Hybrid system of long term accelerated water tree testing of cables at King Saud University

Abstract

Instead of traditionally used PVC conduit for long term accelerated aging of polymeric insulated cables, a hybrid system of pipes and small water reservoir tanks connected at the pipe ends was designed and put into operation. Rather than large temperature gradients along the length of water immersed cables, a fairly uniform temperature profile has been achieved in the new set up. This, in combination with the tighter control of multi-factor aging parameters of cables, most of the shortcomings related to the conduit pipe aging technique have been alleviated. This paper presents the details of this set up and gives temperature profiles measured during the accelerated aging studies carried out on cable samples.