trends are used to as a tool to development

Analysis of HT cable of our cable construction and joint design.

and joint failures

and associated Why cables fail?
design modifications
Authors: Power cables are manufactured in factories
under controlled environment and
K. Rana, sophisticated online monitoring. The
Manager (Jointing), CESC Ltd. completed cables are further tested
according to standard testing guidelines
B. Dasgupta, before acceptance for use.
Mains Engineer,CESC Ltd
However, the cables laid at site may not
deliver the required performance due to
adverse installation conditions and
unintentional damage during cable laying.
CESC Ltd , in existence since 1897,
Jointing is required to be done at site of
generates and distributes electricity to the
installation where the trench is often
twin cities of Calcutta and Howrah on either
infested with dust, moisture, vibrations etc.
side of river Hooghly spanning over an area
these unavoidable factors can be
of 567 sq. km, serving a demand of 1657
detrimental for a high tension cable joint
MW. It is now a RP-Sanjiv Goenka group
which requires a clean environment for
company.
manufacture. Human factors are also
present in jointing as the job is done
Both the cities being highly congested, need
manually. Though joints are always done by
was felt from the early days for
trained and experienced jointers of
underground transmission and distribution
sufficient reliability, human error can creep
on preference to cheaper overhead option
in which is unavoidable.
because of greater way leave requirement
of overhead lines. We presently have 4950
Furthermore, a joint is a weakest part of an
ckt kms of 6/11KV cable network with a
underground cable system owing to the 3
consumer base of 1673 HT and 2.49 million
types of stresses which are predominant in
LT consumers.
joint. These are the thermal stress (caused
mainly by the externally applied insulation
This paper discusses the cable and joint
build up and joint encapsulation), electrical
fault analysis which is regularly conducted
stress (caused mainly due to termination of
in our system consequent to faults. All new
cable screen in high tension cables) and
joint failures and XLPE Cable failures in run
mechanical stress (as the conductor jointing
are analyzed in stages to identify the root
region is more prone to stress and strain
cause of such failure. The observations
during normal cable loading and
regarding failure and statistical analysis of
development of transient overcurrent
during fault conditions superimposed on
daily and annual temperature variations).
Thermal breakdown:

It is a very common form of breakdown in

Types of failures cable insulation. Generally a thermal

breakdown is recognized by:

The breakdown channel

Most of the failures that occur in cable is radial.
system have a cause that is well known. For There is typical burning
instance, failures due to digging activities of smell from the
other utilities which damages our cable or breakdown zone.
due to ageing of older
components(eg.Insulation or metallic Thermal breakdown occurs when rate of
sheath) at their end of life. If we study the energy and heat transfer to insulation
type of failures keeping in mind the basic material as a result of electric field exceeds
cable construction, then we categorize the the rate of heat dissipation and absorption.
failure along following line: This type of breakdown is therefore not
common in XLPE cables but if the properties
a) In conductor : Most found in joints of insulating material are quite inferior then
at the conductor connection points there is always possibility of such failure.
b) In insulation : In joint or cable and
mostly related to ageing
c) In sheath (metallic or non-metallic): Electrical breakdown:
Mostly in cable and generally it is
not the ultimate cause but always
the incipient one. Electrical breakdown in polymeric cables
Failures in insulation of cables and can occur due to treeing. Treeing is a
accessories are mostly related to ageing and phenomenon occurring in polymer
typical basic ageing processes are: insulated cables in 2 forms:
Thermal breakdown
Partial discharge
Electrical treeing Electrical treeing:
Water treeing
In high tension cables
(11KV and above), the
voltage stress appearing
across cable insulation is
considerably high. Every
precaution is taken in cable
factories so that the
polymeric insulation is free
from voids, impurities,
 semicon protrusions etc. (Fig : 2)
However, in real life, it is not
possible to design a 100%
void and impurity free cable
insulation. The voids and
impurities are region of
localized discharge and
heating which ultimately
develops into a carbonized
path in the insulation.
Formation of carbonized
pockets cause the effective
insulation thickness to
(Fig : 1)
reduce and develop a
carbonized conducting
Water causes conducting path
tracking path which
through the insulation resulting in
ultimately results in
dielectric failure in the long run
dielectricbreakdown(Fig : 1).
unlike electrical treeing, water
treeing is a very slow process which
develops over a long period of time.
Water treeing: Different seamless water barrier
Polymeric insulations are tapes and extruded metallic sheaths
hygroscopic to some extent. The are used in cable to provide “water
seepage of moisture through the tightness” to the cable.
cable sheath can percolate through
the insulation(Fig : 2). The water
molecules get charged as the Ageing:
conductor acts as cathode and the
screen as anode. The charged water
molecules travel through the The term ‘ageing’ is used for old PILC cables
insulation from the earthed screen in service for more than 50 years. Ageing is
towards the live conductor via the natural degradation of the cable
insulation by a process called insulation caused by various reasons. The
electrophoresis. major reason of ageing in PILC cables is the
cyclic overloading. Overloading heats up the
paper insulation causing the impregnation
oil to dry up. Dry paper insulation greatly
hampers the dielectric strength of the same
which is often sufficient enough to cause
breakdown.

