Proceedings of The 6 t h International Conference on Properties and Applications of Dielectric Materials June 21 -26,2000, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an,

China

The Application of 'Fiber Optic Distributed Temperature Sensor to Fault Detection of XLPE Insulated Underground Cable
Xiaohong Zhang Xiongwei Jiang and Hengkun Xie
State Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation for Power Equipment Xi" Jiaotong University Abstract: If a fault occurs in an underground power cable it is necessary to find the fault point as quickly and accurately as possible. Although Murray loop method and pulse radar method have been extensively used for cable fault locating, the fault line needs to be removed from service and connected to detection equipment, which will take much time and effort. In the present paper, a new fault location method, which integrates fiber optic distributed temperature (FODT) sensor into cable, is introduced. The FODT sensor, which is applied to fault detection of XLPE insulated underground cable in resistance grounded power system, can find fault point immediately. The maximum detection distance, distance resolution and processing time for fault location are IOkm, lm and 30s respectively. Xi'an 710049 P. R. China

point.
1 1 . PRINCIPLES OF FODT SENSOR

Key Words: XLPE insulated underground cable Fiber Optic Distributed Temperature (FODT) sensor

Fault Location

I. INTRODUCTION
XLPE power cables are widely used in underground cables system. If a fault occurs it is necessary to locate the fault point. So far, the Murray loop method and the pulse radar method [ 11 have been used for cable fault locating. For these methods, it is necessary to separate the fault line from the system at both ends of the substation and connect it to the measurement equipment. If the grounding resistance is high at the grounding fault point, the measurement will be difficult and a DC voltage must be applied to the cable to ensure a complete grounding. So locating fault points using these methods takes much time and effort. With the development of optic fiber technology, optic fiber sensor has been widely used to detect fault in power equipments [2-71. In this paper, Fiber optic distributed temperature (FODT) sensor is employed to locate cable fault
Supported by NSFC (59837260)
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The characteristics of light, such as amplitude, phase, and polarized state etc., will be changed by the objects to be detected, that is, characteristics of light will be modulated. Thus information on the detected objects can be obtained through measurement. of the modulated light. Optic fiber sensors can be divided into two kinds: one is used as sensing component and named functional type, the other is only used to transmit light and named nonfunctional type. The former not only transmits light but also senses the changes of the objects to be detected. Fiber optic distributed temperature (FODT) sensor, which is used for fault detection in XLPE insulated underground cable, is one of functional type optic fiber sensors. The principle of FODT sensor is that the intensity of the Raman back-scattering light varies with the temperature of the cable ['I. The structure of FODT sensor is shown in Fig. 1.

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Fig. 1 stnacture offiber optic temperature sensor

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The Raman back-scattering light is composed of the incident lights called anti-Stocks light and Stocks light. These two kinds of light differ in wavelength. The intensity ratios of the light can be converted into a temperature reading. The theoretical formula for this temperature dependence is expressed as follows: ZJIS exp(hcA v / k f i (1) Where Is:Stocks light intensity I , : anti-Stocks light intensity H: Planck's constant c: velocity of light in vacuum k Boltzmann's constant A v : wave number (cm-I) T: absolute temperature (K) The distance is calculated based on the time from the injection of an original laser pulse to the reflection of the scattered light. Transmission velocity of light in optic fiber is 0.2dnsec. Accordingly, every 10 nanosecond of the time from the injection of the light to the arrival of the backscattering light can be converted into lm in fiber length. This is called Optic Fiber Domain Reflectometry (OTDR)[2,3]. By using FODT sensor for detection of temperature distribution in cable longitudinally, multi-point temperature can be simultaneously measured.

locating the fault point [*I. It can be assumed that transfer of

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Fig2 temperature disttibutionm copper tape shield

arc heat produced by ground-fault depends on the structure of shield layer and the size of cable. Therefore 66kV XLPE insulated cable, with shield layer of copper tape and 400"' in cross section of conductor was selected as a sample in artificial ground-fault test.

