A Comparative Study on the Insulation Ageing of 10 kV XLPE Cable via Accelerated Electrical Test and Accelerated Water Tree Test

Medium and high voltage XLPE cables were widely used in urban distribution network. The electric-thermal effect of the cable conductor and water in the running environment are two important factors that cause ageing of cable insulating material. In this work, accelerated electrical test (AET) and accelerated water tree test (AWTT) on 10 kV XLPE cable were carried out for 1440 h, 2880 h and 4320 h, respectively. The physicochemical and dielectric properties of both aged and unaged XLPE samples were tested. Physicochemical investigation of Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) show that higher carbonyl groups index, and lower crystallinity of the XLPE insulating materials were generated in AWTT process than that in AET process. The thermal decomposition process of the AWTT XLPE are complicated, presenting a multi-peak phenomenon in the differential thermogravimetry (DTG) curve. The insulating strength of the samples after AWTT is monotonically decreased from 23.03 kV to 21.74 kV with ageing time. The dielectric properties show that the permittivity and dielectric loss of AWTT samples increased more severely than that of AET samples, with a new dielectric relaxation peak appearing at around 100 Hz. The combination of physicochemical and dielectric results reveals that AWTT process leads to more serious degradation for XLPE insulating materials. A schematic illustration is given to elucidate the development of micro defects in XLPE during the AET and AWTT processes.