The quantity of paper degrades over a

period of time as it is made up of cellulose.
This phenomenon along with drying of cables and few Gas filled cables (33KV). Due
impregnating oil can cause failure. The Lead to the above reason, we often require to
sheath of the cable reacts with the join our and existing PILC cables to maintain
chemicals present in the soil and gets network continuity mainly during cable
corroded over a period of time. This can breakdowns. It is our observation that these
cause seepage of moisture into the paper ‘transition joints’ is more prone to fault. The
insulationand subsequent breakdown of the joint is designed to suit our requirements.
cable dielectric.

6/11KV Joint
Our experiences failures

Now we will focus on our experiences The major areas of fault as observed in our
regarding cable faults. Our primary high system in a 6/11KV straight through joint
tension network comprises of 6 and11KV and terminations are discussed below:
and Sub transmission voltage of 33KV. We
are recently installing 3 core XLPE insulated
The continuity of the lead sleeve
cables in our primary distribution network
and single core XLPE cables for 33 KV with the PILC cable lead sheath:
networks. In our transition joint design we have a lead
sleeve prepared at site by beating up a
We have 3 types of 33KV Grade cables rectangular flat lead sheet to size, to
existing in our system: encapsulate the joint. The earth continuity
of the joint is ensured by a tinned copper
• PILC Cables (3 core H Cables braid of suitable size, connected to the
and Single core ‘HSL’ type cables armour wire of XLPE cable with jubilee clips
• XLPE CABLES (Single core and solder tacked on to lead sleeve of the
only) joint. The lead sleeve is plumbed on to the
• Gas Filled PILC Cables sheath of PILC cable and provides actually a
hermetic sealing on the PILC side of the
6/11KV Grade cables: joint which is most vulnerable to moisture
ingress(Fig : 3).
PILC belted cables (both
Aluminum and Copper
conductors)
XLPE cables (3 core
aluminum conductors)

We are using only XLPE cables in all voltage

grades now but we still have a large part of
our existing network comprising of PILC (Fig : 3)
The region of contact of the lead sleeve
with the PILC lead sheath is of crucial
importance. Insufficient application of
plumbing metal or inappropriate
workmanship during plumbing can pose
high resistance to the earth fault current
due to any fault in downstream network.
Repetitiveoccurrence can melt the plumb
and allow subsoil water to enter the belt
paper insulation beneath and cause
dielectric failure (Fig : 4 and 5). Most of our
failures in transition joint have been
attributed to the failure of paper insulation (Fig : 5)
near the crutch region due to moisture
ingress. The above 3 pics show failure of XLPE-PILC
transition joints from the plumb region.

Crutch region of the PILC Cable

PILC Cables existing in our system are
mostly aged and as a result the strength
and durability of the paper insulation has
degraded over the period of long service.
The oil impregnation of the paper can also
get partially dried making the paper brittle.
During breakdown repair jobs, we need to
join these old PILC Cables with new XLPE
Cables.

The above pie chart shows the percentage of failure

of transition joints for various reasons in our system.

(Fig : 6)

(Fig : 4)
Handling of the old PILC Cables during
aligning for jointing is therefore of an
extremely skillful task to avoid cracking of
paper insulation at the crutch region which
is most mechanically stressed. Bad cross in
PILC cores and damage to paper during core
handling can cause phase-to phase short at
the crutch region which is in turn most
electrically stressed also(Fig : 6).

