Cable Colloquium I

Transcripts
Sponsored by the
Doble Client Committee on Cables and Accessories

Doble Client Fall Committee Meetings

Seattle, Washington,
September 16,1991

DOBLE ENGINEERING CO. PO. Box 9107, Watertown, MA 02272-9107

Transcripts

CABLE COLLOQUIUM

These are the edited transcripts of a Cable Colloquium focussing on solid polymeric insulated cable systems,
which was conducted at the Doble Client Fall Committee Meetings, in Seattle Washington, on September 16,
1991. This tutorial was sponsored by the Di '-le Client Committee on Cables and Accessories.

The information presented at this tutorial and reproduced in part in these transcripts, is based on the experi-
ence and knowledge of the presenters, and does not reflect the position and viewpoint of any affiliated organi-
zation, the Doble Client Committees or the Doble Engineering Company.

The Doble Client Committee on Cable and Accessories and the Doble Engineering Company wish to acknowl-
edge the participation of the presenters and those in attendance which provided discussion and questions.

The presenters were:

Doug Reith, Alcatel Canada Wire, Inc.
John Densley, Ontario Hydro
Harry Orton, Powertech Labs, Inc.

Cable Colloquium Page 1

Transcripts

REVIEW OF THE DESIGN AND MATERIALS UTILIZED FOR

POLYETHYLENE CABLE

Doug Reith, Alcatel Canada Wire, Inc.

I would like to talk a little about the construction of polyethylene cable and what we as a manufacturer do to
try to eliminate material and manufacturing defects from the start, so that we might prolong the service life of
the cable.

The causes of most premature failures are imperfections in the conductor shield and the insulation interface.
Such imperfections are voids in the insulation, moisture or other contaminants in the insulation and imperfec-
tions in the other shield interface, at the insulation-insulation shield interface. There are three ways to get
around problems in these areas. One is in the cable design itself. The second is in material selection. The last
is manufacturing processes.

Some of the things we can do, not only as manufacturers but as users, to improve the cable design and
therefore cut down on treeing, is to increase the conductor size of the cable. That is somewhat practical, but
may not be economical. The increased conductor size does two things. It cuts down on the operating temper-
ature of the cable and with a bigger conductor size the stress on the conductor shield surface is also lower.

Another way to cut down the stress in the insulation is to increase the insulation thickness. That is a fairly
common practice with utilities. At the 15 kV voltage class, you use 133-percent insulation thickness rather
than 175, 220, or 250 mils.

A more recent innovation is to prevent water from get..ng into the cable and in this case preventing water from
getting into the strand which develops trees in the insulation down near the conductor-shield surface. I will
talk about strand filling a little later when we get into the manufacturing.

A jacketed cable provides mechanical protection to the cable itself. It inhibits concentric neutral wire corro-
sion and retards the diffusion of moisture into the insulation. Moisture can get into the insulation two ways.
One way is through the jacket and insulation system or it can get into the conductor and radially out through
the conductor shield and into the insulation that way.

Moisture in the insulation causes treeing. The more moisture, the higher the rate of treeing. The last cable
design aspect is a moisture barrier. A moisture barrier is a metallic barrier that prevents the radial ingress of
moisture through the insulation from the outside. I guess paper-lead cable is a good example of a moisture
barrier system. Some utilities and manufacturers are looking at putting a moisture barrier on a cross-link
insulated cable to prevent the ingress of moisture from the outside.

Page 2 Cable Colloquium

 REGULAR
(37 WIRE)

COMPRESSED
(37 WIRE)

COMPACT
(35-37 WIRE)

SOLID

Common Types of Class B 500 MCM Stranded Conductors

Figure 1

I would like to point out a few of the different types of the most common conductor. One is the old regular
stranded with a series of wires laid in layers over a center wire, with all the wires being the same size.

The next innovation in conductor design, introduced a few years ago, is compressed conductor, where only
the outside layer of strands were smoothed offby putting it through a die. That is the most common way. This
prevented "falling" of the conductor shield down into the conductor. It provided a smoother surface on the
conductor to begin with, especially in high-voltage cables.

The next innovation was the truly compact conductor where as each layer is twisted onto the conductor it is
drawn through a die. The conductor is squashed and all the air spaces or interstices between the strand are

Cable Colloquium Page 3

Transcripts

eliminated. The conductor is quite a bit smaller than the regular. The advantage of compact is its stiffness.
The best moisture barrier and the best strand-filled conductor is a solid conductor; however, it becomes
impractical at and above 500 MCM.

In the United States, more utilities use compressed conductors. In Canada, more utilities use compact. You
still need to strand fill or block the water in a compact or a compressed conductor. It retards the develop-
ment, and propagation of electro-mechanical trees inside the insulation. There are a couple of working
groups in ICEA that are working on moisture penetration tests. If you fill a conductor with a water sealant,
you want to make sure it is doing its job. There is also a committee working on the compatibility of the
material we put in there with the conductor-shield on the outside. You do not want that strand fill to affect the
resistivity or the physical dimensions of the conductor shield on top of it.

Based on 25 of the largest investor-owned utilities, 35% now specify strand-filled cable. The increase is
roughly 5 to 10% depending on conductor size.

In the material selection area, there is a lot of work going on with suppliers of compound for conductor and
insulation shields as well as insulation material. The work is aimed at improving the cleanliness, and tree
retardency of insulation material they supply to us, so we can pass it on to the user in a good cable design.

One of the major causes of treeing in cables is contaminants in the insulation. Over the years AEIC has
gradually brought down the size and number of contaminants allowed. In the 1987 specification, which is out
at the moment, contaminants in the insulation are limited to 15 per cubic inch and less than 5 mils in size.

Compound suppliers now provide extra-clean compound as a matter of course. In the old days you had to
order extra-clean or transmission-grade type of insulation materials separately. They would be distinct from
other medium-voltage cable insulations. Now it is a matter of course.

Tree-retardant cross-link insulation is growing as well. In the United States in particular we have seen it. The 3
increase in cost is about 5 to 10%. The present tree-retardant insulation material is a material that has a
chemical additive in it. The additive retards the growth rate of trees, but it does not necessarily retard the
number of them. In a given specific period of time under certain operating conditions, this material will have
smaller trees than the old regular cross-link.

The only obvious indication of a tree retardant insulation you can see is the change in color. The normal
cross-link insulation is sort of a milky-white or gray material. A yellowish or greenish color is common in
materials containing the chemical additive.

There is a new generation of tree retardant materials coming out now that will be even more tree retardant
than the present ones. The newer materials will not use chemical additives, but will be improved by actual
changes in the polymer of the cross-linked polyethylene.

A few years ago Canada Wire worked on a project for CEA, the Canadian Electrical Association. This project
examined the aging and breakdown levels of cross-linked polyethylene, non tree retardant and EPR. We
found that cross-linked polyethylene and EPR were both the same. I think the tree retardant cable is in some
ways better than EPR for tree retardance and for life. These new generation tree retardants will be even
better.

