Study on Insulation Performance of Thermal Aging

XLPE Cables by Direct Current Integrated Charge

Technique
Bingrong Huang Weiwang Wang Shengtao Li
School of Electrical Engineering School of Electrical Engineering School of Electrical Engineering
Xi’an Jiaotong University Xi’an Jiaotong University Xi’an Jiaotong University
Xi’an, China Xi’an, China Xi’an, China
beyondh@stu.xjtu.edu.cn weiwwang@xjtu.edu.cn sli@mail.xjtu.edu.cn

Xinyuan Li Yongjie Nie Yunkun Deng

School of Electrical Engineering Yunnan Electric Power Research Yunnan Electric Power Research
2021 International Conference on Electrical Materials and Power Equipment (ICEMPE) | 978-1-6654-1840-9/21/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/ICEMPE51623.2021.9509116

Xi’an Jiaotong University Institute Institute

Xi’an, China Yunnan, China Yunnan, China
402510042@qq.com nieyongjie@163.com ykdeng1314@163.com

Qihang Jiang
School of Electrical Engineering
Xi’an Jiaotong University
Xi’an, China
2205832830@qq.com

Abstract—The effect of thermal aging on the insulation
performance of XLPE cables is studied using a new diagnosis
technique-direct current integrated charge (DCIC-Q(t)). The
influence process of thermal aging on crosslinked polyethylene
(XLPE) and the measuring principle of DCIC-Q(t) were
described. Several thermal aged XLPE cables were obtained for
DCIC-Q(t) experiments. The dynamic charge curve of cables
under different thermal aging conditions is obtained, and charge
ratio R is proposed to compare the charge injection and
accumulation. The permittivity and conductivity of XLPE
insulation are calculated to analyze the aging level of XLPE
cable insulation. It can be concluded that this technique can be
useful to monitor the aging of the full-sized cable and has
potential to applying in other insulation system.
Keywords—DCIC-Q(t), charge ratio, thermal aging, XLPE,
conductivity.
I. INTRODUCTION
Crosslinked polyethylene (XLPE) power cables are
widely used in power systems due to their excellent insulation
and dielectric properties. However, during the operation of
the cable, electrical, thermal, mechanical stress, moisture and
other factors [1-3] can reduce the dielectric and mechanical
properties of the cable, resulting in thermal aging, partial
discharge treeing and degradation of the cable insulation.[4].
Therefore, diagnose the insulation performance of cables,
especially for the new diagnosis method is of great importance
to the life evaluation and development of the power cable.
Aging mechanisms of the cable insulation have been
studied previously. The aging models related to the charge
injection and accumulation of the XLPE materials were
established, namely the DMM space charge model [5], the
Lewis dynamic model [6] and the Crine thermodynamic
model [7]. The generation of space charge caused the electric
field distortion inside the insulating material and finally leads
to the insulation breakdown in the DMM space charge model.
The thermodynamic model proposed the opposite theory: the
aging of the insulation made the creation of space charges
possible. And the dynamic model proposed by Lewis
suggested that the mechanical stress caused by external
electrical stress contribute to the initiation of dielectric
breakdown of insulating material.
Pulsed electroacoustic (PEA) method has been widely
used for space charge measurement in polymeric insulation in
the past 30 years [8]. Majority papers employed PEA system
to investigate space charge behaviors in the cable insulation,
and proposed aging characteristics and mechanisms based on
the space charge results [8]. Although the PEA method can be
used for measuring space charge distributions of full-sized
cable considering the improved detection technique , It has
still limitation to use for diagnosis of full-sized cable due to
the weak signals, strong interference and complex signal
processing.
Recently, a newly diagnosis method of direct current
integrated charge (DCIC-Q(t)) is proposed [9]. It indicates
potential applications for the evaluation of cable insulation
aging by detecting the charge accumulation in different aged
samples. It was firstly proposed for evaluating insulation
deterioration in cables subjected by thermal and irradiation
aging. Compared with the PEA method, the DCIC-Q(t)
presents many advantages for charge detection in insulating
materials, such as wide tested electric field and temperature,
high stability, and flexible for using on insulation system [10].
Unfortunately, DCIC-Q(t) method can not measure the space
charge distribution in the insulation. The detected charge
information by DCIC-Q(t) method includes not only the
polarization charges on the sample surface, but also the
leakage charges and space charge accumulation inside the
insulation [9,11].
In this paper, the full-sized power cables under different
thermal aging were measured by DCIC-Q(t) device. The
dynamic charge under different voltages are obtained. The
charge data contains the charge injection and space
accumulation, which depends on the electric field. According
to the principle of the DCIC-Q(t) method and the dielectric
performance, the permittivity is calculated based on the
instantaneous charge generated on the sample surface at the
beginning of the voltage application. Moreover, the relaxation
time is considered to calculate the stable dc conductivity of the

