An Ultra-Wideband Microwave Diagnostic Method for Detecting Cracks in Polymeric Insulators

To realize an embedded online diagnosis system for accurate detection of internal defects in high voltage polymeric insulators, a novel ultra-wideband (UWB) microwave diagnostic system for fault detection is proposed in this article. The UWB system is based on the multimode transferring theory on dielectric waveguides, where the level difference of transmission signals of mode transferring has been employed to detect internal defects, such as cracks. First, an investigation by simulations is performed regarding the interfacial millimeter-order cracks in both transverse and longitudinal orientations. Differences of 30-50 and 20-40 dB in receiving signals of mode-transferring between non-crack and crack cases have been observed over 3-10 GHz to transverse and longitudinal oriented cracks, respectively. Then, a test prototype is designed and manufactured for experimental verification. The measurement results have a significant 40-60 dB receiving signal level difference between the non-crack reference case and the crack case. The proposed method is promising for further development of online systems to detect millimeter-order cracks in energized polymeric insulators.