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Locating Underground Cable Faults: A Review and

Guideline for New Development


Md. Fakhrul Islam, Amanullah M T Oo, Salahuddin. A. Azad1
Power Engineering Group, Faculty of Sciences, Engineering and Health
Central Queensland University
North Rockhampton QLD 4702 Australia
1
Email: s.azad @cqu.edu.au

Abstract—Occurrences of underground cable faults in the sophisticated equipment and to finally pinpoint the fault is a
power transmission and distribution system is unavoidable time consuming task. Therefore, design and construction of a
due to several reasons. Long outage of power supply can light weight portable machine would make the detection the
cause the power distributors and retailers heavy loss of cable faults and pinpointing the fault location task easier and
revenue and discomfort of the customers. Therefore, a faster for the field engineers.
quick detection and rectification of the faults is a major
This paper reviews the a number cable fault locating
concern of the power distributors and retailers. This paper
techniques which are in currently in practice and a number of
reviews a number of high voltage cable fault locating
state-of-the-art techniques based on highly computational
techniques that are currently in practice and a number of
methods proposed by the research community. The paper also
state-of-the-art techniques based on highly computational
presents some guideline for the design process of a compact
methods proposed by the research community. The paper
and lightweight high voltage fault locating machines that can
also presents some guideline for the design process of a
make the fault locating task easier and faster.
compact and lightweight high voltage fault locating
machines that can make the fault locating task easier and II. TYPES OF FAULT DETECTION
faster.
The faults occurring in the power lines and cables can be
Keywords - power cable; fault detection; time domain classified into four main categories - short circuit to another
reflectometry; conductor in the cable, short circuit to earth, high resistance to
earth and open circuit. Not all approaches work best for each
I. INTRODUCTION type of fault. Four methods that are mostly used in detecting
Detecting cable and overhead line fault and pinpointing the fault location are described as follows.
location of fault is a specialized area of electrical technology.
• A-Frame
The performance of efficient fault location greatly depends on
engineering skills and knowledge. Power distributors always • Thumper
deploy highly skilled engineers and available sophisticated
machines for the fault locating task. • Time Domain Reflectometer (TDR)

There are a number of fault locating methods currently in • Bridge methods


practice; each method has its merits and demerits. There is no A persistent short circuit to earth fault can be most easily
single method or combination of methods which can be located using A-Frame method. For high resistance to earth
considered the best among all the methods [1-4]. However, faults, A-Frame method is not always sufficient. In this case,
instruments with new technologies exhibiting superior thumper method needs to be used to reduce the fault
performance are always a requirement of the users. The power resistance. Thumper method alone may be sufficient for fault
distribution networks in urban area are normally goes through location; but when applied for a longer duration, it may
underground cables due to population density, housing, damage the cable insulation. A-Frame is not useful for
commercial installations and some other reasons. Although the locating faults which do not have an earth connection. Time
power distribution network has facilities to back feed through Domain Reflectometer (TDR) is suitable for determining the
alternate sources, the possibility of back feed is minimized as locations of most of the faults.
long as the faulty cables are not rectified. Hence, a quick fault
location and rectification is always the top priority for the A. A-Frame Method
power distributors. The cable fault locating equipment In A-Frame method, a pulsed direct current (DC) is injected
currently being used is comparatively heavy. Moreover, in into the faulty cable and earth terminal to locate the ground
many cases, one method is not enough and accurate fault fault. The DC pulse will flow through the conductor and return
detection may require more than one method to be put via earth from the earth fault location back to the ground stake
together. Nevertheless, organizing multiple tests with as shown in Figure 1. The flow of pulsed DC through the
ground will produce a small DC voltage. A sensitive voltmeter However, the thumper methods have been improved over the
is used to measure the magnitude and direction of the DC time for greater accuracy, simple use and analysis.
voltage in segments of the earth along the cable route. Advancements has been made with better listening devices
Analyzing the results of the measuring voltage along the route, like mechanical microphone, or geophone that is placed
the location of the fault location in the cable can be directly on the ground over the cable and they minimize the
pinpointed. A-Frame is an accurate method but it is not the external noise in order to make the thump easier to hear.
fastest one, since the operator has to walk along the length of
the cable from the transmitter to the ground fault. This method
may face a problem if the return DC finds some easier path
back to the earth stake of transmitter instead of returning
through the ground. If the ground is sandy, paved which
provides high resistance and consequently, less current flows
through the ground. In that case, the voltmeter fails to
measures the voltage and fault detection becomes
complicated.

Figure 3: Functional block diagram of a TDR [13].

C. Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR)


In the Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) method, a low-
energy signal is sent through the cable where the perfect cable
with uniform characteristic impedance returns the signal
within a known time and with a known profile. This time and
profile of the signal is altered once the cable has impedance
variation due to any fault. The impedance variation causes a
portion of the signal reflected back to the source. The reflected
Figure 1: An A-Frame method of finding cable fault location [4].
signal fortifies the original signal when there is an increase in
characteristic impedance at the fault location, while it opposes
B. Thumpers Method the original signal when there is a decrease in characteristic
Thumper is basically a high voltage surge generator which is impedance. Graphical representation on the Time Domain
used to apply a reasonable high voltage to the faulty core of an Reflectometry (TDR) screen gives the user the distance to the
underground cable to generate a high current-arc resulting in a fault in time units. The actual distance can be calculated by
loud noise to hear above the ground. This method requires multiplying the time by the signal velocity. The functional
very high current thump at voltages as high as 25kV to make block diagram of a TDR is given in Figure 3.
underground noise loud enough to be heard from above the
ground. The Thumper method of finding fault location is
shown in Figure 2. Like A-Frame, the Thumper method
requires an operator needs to walk along the path of the cable
and listen for the sounds from above the ground.
Different ground conditions, nearby traffic and noises may
make this sound hard to listen to make a clear distinction.

Figure 4: An example of integrated thumper and TDR method [6].

Therefore, the low voltage TDR and the thumper methods can
be integrated to a single system where a low voltage TDR
pulse is taken of the cable under test and stored in a display
memory. Then the thumper can be used to send a high voltage
pulse for burning the faulty point. While the arc is burning at
Figure 2: A Thumper method of detection cable fault location [5]. the faulty point, the TDR can be used to send the same low
voltage pulse and new pulse will be superimposed upon the from the other known resistor values using the following
first trace. The arc is a low impedance point that results in the equation.
TDR pulse to reflect as it would with a short circuit.
. (1)
Figure 4 shows an example of the test with two traces of the
signals one on the top of another. In the figure, the dashed Figure 7 shows a Murray bridge loop for cable fault location.
cursor represents the launching point and solid cursor shows Besides the faulty conductor, one healthy conductor is
the faulty point. From these two cursors, the machine can required as connected to terminal T1 in the measuring circuit.
directly calculate the distance of the fault. This integrated External loop wires in the circuit, connecting the resistances at
Thumper and TDR method reduces the major insulation the front and the conductors at the cable end, should have
damage of the cable but does not discard the risk. close to zero resistance.
TDR method is useful for open circuit fault detection. Figure 4
shows a clear picture how the TDR method would response in
case of open circuit conductor. Again if it has a low series
resistance at the fault the problem will be similar as high
resistance earth fault.

Figure 7: Murray bridge loop for cable fault location.

In Murray Bridge loop, for the balance condition of the


galvanometer the equations for calculating the conductor
resistances to the fault location are given below.

, (2)

Figure 5: Open circuit fault detection using TDR. , (3)

where .
D. Bridge Method
Fault distances can be calculated from the resistor values using
Bridge methods used for locating faults in underground cables
the conductor resistance per unit length of cable.
are based on modified Wheatstone circuit where direct current
is used to measure the resistance in order to calculate distance Glaser measuring circuit for cable fault location is shown in
of the fault in percentage of the total line length. Murray and Figure 8. In this measurement circuit, two healthy conductors
Glaser bridges [7] use the use similar principles for calculating (L1 and L2) of the cable with same diameter and material are
the distance of the fault. Brief descriptions of these bridges are required beside the faulty conductor (L3) as shown in Figure 7.
given as follows.