978-0-7381-3212-9/21/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE

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 aged XLPE cables. The results indicated that DCIC-Q(t) has
a favorable effect for cable aging evaluation. t = + = = ! 2

II. THERMAL AGING OF XLPE CABLE INSULATION When t=0+, the integrating capacitor is charged and initial
In the process of thermal aging, oxidation reaction leads to charge Q0 (Q0=CsUapp) appears in the surface. For better
the deterioration of XLPE insulation. In the first stage of the evaluation the charge behaviors, a ratio R is proposed to
oxidation reaction, the weak parts of the XLPE measure the space charge injection and accumulation, as
macromolecule chain react with oxygen to produce free shown in Equation (9):
radicals[12]:
#= =1+ 3
RH + O → R ∙ + ∙ OOH 1
Where RH, R ∙ and ∙ OOH is the XLPE chain, free radical and The amount of R represents whether there is space charge
hydrogen peroxide radical, respectively. The hydrogen injection and accumulation inside the cable.
peroxide ROOH decomposes to generate new free radicals
RO ∙ and ROO ∙ by heating. It continues to react with the
As initial charge Q0 is the product of cable capacitance Cs
and Uapp voltage, and there is a quantitative relationship
molecular chain RH, accelerating the molecular chain broken
between dielectric constant and capacitance Cs, the amount
of XLPE.
of permittivity can be calculated by Equation (10):
2* +
Due to the residue of the crosslinker, the free radicals also
undergo a re-crosslinking reaction. Oxidative cracking %& = = 4
'()) /
reaction and re-crosslinking reaction of XLPE occur during ln . 1
the thermal aging of cable. In the early stage of thermal aging, 0
the residual antioxidant in the cable prevents the oxidation Where is vacuum permittivity，8.854 × 1089 ；a and b
reaction. However, the crosslinking reaction improves the are the inside and outside diameters of XLPE cable
crosslinking degree of XLPE molecular chain, leading to the respectively, mm; L is the length of cable, mm.
increase in electrical and mechanical properties slightly. With
the thermal aging continue, the antioxidant is exhausted and When the voltage is tested, an electric field E is generated
the oxidation reaction is enhanced, causing the break of at both ends of the integrating capacitor, the charge density
molecules chain and chemical bonds. generated on the surface of the integrating capacitor is : σ =
< . During the measurement, the charge migrates inside
According to the aging process, the different aged cable were the integrating capacitor. The time for charge movement is
prepared to ensure the effective thermal aging of the cable described by:
insulation. The 20 kV power cables with short length were
used for the sample preparation. Detailed information of = = = 5
thermal aged sample were listed in Table 1. > ?<
Where = is the measurement time, s; is the thickness of the
capacitor, m; > is the electron velocity, m/s. Since the
TABLE I. THERMAL AGING IMFORMATION
Temperature/
conductively @ can be expressed as @ = AB?, Equation (11) is
Sample Aging
Name ℃ Time/h
C0 / / converted to Equation (12):
AB C &)(D
= = @ : = @ ∙ :C = @ ∙ 6
C1 150 240
=
?< ∙
C2 150 480 AB
C3 150 720 Thus, the relationship between @ and the amount of charge
C4 150 960 and the dielectric constant is established:
&)(D #−1
@= ∙ = 7
C5 150 1200