Page 4 Cable Colloquium

 Transcripts

SOLID STRANDED

Less flexible More flexible

Prevents water penetration
More vulnerable to nicking
More susceptible to insulation
shrinkback
Harder to work with
Allows water penetration
Less vulnerable to nicking
Less susceptible to insulation
shrinkback
Easier to work with

Comparison of Solid Versus Stranded Conductor

Figure 2

Previously, I mentioned different types of conductors. Figure 2 shows cross-sections of solid stranded con-
ductors. One of the disadvantages of compact and even solid conductors is their flexibility. One of the
drawbacks of cross-linked polyethylene has been the stiffness of it in a distribution cable. One of the side
benefits of the new second generation tree-retardant cross-linked polyethylene is that the cables themselves
will become more flexible because there is a change in the polymer structure of the polyethylene.

Later on when I talk about the encapsulating jacket on cables, I will mention that one of the drawbacks of
encapsulating jackets is stiffness. We hope the new tree retardant cross-link cables, with their inherent
greater flexibility and new materials being developed for encapsulating jackets will combine to make the cable
as flexible as they were a few years ago. The new tree retardant cross-links should be an advantage in
flexibility.

C I would like to spend a few minutes on the terminology of cable. I showed you before a slide on compact
conductors so you would know what that is. The' conductor shield is extruded right on top of the conductor. It
is a semiconducting material. Semiconducting means it is not a very good conductor or insulator. It is loaded
with carbon black which makes it a fairly low volume-resistivity material.

It is not semiconducting in the way of a semiconductor transistor. It conducts both ways, not just one way. It is
there to smooth out the surface of the conductor.

If the outside surface is bumpy and you have a very high voltage on the conductor it would electrically look as
if it were trying to ionize. It would ionize. It would try to break down the insulation from the high stress points
on the conductor surface. The conductor shield is there to equalize that potential a little and cut down those
high stress points. The insulation is there to isolate the conductor from the ground. The insulation shield is a
semiconducting material as well. It is a little different than the conductor shield material in that in medium and
low voltage cables, the semiconducting insulation shield is a bit incompatible with the insulation.

After we extrude on and vulcanize it and it gets in the field, you can strip it off. With a conductor-shield, it is
vulcanized right to the insulation.

Chemically, the semiconducting insulation shield is a little different than the conductor shield and the insula-
tion.

Cable Colloquium Page 5

Transcripts

r COMPACT COPPER CONDUCTOR

, / SEMI-CONDUCTING CROSS-LINKED
/-POLYETHYLENE CONDUCTOR SHIELD

TREE-RETARDANT CROSS-LINKED
PULYETHYLENE INSULATION
SEMI-CONDUCTING
,CROSS-LINKED POLYETHYLENE
INSULATION SHIELD.

BARE COPPER TAPE SHIELD

Shielded Power Cable Design

Figure 3
Figure 3 is an example of a shielded power cable. The metallic portion of the insulation shield is a bare copper
tape. This type of construction is used quite often by utilities for large feeders coming out of substations. It is
also used by industrial customers where they do not ,have to carry the neutral.

/--COMPACT SBC CONDUCTOR

SEMI-COND.CROSS-LINKED POLYETHYLENE
CONDUCTOR SHIELD

CROSS-LINKED POLYETHYLENE INSULATION

- POLYETHYLENE
SEMI-COND.CR0SS-LINKED
INSULATION SHIELD
8

SOFT BARE COPPER CONCENTRIC NEUTRAL

-SEPARATOR TAPE

-PVC JACKET

Concentric Neutral Cable Design - Overlaying Type Jacket

Figure 4

Page 6 Cable Colloquium

 Transcripts

Figure 4 is an example of a concentric-neutral cable. A series of wires are wrapped around the cable and
C serve as the neutral of the distribution system. On top of the concentric neutral there used to be a separator
tape. That separator tape was there to separate the concentric neutral or the underlying layers from the
overall PVC jacket. This was a traditional way to make a concentric neutral cable.

More recently, concentric neutral cables have changed a little in that we have eliminated the Mylar separator
tape over the top of the concentric, and we have extruded the polyethylene down into the spaces between the
concentric wires.

When we fill the spaces between the concentric wires, it helps prevent longitudinal migration of water down
between the concentric wires if the overall jacket is damaged.

An overall encapsulating polyethylene jack-et helps to get around this particular problem by filling up those
spaces and helping to prevent longitudinal migration. Eventually, even with a polyethylene jacket, if the
conditions are right, the insulation will become saturated and treeing will occur. If it is a tree retardant
cross-link, it will slow that treeing down.

The first statement is true for a jacket regardless of whether it is an encapsulating jacket or an overall type.
The jacket provides mechanical protection during installation. It inhibits the concentric neutral air corrosion
and retards moisture diffusion into the insulation. The encapsulating jacket is especially good in that respect.
Because the polyethylene has such a low moisture diffusion rate compared to PVC, it is much better at retard-
ing moisture.

Eventually, that insulation will become saturated and it will tree. Polyethylene will slow that down. Based on
25 of the largest investor owned utilities here in the states, 87% specify jackets. In general, polyethylene is
more resistant to moisture than PVC.

One of the problems with encapsulating jackets is that the material goes down and comes in contact with a
semi-conductive insulation shield underneath. You have to be careful with the materials you choose so you
that can strip the jacket off. There are a couple of utilities in the states that specify a semiconducting encapsu-
lating jacket. Some of the materials we used were very likely to adhere to the underlying semi-conductive
insulation shield. We used to put a layer of talc on the surface of the semi-conductive insulation shield to help
prevent that adhesion. Now there are better materials that prevent that sticking.

MOISTURE VAPOR (2)

BASE RESIN TRANSMISSION
COMPOUND DENSITY (GICC) (G. IN.lDAY1SQ.M)
LDPE 0.920 1.16
LLDPE 0.920 0.74
MDPE 0.930 0.51
HDPE 0.941 0.58
HDPE 0.948 0.32
PVC (1) 10.0
(1) PVC (90°C rating - 90 Durometer Phthalate plasticized)
(2) Moisture vapor transmission according to ASTM E 96-80 Spec.
at 100°F and 90% R. H.

Moisture Vapor Transmission of Cable Compounds

Figure 5

Cable Colloquium Page 7

Transcripts

Figure 5 lists the densities and moisture vapor transmission rate for various cable insulation compounds. As
you go up in the density of polyethylene, you get a tougher cable. You get a cable that is more resistant to
moisture transmission through the jacket, but also gets much stiffer. The tradition in the United States is that
most utilities use linear low or low density polyethylene. We have a couple of utilities in Canada that use a
medium-density material. One drawback is stiffness, not only in nice weather, but in cold weather. Most of
the time they have to use a tool to strip the jacket.

If you use low density or linear-low density, you can most likely just use one of the concentric neutral wires as
a rip-cord. There is good new and bad news. You can go up in density and improve the toughness and reduce
moisture-vapor transmission rate, but you make the cable much stiffer.

Another aspect of stiffness that could be trouble and could even be a safety problem is when you are trying to
operate a load-break elbow.

I was asked to give you some idea of what to look for in cable testing. Good cable is pretty hard to breakdown.
You cannot just put it on a test and do one simple test to determine that cable A is better than cable B. There
are some finished cable tests such as those prescribed by AEIC, that can tell you that.

Not only testing, but manufacturing, can determine whether one cable is better than the other. AEIC is the
Association of Edison Illuminating Companies. They have limits on the size and number of contaminants in
the insulation. They tell you how to test cable. They tell you how to qualify cable. One of the manufacturing
improvements that we have done in the last few years to improve quality is to use triple extrusion.