3.2 Structure of Cable Integrated with Optic Fiber

In order to integrate the optic fiber into the cable shield layer, the fiber must be protected against mechanical destruction during manufacture and laying. Stainless steel tube was selected as the armor of optic fiber, which were fixed in copper tape shield of cable, at 4 circumferential points in the equal interval and wound along the axis direction. in a pitch of 2OOmm.The structure of the cable integrated with optic fiber is shown in Fig.3.I2I

1 1 1 . APPLICATION OF FODT SENSOR FOR FAULT

DETECTION OF CABLE
3.1 Sample Before detection with FODT sensor, thermocouples were arranged in the shield layer and on the surface of the PVC jacket of the cable. Thermocouples were positioned at equally spaced 4 points (excluding the point right above the fault), in the circumferential direction, and 5 places in the longitudinal direction with the fault point at the center. The measurement results in the shield are shown in Fig.2. It is found that the maximum temperature is beyond 600 %near the fault point. The temperature start to rise soon after the ground fault occurred. The maximum temperature was observed at the time of shutdown of the fault and then temperature dropped exponentially. No significant rise in temperature was detected on the surface of the PVC jacket in

Fig9 Section of optic fibrer composite cable

3.3 Grounding-Fault Detection by FODT Sensor The 4 fibers wound on the test cable were connected in series and marked as L,, L , , L, and L , , respectively and the

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simulated fault point was located near L,. 0 ,, 0 2, 0 3, and 0. ,represent four points of the optic fiber on the same cross section of the cable, and 0 is assumed to be at the fault point. The sample and the measurement result are shown in Fig.4 and Fig.5, respectively. The steep rise, which was observed at the right end of. curve in Fig.5, results fkom Fresnel reflection at the face of the optic fiber [I. Even though the optic fiber breaks, the fault point could still be detected by FODT sensor, because the light injected will reflect back to the measuring equipment fkom the point where the fiber break.

distance line and multi-circuit line.

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The maximum detectable distance is 10 km with the accuracy of lm and the time needed is 15-30s.
V. REFERENCE

[I] Tanaka, T., and Greenwood, A., Advanced Power Cable

Technology Vol. 1, Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press, pp. 189-198 [2] Kawai, T., Takinami, N., Chino, T., Ammo, K., Watanabe, K., Nakamura, Y., and Shiseki, N., A New Approach to Cable Fault Location Using Fiber Optic Technology IEEE Transaction on Power Delivery, Vol.lO, No.1, January 1995, pp85-91 [3] Inoue, N., Tsunekage, T., and Sakai, S., Fault Section Detection System for275kV XLPE Insulated Cable with Optical Sensi.ngTechno1ogyIEEETrans. on Power Delivery,Vol. IO, No.3, July 1995, ppI148-I155 [4] Boiarski, A. A., Pilate, O., Fink, T., Nilsson, N., Temperature Measurement. in Power Plant Equipment Using Distributed Fiber

stainless

steel sheathed

Optic Sensing IEEE Transaction on Power Delivery, Vol. IO,No.4., October 1995, pp1771--1777 [5] Tayama, H., Fukuda, O., Inoue,Y., and Koike, Y., Anchor Damage and Defacement of Wire Armor 6.6kV
IEEE

XLPE Submarine Cable with Optical Fiber Sensors to Detect Transaction on Power Delivery, Vol .lO,No.4, October 1995, ~~1718-1723 [6] Nishimoto, T., Miyahara, T., Takehana, H., and Tateno, M.F.,
I

Fig.4 Connectted way of optic fiber and satnulation fault point section

Development of 66kV XLPE Submarine Cable Using Optical Fiber as A Mechanical-Damage-Detection Sensor pp1711-I737

IEEE

Transaction on Power Delivery. Vol.lO, No.4, October1995,

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[7] Short, S . X., Tantaswadi, P., Carvalho, R. T., Russell, B. D., and Blake, J., An Experimental Study of Acoustic Vibration Effects in
10 20 30 40 50 60 40 8 ; optic fiber length (m)

Optical Fiber Current Sensors IEEE

Transaction on Power

Fig.5 measurement result

Delivery, Vol.ll, No.4, October 1996, pp1702-I705

IV. CONCLUSION
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FODT sensor used in fault detection of cable lines is suitable to a low resistance grounded system, long

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