Conductor jointing region:

The next most fault prone portion of our (Fig : 9)
joint is the ferrule zone. In Al-Al conductor
jointing in 6/11KV, we employ crimping
technique using ratchet type crimping tool.
Failure from crimping area has been mostly
due to unacceptable gap between
successive crimps and incorrect crimping
sequence resulting in inadequate cold flow
of the metal inside the ferrule (Fig : 7). On
dissecting such poorly crimped ferrules, we
have found voids inside the ferrule and
consequent radial failure during heating
under load cycle(Fig : 9).
(Fig : 8)

However, some of our existing PILC Cables

have Copper Conductors. We employ solder
basting technology using weak back Copper
ferrule for jointing the same with Aluminum
conductors. It is necessary to ensure that
the conductor jointing region has low
resistivity in order to allow smooth flow of
current across it.
(Fig : 7)
Insulation build up:
In our 6KV and 33KV joints, failure at
conductor joint region was also observed in
our design in hand applied polymeric
insulating tape. Analysis of faulty joints
reveled that failure in all cases have
occurred from the edge of the ferrule. The
root cause behind the failure was improper
insulation build up profile. The insulation
build up on ferrule was done by hand
applied self-amalgamating insulating tape
over the conductor jointing region. The
varying tension of hand applied insulating
tape can cause insufficient thickness of
build up at some places over the ferrule(Fig
: 10). Dielectric breakdown occurs from the
region of minimum insulation build up
which is usually at the edge of ferrule(Fig :
11).

Correct procedure of tape buildup: ~ (Fig : 11)

1.6 times the insulation thickness on
cable

(Fig : 10)

A typical failure due to inadequate tape

Wrongprocedure of tape build up
build up thickness at the edge of the
ferrule

Improper core disposition:

Fault can also develop in transition joints

where the cores can be in contact with the
metallic lead sleeve at earth potential due
to improper disposition of the cores as
shown in the diagram below:
 Void filling high permittivity mastics applied
at the screen cut point

Accidental nick on exposed portion of XLPE

insulation or semicon screen can cause
concentration of high electrical stress at the
nick point and resultant dielectric failure
may occur within a short period of time due
to electrical treeing. The picture below
depicts such a breakdown which was
probably caused for the above reason (Fig :
12 a and Fig : 12 b).

XLPE Insulation and Insulation

screen cut region
The extruded XLPE insulation screen is
required to be removed up to a
predetermined distance away from the
insulation cut as specified by the joint
manufacturer in order to provide the
necessary safe creepage distance. The
screen cut region is a region of high electric
(Fig : 12 a)
stressand improper termination of screen
and inadequate stress control can cause
high partial discharge inside the joint.

(Fig : 12 b)

A typical fault due to inadequate

stress control at screen cut region

Failure at termination:
The major fault prone areas of a XLPE and
PILC Termination are:

• The conductor Jointing region

• Semicon screen cut region
 • The contact region of the lug
with the dropper or stud
• Earthing region
33KV Joint failures

In our 33KV system, we have observed fault

at the following regions of joint:

Region of armour connection

In an XLPE – XLPE single core
straight through joint, the subsoil
water can enter the cable sheath
due to improper joint encapsulation.
The water can easily travel through
the Copper Earth braid inside the
joint used for armour continuity by
capillary action. The water readily
oxidizes the Aluminum armour wires
(Fig : 13) Failure at semicon screen cut
and the Poly Al sheath. This
region
phenomenon is accelerated due to
the cumulative heating of the screen
The reason of failure due to improper
wires resulting from the continuous
conductor jointing is the same as explained
flow of circulating current as both
above in straight through joints. In
ends of the cable screen are solidly
termination joints, it is important to ensure
earthed.
sufficient surface area of contact between
Due to oxidation of the Al screen
the palm of the lug and the surface onto
wires, the effective electrical cross
which it is connected. In our system, it is
sectional area of the armour gets
often required to fit the lug made of
reduced causing continuous over
Aluminum with Copper droppers or studs.
heating of the same which in turn
In that case, use of bimetallic washer is
facilitates further oxidation.
absolutely essential.
Moreover, use of spring band of
different metal at this region to
make armour and Poly Al
connectivity has an inherent heating
due to bimetallic contact of the two.
This cumulative heating results in
the thermal breakdown of insulation
at this region (Fig : 14 a and Fig 14
b).
 Failure at heat shrink PILC
terminations

The impregnation of oil of the

paper insulation often oozes out
due to the effect of gravity and
breathing of the cable at
terminations. This causes drying
of the paper insulation which in
turn greatly hampers the
dielectric property of the same.
(Fig : 14 a) This is specifically pronounced in
heat shrinkable outdoor type
terminations in PILC cables.