When we talk about triple extrusion, we mean the extrusion of the conductor shield, the insulation, and the
insulation shield in one process. The real old way to make cables, was to put a taped butyl-nylon semicon-
ducting tape down on the conductor and then extrude the insulation. Then in a separate operation either tape
on or extrude on a semi-conductive insulation shield. It was all done in an open atmosphere. The plant had
no control over dust or mechanical damage to the surfaces of the materials between the processes. If you did
that today, you would not even get near passing AEIC requirements.

What we mean by triple extrusion is to extrude these three layers in one continuous operation, so that you
improve the interface between the material. You eliminate mechanical damage or dust or contaminants of
any sort between those interfaces. You get a good partial discharge reading when you start off.

There are several ways to do this. We have one new machine at Canada Wire that does true triple where all
three layers are put on in one continuous head. Another operation is where we extrude the conductor shield
on and then about three feet later we have two separate extruding systems that extrude on the insulation and
the insulation shield. This is a much better process than the old days.

By doing triple extrusion, we limit the protrusions on the conductor shield surface and on the insulation shield
surface. AEIC limits the protrusions on the conductor shield to 10 mils into the conductor shield. In other
words, 10 mils down into the conductor and 5 mils up. Likewise on the insulation shield, it limits the protru-
sions to 10 mils into the insulation and 10 mils up.

If you limit those protrusions and the surface roughness, then there is less chance of high stress and less
chance of treeing starting there.

Another area where manufacturers have changed their process over the years is in the way we cure the cable.
Curing means cross-linking; changing the insulation from a polyethylene to a cross-linked polyethylene.
Most power cable manufacturers do that with a heat process. There is a peroxide in the insulation which,
when it is activated by heat, chemically cross-links or links the molecules of polyethylene together and
changes it from a thermoplastic to a thermoset. It changes it from polyethylene to cross-linked polyethylene.

Page 8 Cable Colloquium

 Transcripts

The way we do that is to activate that chemical reaction by heat. The old way to do it was to supply the heat
with pressurized steam. By changing to a dry-curing system, we have cut down the number and size of voids in
the insulation, which our friends at AEIC have regulated now. We have reduced the moisture content so that
when the utilities get the cable, there is less moisture in there to begin with.

By reducing the size and number of voids in the insulation, we have reduced the capability of the insulation to
absorb moisture. We dried out some steam-cured cable completely, then we allowed it to absorb the maxi-
mum amount of moisture it could. That brought the moisture content from about 270 to 5000 ppm. In the
case of dry-cured cable, we did the same thing and the moisture absorbed was an order of magnitude lower.
So dry curing reduces the size and number of voids and reduces the moisture content.

Because the initial moisture content is lower for dry-cured cable, the initial room temperature ac breakdown
strength and the initial impulse breakdown strength is quite a bit higher than for steam-cured cable.

I would like to discuss contaminants in the insulation. AEIC controls the size and number of contaminants in
the insulation. The most common way to do that is have pallet inspection systems and order bulk-delivered
compound from the supplier.

We did not have that luxury and we chose a different route. The industry is going to cleaner material. We
chose a route where we receive and handle the compounds in a completely clean environment. The insulation
is handled in a Class 10,000 room which means there are no more than 10,000 particles of half a micron in
size in a cubic foot of air.

A hospital operating room is about Class 100,000. The normal office atmosphere is about Class 300,000.

Contaminants are one of the worst offenders in promoting tree growth in the insulation. Anything you can do

C to cut down in the number of contaminants in the insulation is a benefit.

One way to insure a better quality cable is to insist on AEIC qualification production testing. It is fine for us to
qualify every time we change the material or process, but you have to be confident of the day-to-day produc-
tion. As far as I am concerned, AEIC helps insure that in the level and severity of the production tests they
have.

Regular production tests have to be of a high enough voltage to ensure that the manufacturer is consistent in
quality. Even more important is the level to which AEIC goes for partial discharge or corona testing. CSA,
the Canadian Standards Association, ICEA, and UL, all just specify partial discharge extinction voltage. I
think for 15 kV, it is probably 13 kV.

AEIC takes the cable up to four times phase-to-ground operating voltage and shows you that, for example, at
phase-to-ground operating voltage no more than 5 picocoulombs at 8.5 kV in the case of 15 kV cable.
Likewise, all the way up to four-times phase-to-ground operating voltage which is 35 kV, you can have no
more than 10 picocoulombs partial discharge.

I understand that the next revision of AEIC is going to be five times straight across the board right up to four
times operating voltage.

As a user if I were looking for five quick checks in cable, I'd look for AEIC testing, clean environment, tree
retardant insulation, triple extrusion, and dry-curing. This would ensure you are getting a consistently good
cable from day to day.

Cable Colloquium Page 9

Transcripts

Question: From a manufacturer's point of view, is there a great deal of difference in cost from steam-
curing to dry-curing?

Doug Reith

There was no difference when we did it. There should not be any. One of the advantages for us is that we can
run the cable faster.

Question: You said one thing you would recommend looking for is compliance with AEIC standards.
In Table D l and E l , these valves a r e extremely conservative. The five-minute withstand on
a 15 kV cable is only 35 kV. A brand new cable could easily withstand five times that. These
levels a r e almost meaningless. Who was on the committee that produced these standards?

Doug Reith

Mostly utilities. The did allow some manufacturers to go on with the 1987 revision. There is a lot of thinking
now that over stressing the cable to begin with during production testing also shortens its life because it starts
treeing from any imperfections that are there. In fact, some utilities now do not do a dc high potential test as a
regular maintenance test. They have gone away from it because every time you over stress the insulation, you
shorten the life of the cable.

That is one question AEIC is wrestling with as well as the question, is the accelerated aging test they use during
qualification really representative of what happens in the field. It is hard to start damaging the cable.

There has to be a happy medium not only in the production testing, but in the qualification testing that
indicates you are not over stressing the cable and yet you are simulating real life on the cable as far as aging is
concerned.

Comment: If I understand it, I think one of the reasons the voltage levels were chosen by AEIC is
because of the operating voltage and not necessarily how strong the cable really turned out
to be.

I think you are trying to determine large disparities in the cable insulation. You are not trying to evaluate its
strength as we would normally do.

Doug Reith

In the next revision, AEIC are going to insist on periodic sample tests where you do take a chunk of cable, age
it, do ac breakdown test on it, and you will have to do it on a yearly or footage basis of cable produced. You
can still check to make sure you are making quality cable, but you are not inducing any damage in any you will
give to a customer.

Page 10 Cable Colloquium

Transcripts

THE DETERIORATION OF EXTRUDED CABLE INSULATION DUE TO

WATER AND ELECTRICAL TREES

John Densley, Ontario Hydro

Mr. Reith mentioned treeing. I think I will be successful if I just leave you with the idea that there are two
different types of treeing. There is electrical trees and water trees. I will try to explain what the two different
types are, and point out what the difference is and how they contribute to insulation deterioration.

We have three main types of electrical aging. 1 am confining myself to distribution-type cables, but the same
thing does occur in transmission-class cable. It is being restricted to extruded dielectrics. The three types are
partial discharges, which 1 will not discuss, electrical trees and water trees.