C6 150 1440 = =
Three electrical parameters, the rate of change of charge,
III. MEASUREMENT PRICIPLE OF DCIC-Q(T) the dielectric constant and the conductivity of different aged
cables, cab be calculated.
The principle of DCIC-Q(t) technology test XLPE cables is
shown in Fig. 1. An integrating capacitor CINT is in series with Signal Wave

XLPE cable through a 1MΩ resistor, which could protect the Zigbee
DCIC-Q(t) equipment form the breakdown current [9,10].
During the measurement, the current through the cable Icable is CINT
HVDC I(t)
equal to the current through the integrating capacitor IC, PC Voltage
- +
- +
therefore the dynamic charge Q(t) is equivalent to the charge Voltage sourse DCIC-Q(t)
Control
message of XLPE cable [10]. Through an operational
1MΩ
amplifier inside DCIC-Q(t), the dynamic charge Q(t) is
+ + + + + +
converted to the stable voltage UQ(t), which avoids the
- - - - - -
influence of external noise on the experimental results. The - - - - - -

stable voltage UQ(t) is converted into digital voltage UD(t) + + + + + +

through the analog-to-digital converter, and transmitted to PC Insulation

Shiled Layer
by ZigBee [11]. The dynamic charge Q(t) is obtained by
integrating IC over time, as shown in Equation (8): Fig. 1. The measurement principle of DCIC-Q(t) method

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 2800
IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
2600 2kV
4kV
In the experiment, the voltage is applied to each cable from 2400
6kV
2200
2 kV to 20 kV for 180 s, and the step voltage is 2 kV. The

Dynamic charge Q(t)(nC)

8kV
2000 10kV
curves of dynamic charge of the cables with different old 1800 12kV
aging time over voltage are shown in Fig.2. It is found that the 1600 14kV
16kV
dynamic voltage phenomena are different for different applied 1400
18kV
1200 20kV
voltage. At low voltages, the dynamic charge Q(t) hardly
1000
changes with time, charge ratio R is approximately equal to 1, 800
indicating that there is no accumulation of space charge in the 600
insulation of XLPE cable. As the applied voltage increases, 400
200
Q(t) begins to increase with time, R is greater than 1, and the
0
space charge begins to accumulate in the XLPE insulation. 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
Time(s)
1100 (d)
2kV
1000 4kV
6kV Fig. 2 Dynamic charge curve under different applied voltage. (a) C0. (b) C2.
900
Dynamic charge Q(t)(nC)

8kV (c) C4. (d) C6.

800 10kV
12kV
700 14kV According to the experimental results in Fig. 2, the charge
600 16kV
18kV ratio R of different old aging cables under different voltage are
500 20kV obtained. As indicated in the Fig. 3, different cables have
400
different R at the same voltage, which is related to the thermal
300
aging time. For unaged cable C0, R remains constant over the
200
experimental voltage range, and the uniform conclusion can
100
be found for the aging cable C1(the aging time is 240h),
0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 declaring that short time of old aging has almost no affect on
Time(s) the insulation performance of the cables. The electrical
(a) degradation caused by thermal aging is first shown in C2(the
1100 aging time is 480h), R increases slightly and reaches 1.2 at
1000
2kV 18kV, it is obvious that space charge accumulates in XLPE
4kV
900 6kV insulation . R of C3 and C4 remain constant before 12kV, and
Dynamic charge Q(t)(nC)

8kV the rate of increase rises after that. When the thermal aging
800
10kV
700 12kV time reaches 1200h, the insulation performance of XLPE
14kV
600 16kV shows serious deterioration. R of C5 and C6 exceeds 1.1 at
500 18kV low voltage, and with the increase of voltage, R becomes
400 larger and larger, reaching 1.79 and 2.87 at 20kV, respectively.
300 3.0

200 2.8 C0
100 C1
2.6 C2
0 C3
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 2.4
C4
Charge ratio R

Time(s) C5
2.2
(b) C6
2.0
1200
2kV 1.8
1100
4kV
1000 6kV 1.6
Dynamic charge Q(t)(nC)

