Partial Discharge Investigation on XLPE Insulated Medium Voltage Underground Power Cables Using UHF Technique

Abstract:
This paper investigates on a simple alternative method to assess the partial discharge (PD) condition of an XLPE insulated medium voltage (MV) underground power cable. The objectives are initially simulated on a ladder network model of a power cable and later experimentally verified on test samples extracted from actual underground cables. These cables had been already in-service and removed due to PD defect condition. First, a simple RC circuit model that adequately represents the behaviour of power cable is selected. The cable is represented as a complex ladder network of resistance, inductance and capacitance. Later, the PD condition is introduced into the chosen ladder network model and simulated. The PD condition is represented through an a