What causes these trees to grow are the stresses that the insulation sees. The stresses that the insulation is
subjected to will effectively influence cable deterioration, and production and growth of water and electrical
trees. We have electrical voltage stress whether it is ac, dc, or impulse. Thermal stresses, which encompass the
actual temperature, temperature gradient and temperature cycling. Mechanical stress is a factor. By bending
the cable you can affect its electrical performance. Therefore, compression, shear and vibration tension must
be considered. There is also environmental stresses such as oxygen, moisture, and chemicals, etc.

Cross-Section of Cable Showing Various Manufacturing Defects

Figure 6
Cavity at shield
Cavities due to schrinkage or gas-formation in insulation
Defects in the insulation shield
Loosely bound solid particles
Protrusions
Splinters
Fibers
Contaminants in the insulation/shield

Cable Colloquium Page 11

Transcripts

What do the stresses we apply to the insulation do to the insulation? If the insulation were perfect and there
were no protrusions, the answer would be not much. Because we live in an imperfect world, we cannot make
cables that are perfect. The result is we have various imperfections and contaminants that will be contained in
the insulation or in the insulation shield. Figure 6 is a representation of possible cable manufacturing defects.

We have discarded the concentric neutral on the jacket. We are just concerning ourselves with the insulation
shield, the insulation, and the conductor shield. We have cavities of the shield, cavities due to shrinkage or
gas formation in the bulk of the insulation, and defects in the insulation shield. You can have indentations or
you can actually have protrusions in the conductor shield. You have loosely bound solid particles so you can
have a contaminant. The contaminants are the real bad actors when you are looking at deterioration due to
water trees.

It is double-trouble when there is a gaseous inclusion around the void which can cause partial discharges,
electrical trees and water trees. We also have contaminants in the insulation shield, or it could be in the
conductor shield or in the insulation itself. You can even have water trees growing from the contaminants that
are within the shield. They might not affect things electrically but they do result in water trees.

Finally, we can have fibers in the insulation. They might come from the packaging material. They will also
give rise to both electrical trees and water trees.

What these things all have in common is that they tend to cause electrical stress concentrations. It is the
electric stress, or the absolute value locally, that is the main deteriorating factor.

We want to try to reduce any stress concentration, so we try to make the conductor smooth and get rid of
protrusions, fibers, and other contaminants.

Let's deal with water trees. Maybe I should preface my remarks by saying if you get ten experts, you will get
ten different opinions on water treeing. What I am saying is my own opinion. There is a lot of disagreement
among people working in this area. I have tried to include what others have found as well.

A water tree is a diffuse tree-like structure of water-filled micro-cavities. The trees themselves can be
anywhere from a fraction of 10 microns, anywhere up to a bridge in the whole insulation thickness of a 15 kV
cable. The density of these micro-cavities are of the order of 106 per cubic millimeter. When you deal with a
cubic millimeter, you are dealing with a pretty small volume. If you have one million of these little cavities in
there, what you have in a water treed region is a sponge.

There is a big question of whether there are channels interconnecting these micro-cavities. The size of the
micro-cavities range from the molecular size of the material we are dealing with all the way up to 10 microme-
ters in diameter.

They originate at either a cavity or contaminant or imperfection within the insulation. A water tree will always
be related to an imperfection, impurity, or a stress concentration. Within the insulation, they are called "bow
tie" trees. If it occurs at the interface between the insulation or any of the semiconductor material, then it is a
"vented" or "streamer" tree. In general, the vented or streamer trees are far more dangerous than the bow tie
trees. However, if the bow tie tree comes from a fairly big contaminant, then the bow tie trees can indeed get
quite large and can be dangerous.

In general, bow tie trees from cavities tend to reach a limit in length and do not usually serious degrade the
performance of the cable.

The water tree becomes invisible with the insulation is heated. If you actually have a cable that has failed and
you have water trees in it, you just let it sit on the bench for a couple of days and the water trees disappear. All
the electrical properties improve as well. Therefore, by treating the cables, you can rejuvenate them to a

Page 12 Cable Colloquium

 Transcripts

certain extent. You have to keep it treated. You cannot just do a one shot deal, dry them out and put them
C back in because when you immerse the insulation in water again, the trees reappear within a matter of hours.

To see them permanently; you die them. There are various dying techniques that are being standardized.

Voltage is required for water-trees to grow. If you have a cable that is de-energized in the ground, water will
slowly diffuse into the insulation, but it does not grow water trees. You have to have voltage on. Even if it is
lightly loaded, you will still grow water trees. If you have a spare circuit, it is better to leave it de-energized,
from the water treeing viewpoint.

Just to show that trees can grow from chemical contaminants and in relatively uniform electric fields, we
deliberately introduced some copper sulfate crystals into the semiconducting material and we had a relatively
uniform field. We subjected it to high-voltage stress. We take a section through the tree that is generated
and do some chemical analysis. We measure the x-rays that are emitted and it will tell us the characteristic of
the material that is in the sample. We look for the sulfur and copper from the copper sulfate. In the semicon-
ducting material we have high concentrations of both sulfur and copper because of the copper sulfate.

As you proceed out through the tree, you get an increase in concentrations of both copper and sulfur. It shows
that the contaminant itself is produced in the water tree and that the contaminants themselves are actually
migrating with the electric stress into the tree. The tree as well as containing water also now contains contami-
nants. I think it is these contaminants that over a long period of time chemically react with the polymer that
help to cause it to fail.

Also interesting to note, we have a sulfur peak in the semicon. It is an older type semicon and not as clean as
the new materials.

How do the stresses affect water treeing? The effects of electric stress, ac in frequency, decrease the inception
C time and increase the growth rate. There are various stages. We say that the time it takes for the first tree to
become visible is the inception time. As it grows we call that the growth rate. When it converts to the final
breakdown mechanism, then we have the final stage of breakdown.

Dc voltage has no effect on the growth of water trees or on the inception. When we come to the final
breakdown phase, we think it does have an effect. One has to be careful about dc testing on cables with water
trees.

Impulse testing has no effect except to initiate an electrical tree. The final breakdown mechanism is when the
water tree converts into an electrical tree. It is that conversion that then produces the failure. The cable will
fail within days of an electrical tree having initiated.

The impulse test does not do anything to make the water tree grow any faster. It just converts it, kicks it over
to an electrical tree and that can produce the final failure.

Temperature has little effect on vented tree growth, but it increases the growth of bow tie trees. This looks to
be a little contradictory. I have said that vented trees are more harmful than bow tie trees and temperature
has little effect, but it does have an effect on the life of the cable in that it decreases the time to breakdown if
your testing cables with water trees in the insulation. The reason for this is that the temperature has a signifi-
cant affect on this final breakdown mechanism.

If you look at the three stages; initiation, growth and final breakdown, temperature has little affect on the first
two, but has a significant affect on the last one.

Temperature cycling increases the availability of water, and that in turn increases the growth rate of bow tie
d trees. You pump water in when the insulation is warm. When it cools down, it condenses. You keep repeating
L that so the insulation reaches saturation level of water very quickly with temperature cycling.

Cable Colloquium Page 13

 Transcripts

Temperature gradient also enhances tree initiation by roughly the same sort of mechanism.