Failures in cable
run

Apart from joint failures, fault also occurs in

cable run for the following reasons:
(Fig : 14 b)
Direct spiking: -
It was also seen in some cases In a metropolitan city like ours, the route of
that the spring band has lost its underground power cables are often shared
‘constant pressure’ property with other utilities like telecommunication,
over a period of time during municipal sewage or water supply works,
breathing of the cable under civil construction works like road widening,
varying load cycle. This has pillar erection for flyover etc. This can cause
loosened the compression and accidental damage to the power cables laid
causes heating at the point of undergrounddue to direct spiking during
current transfer between excavation. This problem is specifically
aluminum armour wires and the pronounced in a city distribution network as
copper braid. in our case. Direct spiking by pickaxe, JCB or
other metallic digging instruments is
therefore a common occurrence which is
beyond anybody’s control.(Fig : 15 a and
Fig:15 b)show typical direct spike cases.
 (Fig : 15 a)
(Fig : 16)

Improper cable laying

Deviation from standard installation
procedures can occur in some places due to
hindrances on cable route like previously
existing concrete construction,
communication cables etc. The inadequate
depth of laying can increase the chance of
damage to the cable due to spiking or heavy
vehicular movement above the cable.
(Fig : 15 b)
Typical cases of direct spiking on XLPE Ageing of cable
cables
This is applicable in case of PILC Cables
which are in service for more than 50 years
After effect of spiking in our system. Apart from the above
external reasons, failure of cable in run can
Direct spiking can damage the cable but also occur due to natural ageing. Ageing can
often that does not cause feeder tripping be accelerated due to adverse installation
immediately if the penetration is not that conditionsand cyclic overloading. The
serious. However, the damage meted out to dielectric strength of paper insulation can
the cable outer sheath and armour in case degrade due to irregular load pattern,
of PILC Cables can cause corrosion of Lead frequent overloading with cables installed
Sheath and provide path for moisture in soil having high thermal resistivity and
seepage into the paper insulation causing bending the cable beyond the safe radius.
dielectric breakdown of the cable. XLPE Corrosion of Lead sheath can also occur due
cable can also fail in case of damage to to presence of strong chemicals in soil
screen or due to damage in armour as XLPE which can puncture the Lead sheath and
insulation is to some extent allow subsoil water to enter the paper
hygroscopic.(Fig : 16) insulation.
Manufacturing defects ourcable could have been damaged
in the process. Scattered tiles at the
The cables manufactured in factory in
fault region indicate that some other
controlled environment are always tested
agency has exposed our cable which
prior to acceptance according to Indian
strengthens the probability of cable
Standards for Acceptance Testing. However,
damage by spiking.
defects can persist in cable like
discontinuity of screen, damaged insulation
Local reports of fault
etc. These defects can generate into fault
site:Information gathered from local
when the cable is placed in cyclic load.
residents near the fault zone often
provide us important clues in fault
____________________________________
analysis. They apprise us of any
digging activity along the cable route
Failure Analysis in near past, frequency of
occurrence of fault at the region etc.

