Results of Recent DOE Research on Development of Cable Condition Monitoring and Aging Management Technologies

Analysis and Measurement Services (AMS) Corporation has been conducting two research projects focused on understanding cable aging and developing cable condition monitoring technologies for nuclear power plants. The goal of the first project is to correlate cable faults with testing techniques that can identify and locate the faults whether they are in the cable, conductor, or the insulation. This project involves laboratory experiments using low and medium voltage cable types typically installed in nuclear power plants. The second project is focused on development of an integrated cable condition monitoring system for nuclear facilities. This system integrates a number of cable testing and cable condition monitoring techniques, such as the time domain reflectometry (TDR), frequency domain reflectometry (FDR), inductance, capacitance, resistance (LCR), reverse TDR (RTDR), current-to-voltage (IV) for testing of nuclear instrumentation sensors, insulation resistance (IR) and other techniques. The purpose of the project is to combine all proven technologies into one system to detect and pinpoint problems in cable circuits as well as cable insulation, shield, or jacket material. (author)