Tensile stress increases the initiation and growth rate. If you have a sharp bend in the cable and there is water
present, it is more likely that water trees will grow in the part of the insulation that has been strained in tension.
Radiation has no known effect.

hbisture and contaminants are necessary for water trees to grow. We must have them. The main accelerating
factors are electric stress and frequency. If you want to do accelerated aging tests, you do tests at high
frequency, although the relationship to extrapolate back from 1000 Hz to 60 Hz is not known. There are a lot
of arguments as to why people should do it. If you don't know the relationship between the two frequencies, it
is very difficult to calculate it from a 1000 Hz as to what will happen at 60 Hz. In the lab it shortens the test
time as an initial screening test. Moisture is necessary along with the ionic contaminants.

When we are doing any sort of testing, we must control the actual temperature of the specimen, the tempera-
ture gradient temperature cycling, the mechanical stress, as well as all the accelerating factors.

There has been a lot of study on the detection of water trees especially in Japan. The studies try to look at
cables in the ground and determine if there are trees in the cable and if so how bad they are.

The final question is how long is the cable going to last? From all the testing being done, and there is a whole
range, it is safe to say that there is not one that has been accepted. There are pros and cons for many of them.
In fact, it is difficult to really justify any of these tests at the present time. We do not have enough information
to correlate the results of any of these tests and the actual quality of the insulation.

Tan-delta measurements have been used. It is difficult to distinguish between just water in the insulation and
water trees. We know water itself is not good for the insulation, but the insulation will survive. It is the water
trees themselves that cause the damage and reduce the breakdown-strength of insulation down to almost the
operating level. That is one disadvantage of tan-delta measurement.

Dc leakage-current measurement is where you apply a low-voltage dc and just measure the leakage current as
a function of time. It is a difficult measurement to do even in the laboratory. When you get into the field, it is
ten times worse because you have to stop any surface leakage, or try to minimize it, because it has a great
effect on the results.

Ac leakage-current measurement is very popular in Japan. They even have developed instruments that work
on this principle. It does do something when the water tree is all the way through the insulation. Once that
tree is through the insulation, this test is sensitive to that. They use it only for the 6.6 kV cables where the
trees grow through the insulation fairly readily.

On a 15 kV cable it is not common to see trees all the way through the insulation. It is doubtful whether this
technique will be sensitive for 15 kV cable. There is some work going on both in Canada and elsewhere to
investigate this further.

Dc absorption-current and residual-voltage are interesting techniques in the lab. Trying to transfer them into
the field is very difficult because making such measurements is not easy because of surface leakage. You
energize the cable with dc for a certain length of time, remove the dc, short circuit so you get rid of the
capacitive current, and then you measure the current maybe 30 seconds after the short circuit. You will
measure the absorption current or you can leave it on open circuit and measure the residual voltage.

The amount of current or the actual value of the voltage is a measure of the deterioration. Again, it is very
hard to correlate it exactly with treeing and the remaining cable life.

Capacitance measurements are straight forward. Now, there is more attention being paid to low and high
frequency measurements; the tan-delta and the permeativity. This again is supposed to correlate well with

Page 14 Cable Colloquium

 Transcripts

water treeing. The problem is that you have two things; the number of water trees and the length of the trees.
The length of the trees tend to be more important than the number. If you have few water trees but they are
very long, then that is more dangerous than having a large number of small water trees. You would like these
measurements to be able to distinguish between that.
Question: What sort of frequency range a r e we talking about here?
John Densley
Down in the .001 Hz range. It's mostly a laboratory procedure at the present time, but water behaves strange-
ly at those sort of frequencies, all the way up to the Megahertz range for the high frequency test.
These measurements have been tried. I think most of them are at the laboratory stage and they have not been
able to correlate the results. We are looking for something that shows a difference. After we find a difference,
we will go back and try to correlate it.
In the laboratory you can be destructive. You can do dying and tan-delta which are nondestructive. With the
destructive techniques, ac breakdown-strength is probably the best. It is the most expensive to do, but
certainly a change in the ac breakdown strength of distribution cables is usually indicative of water trees. It is
still the best indicator. There is good correlation between the ac breakdown-strength and the tree lengths.
Mr. Reith touched a lot on the prevention of water trees. We strive to eliminate the contaminants. Low
cross-linked polyethylene cables have been around for almost 30 years. The cross-link that you are getting
today is vastly different. It is a vastly improved material from the point of view that the contaminant level is
greatly reduced. We recommend using clean material for both the insulation and the semicon. Voids are a
source of bow tie trees. Protrusions and stress enhancement will introduce trees, so you should use smooth
semicons. Today we get into the super smooth compounds. As a far as I am concerned, I would recommend
them. You want to reduce moisture ingress, so strong block material, PE jackets and moisture barriers may be
C used.
We know that water trees will fail and they generally fail by an electrical tree being initiated from a water tree.
Surges uc. 11ly initiate the electrical tree. Very often after a lightning storm, utilities will experience a failure
even up t~ d week later. The probable reason is that the surges that occurred during the lightning storm started
an electrical tree from the water tree and then subsequently the ac voltage causes the electrical tree to grow.
In that way you could get a failure hours to days after the storm is over. It is beneficial to improve surge
protection by using metal-oxide arresters and to shorten the exposed leads on apparatus and cables.
We have tree-retardant materials. There are several suppliers. The mechanisms of water treeing are not
known precisely so it is a game of chance as to whether some of the tree retardants work. If it improves the
resistance to water treeing, it actually decreases some other properties.
As I have said, contaminants are the main cause of water treeing. Tap water is very different from Seattle to
New York to anywhere else. You are actually using an unknown variable in your test. If you want consistent
results, you should try to control things as best you can. I strongly recommend a standard solution, whether it
be salt or whatever. Tap water even changes during the year. It can have a very significant effect.
With regard to the actual temperature of the specimen during the tests, CIGRE tends to use a lower operating
temperature. AEIC tends to use a higher temperature, 90°C. This can introduce some other type of mecha-
nism of degradation which might influence another form of degradation rather than water treeing. I would
tend to lower that temperature because very few cables in service ever see even 90°C, let alone 130°C, for any
length of time.
Looking at test stresses, at 5 kV tests tend to go for a much longer period of time. You can see that it ranges
from 5, which is 125 volts per mil, all the way up to 200 volts per mil. The test times go from 40 days. You are
dealing with fairly long time tests.

Cable Colloquium Page 15

Transcripts

If you want to get more realistic as to what is happening in service, you need to go to a longer term test,
especially for water treeing.

Diagnostics used are tree-length measurement and tree density. In other words, how long are the trees and
how many of them are there? Again, this is included in each specification except for the time to breakdown
tests where you take your 50% value. The problem with that is if you do any lifetime testing, you need to test
10 specimens. Roughly, the statistics are that the time it takes for the first sample failure to the tenth failure is
roughly ten times.

If you have the first failure after one year and you want to get all your data, you will sit there for ten years.
Your parts fail criteria just compares cables in terms of tree lengths and density. The AEIC test essentially says
if you are above 250 volts per mil then the cable is acceptable.

There is also a test for very short samples, where there is rapid thermal cycles of the water and cable. This
pushes water in at a faster rate and is supposed to produce trees that are more representative of what you find
in service.