Load of traffic: In an urban

distribution network like ours, the
The analysis of failures is done in stages to heavy traffic frequency above the
arrive at probable root cause of the failure. road often causes joints to vibrate
We do the following routine analysis to all under vehicular movement and can
our failures. weaken the sophisticated areas of a
high voltage joint.
Information from fault site: the fault site is
visited after occurrence of the fault. This Equipped with the information gathered
visit is aimed to obtain relevant information from fault site, we investigate the following
which may guide us to identify the cause of records pertaining to the faulty feeder:
fault. The type of information includes:
o Load pattern of the cable
Installation conditions: The cable daily and annual
installed at improper depth, o Tripping history of the cable
inadequate bend etc. can give rise to section over a period of time
fault. The condition of soil is tested o Statistics of nature of fault
to estimate subsoil water level (fault in joint or in cable run
which may have entered inside the etc)
cable or joint during fault.
At final stage, we conduct stage by stage
Availability of tiles and side blocks: dissection of the faulty piece at our
The positioning of protective tiles materials laboratory which is equipped with
which is usually placed on the laid various testing equipmentand tools for this
up cable give us an indication of any type of analysis. The different parts of the
underground excavation job which faulty piece are exposed with utmost care
may have been carried out by some so as to preserve the proof of reason of
other agency in near pastand failure.
 We arrive at probable cause of failure after
The following pictures show a stage by summing up all the relevant information
stage post mortem of a PILC cable fault in and prepare the final report for archiving
run. The individual cable components are and necessary actions.
separated and observed for clues of failure.

Inference
Consequent to the above failures, we have
come to the conclusion that failure of our
Stage 1 high tension cables and joints are mainly
occurring for the following reasons:

Uneven thickness of hand applied

insulation build up on ferrule
Ageing of old PILC cables
Poor mechanical strength of outer
jacketing of the cable.
Stage 2 Inadequate conductor connection
due to improper crimping.
Ingress of moisture inside the cable
and joints due to elevated subsoil
water level
Inadequate path for circulating
current flow in both ends bonded
Stage 3 33KV system.
Migration of impregnating
compound in 33KV PILC
terminations.

Stage 4

Stage 5
 inside the joint when the

Remedial encapsulation was not proper. We

have also selectively gone for single

Measures
end bonding with the other end
earthed through SVL for long circuits
lengths where the sheath circulating
current are considerably high. For
short circuit lengths where the
The root causes of failures that were
sheath induced voltage is within
detected from our analysis of cable and
limits we have gone for single end
joint failures guided us in making the
bonding.
following course corrections in our cable
and joint design:
We have identified the repetitive
spike prone cable routes and
We have phased out the taped type
replaced the same as far as
XLPE joint design and incorporated
practicable to minimize the number
heat shrink technology in all our
of cable breakdowns caused due to
high tension jointing system.
the presence of innumerable joints
in between a small cable length and
Crimping is to some extent
thereby reducing chances of failure.
dependent on manual skill where
equal spacing requires to be kept.
Our 11KV grade cables had
Therefore in order to arrest failures
previously PVC as outer sheath
at ferrule region due to bad
material which was subsequently
crimping, we have introduced
changed to HDPE owing to its tough
shearing bolt connector at 33KV
and rigid property in view to protect
level.
the cable components from spiking.
It is also stressed upon to adhere to
We have ceased to use Poly Al
the installation protocols of HT
sheathed cables in our 33KV system
cables regarding depth and
and proportionately increased the
protection by tiles to minimize
number and cross sectional area of
chance of direct spiking.
the armour wires to compensate
reduction in area of Poly Al. In our
modified joint design, the armour
continuity is being done using
aluminum connector which has not
only eliminated the bimetallic effect
of the spring band but also reduced
the number of junctions in the path
of the flow of the circulating current.
In the process we have done away
with Copper braid which was
responsible for ingress of moisture
 However, a more futuristic method would

Conclusion be an analysis which can detect a failure

before It actually occurs, thereby ensuring
that all the evidences of the root cause
which is responsible for the imminent
Post mortem of fault is always a probable failure are still alive. We in CESC are now
assumption of the cause of failure as the trying to preempt failures using state of the
direct evidence for the failure is often art Condition Monitoring equipments which
disappeared in the flashover occurred detect abnormal hot spots, partial
during the fault. This makes confident discharges occurring in the joints and
reconstruction of failure difficult as most terminations while they are in service. Any
important clues are often lost. In this paper abnormalities detected in any joint or
we have tried to explain how failure termination is further analyzed after
analysis of joints and terminations help us arranging a planned shutdown to ascertain
to establish the most probable cause of the root cause and take necessary
failure and subsequently give us a direction corrective measures. This technique not
in which future modifications of cable and only helps us to avert possible shutdown or
joint designs should be carried out to blackouts associated with joint or cable
prevent such failures. breakdown but also helps us to pinpoint the
root cause more accurately.