JIMMA UNIVERSITY

JIMMA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING

CBTP PHASE 3: TITLE PAPER

TITLE: UNDERGROUND CABLE FAULT DISTANCE LOCATOR

GROUP1 SUB GROUP 7

GROUP MEMBERS ID NO
1 BIKILA DESSALE RU 2840/09
2 SAGNI DESALEGN RU1798/09
3 NACHE EYOB RU4746/09
4 DEMISEW ABERA RU1039/09
5 MELAT TSEGAYE RU4004/09
6 NEBIL SHAFI RT 0074 /09

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ABSTRACT
This paper proposes fault location model for underground power cable using microcontroller.
The aim of this project is to determine the distance of underground cable fault from base station
in kilometers. This project uses the simple concept of ohm’s law. When any fault like short
circuit occurs, voltage drop will vary depending on the length of fault in cable, since the current
varies. A set of resistors are therefore used to represent the cable and a dc voltage is fed at one
end and the fault is detected by detecting the change in voltage using a analog to voltage
converter and a microcontroller is used to make the necessary calculations so that the fault
distance is displayed on the LCD display.

Problem statement
Frequent faults in underground cables due to the breakdown of the paper or polymer plastic
insulation due to chemical action, reaction or even poor workmanship during installation and the
difficulty in locating the approximate fault area have long been a serious engineering problem.
Most underground faults are located by unearthing the entire length of armored cable to enable
visual inspection to be carried out. In case where visual inspection is not helpful, the entire
length of cable is replaced. This analogue method is not only expensive, but also, long outage of
a cable from service results in heavy loss of revenue to the power distribution company,
production loss of industries as well as unpleasant conditions to the general public, since the
consumers are left without electricity for the whole period taken to unearth the cable and carry
out necessary repairs. To salvage these challenges, an efficient instrument capable of locating the
fault in minimum possible time and restoring the supply is needed. This research is aimed at
designing a digital underground cable fault locator to solve this problem

Objective of the paper

General objective
The main objective of this project is to find the distance of underground cable fault from the base
station in kilometers.

Specific objective
1 It saves time to detect fault
2 To reduce cost for repairing purpose

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 3 To work in all climate conditions and in any environment
Scope of the project

The research would be based on designing a digital tool or instrument that is capable of locating
an underground cable fault.

Items required in simulation of projects (inputs)

1 Transformer
2 Voltage regulator
3 Rectifier
4 Filter
5 Arduino
6 Liquid crystal display (LCD)
7 Buzzer
8 Potentiometer
9 Resistor
10 Diode
11 capacitor
12 Relay
13 cable
14 power supply

Introduction
This project proposes fault location model for underground power cable using microcontroller.
The aim of this project is to determine the distance of underground cable fault from base station
in kilometers. This project uses the simple concept of Ohm’s law. When any fault like short
circuit occurs, voltage drop will vary depending on the length of fault in cable, since the current
varies. A set of resistors are therefore used to represent the cable and a dc voltage is fed at one
end and the fault is detected by detecting the change in voltage using a analog to voltage
converter and a microcontroller is used to make the necessary calculations so that the fault
distance is displayed on the LCD display.

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In the few past years cables were made to lay overhead& currently it is lay to underground cable
which is superior to earlier method. Because the underground cable are not affected by any
adverse weather condition such as storm, snow, heavy rainfall as well as pollution. But when any
fault occur in cable, then it is difficult to locate fault. So we will move to find the exact location
of fault.

Now the world is become digitalized so the project is intended to detect the location of fault in
digital way. The underground cable system is more common practice followed in many urban
areas. While fault occurs for some reason, at that time the repairing process related to that
particular cable is difficult due to not knowing the exact location of cable fault. The proposed
system is designed to track the exact location of the fault occurred in the cable.

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