One of the disadvantages of these tests is that the ratio of the length of the bow tie tree to the vented trees in
accelerated aging tests is not what you see in service. People argue that accelerated aging tests are not repre-
sentative of what happens in service.

Question: These test durations a r e very long. Has anyone done any tests with the cable samples pres-
surized to about 1000 psi in water? Could you reduce the time to hundreds of hours instead
of hundreds of days?

John Densley

I don't know of anyone who has done that. I think there is a certain amount of chemistry that goes on as part
of the mechanism. You cannot accelerate that very easily except by giving it a certain length of time and
increasing the temperature somewhat. People have tried low pressure. I cannot remember but I think it was
done in Holland. The data did not seem to show any great increase.

You have diffusion and mechanical forces acting and what you are doing in your test is increasing those
mechanical forces. It will depend on the property of the material. There are several mechanisms operating in
parallel. If you accelerate one more than the other, you might get misleading results. You might get a material
that shows very good data with such a test, but it might not mean that material is any better than any other in
service.

Question: The problem is that nobody wants to meet that length of time.

John Densley

That's right. I think with the new materials coming on the market, in five-years time water treeing will be a
thing of the past. I take that back. I think it will be a much smaller problem.

I would now like to discuss electrical treeing. It is a completely separate problem than water treeing. It occurs
under much different conditions. It occurs under dry conditions and usually from electrical stress enhance-
ment. Water treeing occurs when it is wet and if there are chemical contaminants without an electrical stress
enhancement. It is a tree-like structure of gas-filled channels from an electrical stress concentration.

When these gas-filled channels penetrate all the way through the insulation, those regions are obviously
weaker than the material, then you will get a failure. The breakdown of the gas can be detected as partial
discharges. We can detect electrical trees very easily by using conventional corona or partial discharge equip-

Page 16 Cable Colloquium

 Transcripts

ment. The channels tend to be permanent whereas in the water tree we do not have channels for a start but
C the voids will tend to disappear or collapse. What happens is that we have a water tree and from this bow-tie
tree we have electrical treeing which will complete the failure.

In the lab we can simulate electrical treeing by just inserting a needle into the insulation and applying voltage
stress to that needle.

The influencing factors of ac electric stress is a decrease in the time to initiate a tree and also increases the
growth rate. These are good accelerating factors. The local stress being used in Japan for cable design is 220
kV per millimeter to initiate electrical treeing. It is an enormous stress considering the operating stress is
roughly 2 kV per millimeter. The size of the defect becomes important.

Dc does not produce electrical trees except during polarity reversal. The big problem with dc testing of
polymer cables is it injects space charge into the insulation. It tends to reduce the severity of a stress concen-
tration. Once you remove that dc or if you change polarity, it will increase the stress. That charge you inject
does not come out right away. That is why I do not believe dc testing should be done on any polymeric.

The effects of thermal stresses on the development of electrical trees are significant. High temperature lowers
the inception voltages and increases the growth rate. It is an accelerating factor. Temperature cycling can
cause cavity formation.

Partial discharges are the best way to detect electrical trees. In the laboratory, we can measure the injected
current. This is a laboratory technique and cannot be readily developed for full-sized cables. We use the
light-emitted technique.

To prevent electrical trees, you need to eliminate the sources, the voids, protrusions, contaminants, and make

C the interfaces as smooth as possible. There are now additives oeing developed to retard electrical trees.
Removing the oxygen from the insulation is not a practical idea, but it certainly works. Minimize over-vol-
tages and avoid high temperature. Reduce mechanical and electrical stress. Avoid dc impulses. Impulses
increase the stress locally at the stress concentrations and can initiate electrical treeing.

WATER TREES ELECTRICAL TREES

Require water. Keep water out of No water.
conductor during storage.
Ei <I0 kV/mm Ei 2100 kV/mm
Voids 25 nm-10 Fm I$ channels? Channels <10 Frn I$ permanent.
Collapse when dried.
Stress concentration or chemical Stress concentration void.
contaminant void.
BDV increases when insulation dried. BDV always low.
Insulation doaes not fail when tree Failure when insulation bridged.
bridges electrodes.
No partial discharges Partial Discharges
No light emission Light emission.
Failure time <15 years Failure time - days

Differences Between Water Trees and Electrical Trees

Figure 7

Cable Colloquium Page 17

Transcripts

What are the differences between water trees and electrical trees? Figure 7 is a comparison of both types of
trees.

For water trees, we require water. We must keep water out of the conductor during storage. If you don't cap
your cable, water can enter.

Electrical trees do not need water. The inception stress is certainly less than 250 volts per mil or 10 kV per
millimeter. The inception stress locally is very high. You almost have an order of magnitude difference
between the stresses.

Voids are very small, up to 10 millimeters. They start at a stress concentration, chemical contaminant, or a
void. Breakdown-voltage increases when the water in the insulation is dried. We say you can rejuvenate the
cables with water trees if you dry the insulation. Once you have an electrical tree, the breakdown voltage is
always low.

The insulation does not fail when the water tree bridges the electrode. You have to kick it off into an electrical
tree. The failure always occurs when the insulation is bridged.

There are no partial discharges for water trees, but there are partial discharges for electrical trees. There is no
light emission and the failure time is less than 15 years. Once you have an electrical tree, the failure time is of
the order of days.

These are the main differences between electrical and water trees.

Question: How do you come up with the 15 year failure time?

John Densley
It's just experience. Cables that have been in service anywhere from four to 15 years have had problems with
water trees. It's a loose figure.

Comment: We have some Doble surveys on cable failures and they tend to show a n increase in failure
around that time span.

Question: In looking a t some cable failures over the years, you will occasionally find one that has a
massive cross sectional region of deterioration, yet it came out of service working. You also
find a cable that failed in service, and when you analyze it, it has a very tiny cross sectional
area that failed. Is there any correlation between the massive failure due to water treeing
and finally failing and the other one to electrical treeing?

I have taken cables out of service that were working that had so much trouble on them I could not see how
they were possibly still in service. Other times, they have had just one tiny track and they would fail.

John Densley
I think it could be a question of carbon tracks and how conducting that path is. It would be interesting to see
the difference between the two. Like you, it is hard to believe that is the case.

Comment: The massive destruction of the cable may be halfway around the surface of the cable and it
had not penetrated completely through. In testing them we would find them in trouble and
take them out and start cross section testing.

John Densley
Did you look for trees at all?

Page 18 Cable Colloquium

 Transcripts

Comment: Yes. I n the massive failures we did not have as beautiful a tree with the number of little
fingers as we had when the treeing was very significant. Then it would fail and be a very tiny
path.

John Densley

What about the isokauronic level. What caused the failure? Was it after a storm?

Comment: No, the ones that would fail would have some cause related to the failure. Those we found by
testing, we would find a bad reading and there would be massive treeing.

Comment: I can add a little information to this. We took nonjacketed, 15 kV cross-link polyethylene
cable and buried it in a test field. The purpose was to train our fault locators and to evaluate
test equipment. We put in two nail holes in the length of one such cable. You would think it
would fail with something as simple as an ohmmeter o r insulation resistance test. In reality
we found it often took maybe 10 kV to fail that cable. Once we did, say with the impulse test
set, it would thump one fault and then would turn around and thump the other fault.

