Influence of Moisture on the Electrical Properties of XLPE Insulation

Yacine Mecheri (1) , Mohamed Nedjar (1) , Alain Lamure (2) , Maëlenn Aufray (2) , Christophe Drouet (2)

1 LGE - Laboratoire de Génie Electrique [Tizi-Ouzou]
2 CIRIMAT - Centre interuniversitaire de recherche et d'ingenierie des matériaux

During their operating service, insulated power cables can be exposed to wet environment. The presence of moisture in cables surroundings may affect the properties of the used insulation material for instance, XLPE widely employed in MV and HV power cables insulation and therefore the reliability of the insulated cables. In order to examine the influence of wet aging conditions on the performances of XLPE insulated cables,samples (plates moulded from granules HFDE 4201-EC) of the same insulation material were exposed during 5600 hours to wet environment inside a cell simulating moisture. The XLPE material used in the present investigation is employed as insulation for medium voltage (MV) cables (18 / 30 kV). This work presents the results of the effect of aging under wet conditions on the electrical properties of XLPE. The goal of this paper was to investigate the eventual degradation of XLPE insulation under humidity effect by characterization techniques. For this purpose, measurements of dielectric losses factor, relative permittivity, volume resistivity and dielectric strength were performed.

Mots clés: XLPE; Cables; Aging; Moisture; Characterization techniques; Electrical properties

Domaines: Matériaux; Matériaux

Yacine Mecheri, Mohamed Nedjar, Alain Lamure, Maëlenn Aufray, Christophe Drouet. Influence of Moisture on the Electrical Properties of XLPE Insulation. Conference on Electrical Insulation and Dielectric Phenomena (CEIDP), Oct 2010, West Lafayette, United States. pp. 1-4, ⟨10.1109/CEIDP.2010.5724017⟩. ⟨hal-01147302⟩