R1 R2

I1 I2

V D B
G
Ix I3
Figure 8: Glaser measuring circuit.
Rx R3

For the balanced condition of the circuit, the formulae for


C finding the cable fault distance is given below.
Figure 6: Wheatstone bridge circuit.
, (4)
Figure 6 shows the Wheatstone bridge circuit where R1, R2, R3,
are the known resistors and Rx is an unknown resistor. When where lx is the distance of the fault from measuring end, α is
the galvanometer represented by the circle in the figure shows the resistance up to the supply connection and lo is the length
zero current flow, the unknown resistor Rx value can be found of the cable.
The accuracy of these bridge methods depends on bridge heavier and would locate the cable faults with minimal risk of
current, loop resistance of the cable loop, matching of the insulation damage.
galvanometer internal impedance and bridge resistance,
sensitivity of the galvanometer, linearity of measuring V. REQUIREMENT OF PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATIONS
potentiometer. However, application of Murray Bridge There are different types of high voltage cables as per their
method may not work correctly, especially when the end insulation, voltage resistivity, and potential separation of
terminal of the cable line is connected to a Gas Insulated conductors from each other and from the metallic outer lead
Switchgear (GIS) [3]. Finally, these two bridge methods have sheath or armor. Some of the examples are Mass Impregnated
limitations such as minimum required healthy cores may not Paper (PILC), Polyvinylchloride (PVC), Cross Linked
be available, cable diameters may not be uniform all over the Polyethylene (XLPE), Ethylene Propylene Rubber (EPR),
length due to joints or cables may be different in different paper with oil and gas [7, 12]. While there are some other
sections of the line. cables with various types of insulation materials, the
abovementioned cables are most commonly used.
III. FEW PROPOSED FAULT LOCATING TECHNOLOGY
When a dc high voltage pulse is sent through any of these
Current research on developing the fault locating techniques
cables mentioned above, it incurs some capacitive charging
shows a number of proposals which yet to be tested for
current, insulation absorption current, insulation leakage
practice in the field.
current, and current at the fault to some degree. These currents
R. Salat, et al. [8] proposed a fault location method using need to be analyzed for different type of cables to determine
vector machine Approach. Frequency characteristics of the the minimum current required capacity for the injecting
one-terminal voltage and current transients’ signals of the machine to make this fault detection method work reliably.
system are used in this method. In extensive numerical Since the machine needs to be small in size for portability
experiments, this method is found to have errors in the range reason, this investigation is essential and needs to be carried
of 0.05% to 1% of the line length. out precisely.
R. H. Salim, et al., [9] proposed an extended impedance based A short pulse of energy transmitted of through a cable will be
fault location formula for generalized distributions system. reflected from the fault location or open circuit having a shift
This method uses local voltage and currents as input data. But of the waveform and containing random noise. Detection of a
the formulation needs to solve a good number of equations for known wave form from the noisy signal is a challenging task.
all types of faults for determining the distances. Thorough investigation is required to find the correct
autocorrelation approach to correlate the noisy signals with the
F. H. Magnago, et al., [10] uses wavelet transform for
transmitted signal. Moreover, it is important to study the effect
analysing power fault system fault transients to find out the
of non-fundamental frequency components of the dc pulse on
fault location. A simulation results shows that the proposed
different types of healthy cables and their contribution to noisy
method can be used for both the cases of single ended and
signals.
synchronized two ended recording of the fault transients.
The design and building of the high voltage pulsar involves
T. Takagi, et al., [11] proposed a fault locating algorithm
component selection and their operational analysis such as
based on the Fourier analysis of faulty network. In this
capacitive storage, electrical and magnetic energy storage,
algorithm fault location can be determine with the locally
switch types, circuit design, and measurement test. Similarly,
available data set. They tested the proposed algorithm using
receiver design requires the investigation of the followings:
the experimental facilities of the laboratory scale power
system. • Receiver sensitivity i.e. minimum required input
signal (Smin)
These fault locating methods describe in this sections are
mostly computational. The authors of this paper found no • Transmitter and receiver integration
evidence that they are in use in practical field to pinpoint the
cable faults. However, these methods are mostly suitable for • Circuit complexity, protection and performance
comparing the performances of distant/impedance based • Misalignment tolerance i.e. acceptable influence of
operating relays for their operational accuracy. machine capability
IV. PURPOSE OF THIS EXPOSURE • Package architecture and design
The main purpose of this paper is to design a simple • Assembly challenges
lightweight instrument to inject high voltage pulse to a cable
via a hot stick and to monitor the reflected signal using a high • Safety considerations
speed receiver to calculate the distance to the fault. It is an
These are the basic considerations for building up a
improved technique where high voltage dc pulse will be used
lightweight fault locating equipment to be used by field the
to simplify the operation and make the machine compact and
technician.
ease to use. This new instrument would replace the integrated
method of TDR and thumper which makes the instrument
VI. CONCLSUIONS [13] Time Domain Reflectometry Theory, Application Note 1304-2,
Agilent Technologies.
This paper explains the importance of locating faults in the
distribution network and reviews some of the cable fault
locating methods that are mostly used in practical field. Some
state-of-the-art proposals have been studied that can be useful
for future development. The paper also expresses the intention
of the authors to develop a small size machine that would be
portable and convenient for faster cable fault location
detection. To facilitate the development, the preliminary
investigation requirements and the essential segments to be
verified are presented in this paper.
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