The first fault would heat up and apparently the material would plasticize and flow. It
would actually have a breakdown strength greater than the other fault. Then it would pro-
ceed to thump back and forth and back and forth. We confounded many a test equipment
salesman with that kind of a setup. Normally, that is the acid test. If he can find one o r both
of those faults, we will consider his equipment.

I t takes thousands of volts to break it down initially. Once it does break down, we find it
tends to heal over. I don't know if this is your situation, but it might explain it a little better.

La John Densley
Was your nail-hole all the way through the insulation?

Comment: Yes it was. I was there when we constructed the cable and I made sure it we had it clear into
the conductor.

Question: In France they performed a statistical analysis of their failure rates that showed two distinct
peaks. One was in the region of the first year and the other in the region of 13 years. This
may indicate that it takes 13 years for water trees to develop. My question is you say the
water trees collapse after you dry. Basically, the polyethylene fills in the voids?

John Densley

Yes.

Question: Completely. For example you dry until it disappears and put it back into a moist ambient
and then it will not create a tree in the same place?

John Densley

No, they will come back within hours or days in exactly the same place. We have looked at them under a
microscope and dried them out and put water on them and they come back in exactly the same shape within
days.

If you do dry them, you have to do something else to permanently keep the water out at that point. Dow
Corning puts silicone down the conductor which does exactly that.

Cable Colloquium Page 19

Transcripts

REVIEW OF THE EFFECTS OF WATER TREES ON SOLID INSULATION CABLE

SYSTEMS AND THE ROLE OF THE SEMICONDUCTOR SHIELD

Harry Orton, Powertech Labs, Inc.

I would like to follow on from what John Densley is doing. I would like to show you some of the water tree
results we have had and go on to some of the cable problems that have been experienced by B.C. Hydro and
Power Authority. Some of the cables were inspected on delivery and I will also show you some problems we
have actually had with them. I will also talk about contamination in semiconductive shields.

Up until five or six years ago, most people just looked at the insulation itself because you can see through
cross-linked polyethylene. You cannot see through EPRs. Everyone ignored the effects of the semiconductor
shield around the outside, so I will cover those as well.

If we have enough time, I would like to cover some of the cable accessory problems we have had at B.C.
Hydro and what we have done for others cable users.

One of the things that both Mr. Reith and Mr. Densley have mentioned is that moisture does tend to produce
cable failures. It leads to water treeing. The actual failure we produced in our laboratory which was an ac
breakdown test occurred somewhere else.

We dried the cable out, removed the moisture, and lo and behold the failure occurred somewhere else. The
cable was an old design with a tape-strand shield. It is very bad for reliability.

We added the moisture back to that cable sample again and it fell right through the water tree.

Moisture is very important. The "Dow Corning" technique is one technique of extending cable life. You can
increase your dielectric strength by replacing the moisture with silicone oil. This is a classic example of how
you can improve cable life.

John also mentioned the effects of contamination under the insulation in the semi-conductive shield itself.
We indeed found a large contaminant at the base of a large water tree. This was in a 15 kV cable with 4 . 4
millimeter, 175 mil insulation thickness. What we are concerned about is the effect the contaminant had.
What ions are in this contaminant? Are there any problems with the physical presence of this contaminant?
Did the electrical field in the area change?

All of these questions are yet to be answered. There are many people in North America looking at this
problem.

We decided to look more closely at the semi-conductive shields in polyethylene cable. A semi-conductive
carbon-dope shield has carbon black added. There are various grades of carbon black that can be used.
There is acetylene black or furnace black. Those carbons have contaminants in them. The furnace black is
old garbage that is burned in a furnace and the carbon is scraped off the inside of the furnace. Along with that
come little particles of brick and many other contaminants.

When the semi-conductive shield is manufactured, you have to make sure the carbon black is well dispersed
through the polyurethane. These are the problems you run into. That particular contaminant would not be a
problem but it does show that you have to keep a very close eye on how well your product is mixed.

Union Carbide did an elemental analysis for us on the contaminant that was at the base of that large water tree
we saw a few moments ago. These are some of the elements that were in that contaminant. There is silicon,
potassium, sulfur, and calcium. What we are concerned about is what affect these ions have on the water tree

Page 20 Cable Colloquium

 Transcripts

growth rates. Some of the work has been done by people at the University of Connecticut. Mr. Joseph
C Groeger has done a lot of work in this area and he presents a lot of his work through the Insulation Conductor
Committee. Within that group there is a task force looking at the characteristics of semi-conductive shields.

How do ions get into the insulation and help accelerate water tree growth? They come into a non-jacketed
cable because there is no jacket on the outside to slow down water ingression. The ions in the ground water
that you bury your cables in are getting into the cable insulation through the semi-conductive shield. They
take the ions and contaminants in the semi-conductive shield with it. The water takes that into the insulation
and this accelerates the water tree growth rates.

By putting a polymer jacket on the outside, this tends to slow down that process. It is a big plus. In addition to
that, we have looked at putting a metal jacket back onto the cable, but not a lead jacket. It is called a
hermetically sealed cable. This does tend to slow down the water tree growth rate tremendously.

Recently, at our laboratory, we did a research project where we looked at a metallic jacket and it did extend
the life of the cable quite a bit.

The other approach is going to CIC, or Cable-In-Conduit, construction. This has been found to be effective
in slowing ionic contamination down as far as the insulation is concerned.

Union Carbide has done a lot of work in this area. A gentleman by the name of Norman Burns and also in the
past, Cindy Flanagan who is now with another cable manufacturer have done a lot of work. Most importantly,
the amount of contamination in the current semiconductive shields has decreased dramatically with a de-
crease in the amount of sulfur.

As I mentioned previously, there are two processes used to make semi-conductive shields. One employs
furnace black and the other semi-conductive shield or super smooth product is made from acetylene black. It
C is basically a process where you burn acetylene and collect the carbon that is produced from the burning
process. It is much cleaner. For that reason alone, it has far less contamination. It is also finer and has less
chance of producing lumps or contaminants.

Since this work has all been done through the task group, the furnace black manufacturers have said, "if you
want a low contamination, we can produce it;" and they are. You can get both furnace and acetylene blacks
that have these low contaminant levels. Hence, they will lead to a low water tree growth rate.

In addition to that, Union Carbide developed what was called a Surface Excellence Evaluation Device
(SEED) which looks at physical protrusions from a tape that is produced from the semi-conductive material.
It looks at the diffraction from the surface of a tape and basically counts them per surface area.

In this way compound manufacturers are now able to determine how effective their processes are. They can
determine if it is blending in very well and if they are still producing a lot of lumps. They can determine if their
products are as good as they can possibly get. Cindy Flanagan who now works with Cablec developed this
device and it is being put to use for the cable users.

Does going to these better semi-conductive compounds increase cable life? The answer is yes.

John has already said that ac breakdown tests are the way to evaluate the loss in dielectric strength of the
cable.

What is coming in the future with semiconducting materials? There is clear carbon products coming out of the
market which is really good news for cable users. There is development of newer materials coming on the
market. Water barriers are sort of an iffy thing. We have looked at that and the increased cost was anywhere
between a 30% and 60%. It is something that a utility would have to determine if it is really worth it to them.
C Canadian utilities determined it was too high a cost so they would have to look at other methods.

