 1.25E-04 1.75E-04 2.25E-04 2.75E-04 Time (s) 7
Impulse Waveforms no reflections 10000 0-10000 -20000 Voltage (V) -30000-40000 -50000-60000 -70000-80000 -8.00E-06-4.00E-06 0.00E+00 4.00E-06 8.00E-06 1.20E-05 1.60E-05 2.00E-05 Time (s) 8
Setup and Breakdown Sequence 0-20 Impulse Voltage (kv) -40-60 -80-100 -120 Voltage and rise times adjusted so that the jackets failed on the front part of the impulse Setup Breakdown 9
Breakdown under Impulse Fast Front Breakdown 20000 0-20000 Voltage (V) -40000-60000 -80000-100000 -120000-140000 -6.00E-06-4.00E-06-2.00E-06 0.00E+00 2.00E-06 4.00E-06 6.00E-06 8.00E-06 Time (s) 10
Failure Locations Disected 11
Thicknesses at Failure 50 mil - spec min 25 20 Percent 15 10 5 0 40 50 60 Actual Thickness at Failure (mil) 70 80 12
Stress - Time Characteristics of Jackets 2000 Actual Stress (V/mil) 1500 1000 500 0 Dependence upon rise time is not statistically significant Non of the data qualify as an outlier 1 Time (micro sec) Type Fast Slow Std 10 13
Weibull Analysis Probability 99 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 ft Data Percent 30 20 10 5 3 Table of Statistics Shape 1.21011 Scale 598.248 Thres 1277.59 F ailure 17 Censor 2 C orrelation 0.993 2 1 1500 2000 Actual Stress (V/mil) 2500 3000 14
Test Reality vs Model Requirements Modeling of voltages is carried out on small length scales 1 ft to 1 m Testing is not possible on these short lengths Aberration from end effects due to cable cutting Termination failures Not possible to sample a reasonable population of defects Practical compromise tests 30ft of cable with hand taped terminations All tests resulted in jacket puncture no termination failures 15
Failure Lengths 30 ft active test length One failure 30 * 1ft active test lengths Modeling is typically carried out on length scales quite different to one used for measurements. One failure And 29 passes Censoring enables the measured data to be re cast in suitable lengths 16
Jacket Failure for Different Length Scales 99 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 Length (ft) 1 30 90 70% 55 Percent 10 5 3 2 1 10 4% 2.5 0.1 1500 2000 Actual Stress (V/mil) 3000 4000 17
Different Cable Sizes Breakdown stress of a jacket depends upon the volume of a jacket 1 V β ref α actual = αref Vactual Generally the breakdown stress (V/mil) decreases as the volume increases Thus Breakdown stress for a 50 mil jacket on a 1/0 cable will be higher than on a 1000kcmil cable Breakdown stress (V/mil) for a 50 mil jacket will be higher than a 80 mil jacket 18
Conclusions Breakdown strength of insulating LLDPE jackets has been determined experimentally For fully compounded LLDPE jackets in 15 kv 1/0 cable at the 30 ft length scale Breakdown stress threshold is 1200 V/mil (approx) Breakdown stress for 50% failure is in the range 1500 1900 V/mil Modeling based on these results should take account of Appropriate lengths and jacket sizes Probabilistic nature of the failure Correlation with other cable sizes needs to account for differences in jacket volume 19
Outstanding Issues Performance of other jacket materials / production techniques Influence of aging on jacket performance Neutral configuration wires, vs foil Practical impact - is the hole large enough to cause concern 20
Acknowledgements The authors recognise The NEETRAC Management Board for permission to share these data Southwire for providing the test cable 21