900 8kV
1.4
10kV
800 12kV 1.2
700 14kV
16kV 1.0
600
18kV 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
500 20kV Applied voltage Vapp(kV)
400
300 Fig. 3 Variation curve of charge ratio R of different thermal aged cables
200
under different applied voltages
100
0
V. ANALYSIS OF DIELECTRIC PARAMETERS
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
Time(s) The permittivity of cables with different old aging time
(c) is calculated by equation (4). According to Fig. 4, the
permittivity of unaged cable is 2.24, which is consistent with
experimental result in other literature [12]. In the early stage
of thermal aging, is basically unchanged, ranging from 2.23
to 2.25. When the thermal aging time increases from 960 h to
1200 h, suddenly increases to 2.33, and then reaches 2.37
at 1440 h. The polar groups such as ester group and carboxyl
group augment with the process of thermal aging [1], leading
an increase in the permittivity.

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 2.40
2.35
Permittivity εr
2.30
2.25
2.20
C0 C1 C2 C3
Sample name
Fig. 4 The permittivity of different thermal aging cables
With the increase of voltage, the conductivity shows
different characteristics [10]. At low voltage, current density
J increases linearly with the increase of voltage.
H = @<
In this region, the conductivity indicates an Ohmic
conductivity behavior. When the applied voltage exceeds the
threshold, the conductivity begins to increase rapidly as the
voltage increases.
The relationship between the permittivity and the
charge ratio R of XLPE insulation and conductivity @ is
calculated, as shown in Fig. 5. When the voltage is less than 8
kV, @ remains a constant for C0, C1, C2, C3 and C4 samples.
They are regarded as the low field conductivity. As the voltage
increases, the voltage exceeds the threshold and electric the
conduction presents the trap filling effect. J increases non-
linearly with the voltage and @ increases significantly. In the
case of C5 and C6 samples, the conductivity is high at low
voltage, indicating that the increase of electric conduction by
thermal aging. In addition, the aged cables exhibit the low
threshold fields of charge injection, which can be determined
by the conductivity in Fig. 5.
10-13
Conductivity γ(S/m)
10-14
2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Applied Voltage Uapp(kV)
Fig. 5 Conductivity curve of different thermal aging cables.
The conductivity of unaged cable is 6 × 1089I S/m, which
is little different with the conductivity of the cables in early
aging time. However, when the aging time reaches 1200h, the
conductivity of C5 and C6 exceed 1089M S/m, and increase
with the voltage in Ohmic conductivity region. The
conductivity of C6 sample is higher than 3 × 1089N S/m at
20kV. During thermal aging, both crosslinking and
breakdown of molecular chains exist in XLPE insulation. In
the early stage of thermal aging, the oxidation reaction is
prevented by antioxidants, and the re-crosslinking of XLPE
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molecular chains plays the dominant role, therefore Short-
term thermal aging has little effect on electrical property of
cables. In the later stage of thermal aging, the thermal cracking
reaction in XLPE insulation is enhanced after the consumption
of antioxidant. As a result, the conductivity increases rapidly,
causing degraded insulation properties [12].
VI. CONCLUSION
This paper studied the effect of thermal aging time on the
electrical performance of 35kV coaxial cable by DCIC-Q(t)
method. For unaged cable C0, the charge ratio R less than 1.1
C4 C5 C6 in the experimental range, and the permittivity is 2.24, the
conductivity is between 6 × 1089I to 1.5 × 1089M S/m. Aged
cables C1 and C2 (240h and 480h) are similar to C0. It
indicated that little change occurred on the electrical
performances of C1 and C2 samples. The charge ratio R of C3
and C4 increases slightly, reaching 1.3 at 20kV. The
permittivity are 2.24 and 2.25, respectively. Moreover, the
high conductivity at 20kV was close to 4 × 1089M S/m,
14 indicating the degradation of cables under middle stage of
thermal aging. When the thermal aging becomes serious, the
charge ratio R of C6 reaches 1.2 at low applied voltage, and
surpasses 2.8 at 20 kV. The permittivity increases to 2.33 for
C5 and 2.37 for C6. The conductivity of the cable exceeds 10-
13
S/m at 20kV. Therefore, DCIC-Q(t) method can be a useful
method for evaluate the cable degradation by charge
accumulation and dielectric characteristics.
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