Cable Colloquium Page 21

Transcripts

We are continuing to look at the influence of impurities on electrical properties which include physical pres-
ence and the ionic presence within the semi-conductive shield. Cables we are buying now are much better
than those cross-linked polyethylene cables we started to buy over 20 years ago.

We have also done work on cable accessories. Unfortunately, as soon as you cut off cables, you have to join
them. You have to do something with it to make sure the cable does not fail at the end. You do not want the
termination to flash over. You do not want the cable to puncture at the semicon cutoff. This is exactly what
happens. We have a conductor at 100% voltage and a semi-conductive shield at 0%. If you cut it off and put
it in the air, it will probably fail much quicker than you would want it to.

I was once asked by a lineman how long a cable would last if he left it on the pole without a termination on it. I
don't know. It could be anywhere from three months to maybe 12 months. He said one night he was out and
it was 2:00 in the morning and raining hard. He said he did not have a termination and he just cut the cable
off, put back the insulation shield, stuck it up in the air, and it is still there three years later. So, there go all
my theories. There is always something that cannot be explained.

Common practice is hat when you have to terminate a cable, you must relieve the stress at this point. The way
you do that is to put a device called a stress cone or a termination on the cable that pushes out the lines of
equal potential. At the semicon cutoff you do not have stress enhancement or stress concentration.

Terminations come in all shapes and sizes. We have looked at premolded. They usually work fairly well. The
workmanship that goes into these devices is tremendously important. You must stretch the self-amalgamating
tape to the required width. As you apply it, you stretch it out to initiate a bonding process that bonds the
insulating tape. If you do not do that, you run into problems.

You must always have stress relief at the end of any device, regardless of what kind of device it is. No matter
what type of device you use, you do have stress relief problems and you must satisfy them.

One of the things manufacturers insist on is that, if you nick the cable insulation with your knife where you cut
the semi-conductive shield, you cut the cable off and start again.

We have done a fair amount of work looking at pre-molded splices. We do not usually run into too many
problems with these devices. Except for the fact that we had a fire in downtown Vancouver where a pre-
molded device failed. One problem was due to the fact that the one that failed was in a manhole where there
were nine splices stacked on top of one another. The bottom one failed and caught on fire. When it caught
on fire it took out the rest stacked above it. The fire transferred from one to the other. A good practice is to
make sure you use fire retardant types in manholes. It prevents this problem.

B.C. Hydro, Seattle City Light, and Puget Power have a large number of submarine cable crossings. One of
the most useful splices to use in submarine cable is a hot splice which is a full vulcanizing splice. You use EPR
rubber that goes into a vulcanizer. You cook it at 400C and it bonds to the cross-linked polyethylene.

When it comes out of the cooker, you cut the lumps and bumps off and sand the surface down. You must
replace the outer surface by a semi-conductive shield.

Under a fault condition, you must have sufficient capacity to carry 10,000 amperes or 15,000 amperes or
2,000 amperes depending upon what your fault level is at that location.

The process was ideal and the lplice was ideal, but we had an eccentric splice. As a cable comes off a reel, it
tends to want to go back into that same shape. During the cooking process of this splice, that is exactly what
happened. The cable wanted to go back into the same shape it was on the reel and it moved through the
rubber material during the cooking process. Hence, there was a eccentric, lopsided splice. On the thinnest
part of the insulation, there was a protrusion that was caused by the flow of the rubber during the squeezing

Page 22 Cable Colloquium

 Transcripts

and cooking process. You have to have good cable men make tape splices. With a premolded device, it is not

C so critical because all the high stress areas are made in the factory under controlled conditions. In the field
when you are doing tape splices, it can be a problem.

Other problems we have found is when the pencilling is not done correctly. You are supposed to taper down
the insulation down which was done, but it was not sanded down.

When you are looking at accessories, you must look at the manufacturing process and the design of the
accessory itself. You must be sure it will do what you really want. Do the workmen have the capabilities of
installing these products? All these considerations must be taken into account.

In most cases a heat shrink splice has worked very well. They are very easy to put on. You join the cable
together and use a high dielectric-constant tape to produce stress relief. You slip over the stress housing and
use an open torch to shrink the splice down. You have to be very careful because under load cycling tests you
have to watch the splices because they tend to choke both the semi-conductive shield and the insulation.

Most terminations work fairly well in reasonable environmental conditions. If you do want to use a termina-
tion outside a cement plant, close to salt water, where you have environmental problems, you must look at the
tracking properties of the material. Does the insulation erode? Do you get large tracks in the terminations?
How well do these terminations work?

We compared two heat shrink devices against a pre-molded device. The pre-molded device seemed to work
the best but even its performance was very dependent on the aluminum trihydrate content. We evaluate the
materials themselves and use the tracking wheel to evaluate how these materials perform over a long period of
time.

C We found that the tests we do on this tracking wheel closely resembles the type of failure you get in service with
dry banding under insulators. This was a useful test to do.

Finally, with all cable accessories, you have to make sure a connector is adequate. If the connector does not
work, your accessory does not work. You have to be sure these devices will take the short-circuit current, at
the level at which you expect to operate them.

Question: In ac-cable when you having treeing, the treeing can originate at the conductor or at the
ground shield. A number of years ago there was some question about the effect of residual
moisture in the conductors of the cable as to whether or not that might eventually lead to
treeing from the inside out. Is that a concern any more? If it is, how do you attack the
problem?

John Densley

We tried to point out that there are two different types of trees, electrical and water. If there is water in the
conductor, the cable will be more susceptible to grow water trees. They will grow and lead to a failure. It will
be a water tree and then an electrical tree to produce the failure.

Question: You showed how you try to prevent treeing from external moisture coming in. What do you
do to tiy to avoid the probability of trouble from retained water in the conductors?

John Densley

C When you store the cables, you should make sure you cap them.

Cable Colloquium Page 23

Transcripts

Question: How about right after manufacture? Is there any vacuum processing of the cable at all?

Harry Orton
No.

Doug Reith
As far as manufacturing is concerned, we talked about a water block conductor where you inject into the
conductor at the time of the conductor manufacture a semiconducting mastic-type of material. This blocks all
the interstices, or the small spaces between the wires. That will prevent water migration into the conductor
during manufacturing as well as in the field. In that way there will be no water in tksx strand available to be
forced into the insulation to grow water trees from the conductor out.

Harry Orton
If you have cables in service, and you have moisture on the conductor right now, you have to be very careful
what you do. A lot of people think if you pass dry nitrogen down the conductor, you will dry it out and it will
improve the performance. That is true up to a point. What happens is you take the nitrogen gas away and
eventually moisture comes back in again.

The present technique which is being done at Puget Power right now is to dry the cable out by passing dry
nitrogen down the conductor and then you inject into the cable while it is energized a silicone oil. The silicone
oil goes in and then takes over the space the water was in.

You can improve the life through dielectric strength improvement on existing cables.

Question: If you have a wet cable, would you be better off running it hot?

John Densley
It depends on how old the cable is. If you have water trees in the cable already, then running it hot appears to
be detrimental. If you do not have a large number of water trees or they are not very long, then running it hot
will actually slow down the amount of water migration.

Page 24 Cable Colloquium

Summary of Comments on Seminar, Cable
Colloquium I, Transcripts
Seminar, Cable Colloquium I, Transcripts
contains no comments