Power cable condition monitoring in a cable tunnel: Experience and inspiration

Power cables are primarily deployed within underground utility tunnels in the Chinese Free Trade Zone of Hengqin New Area. Its geographic complexity has given rise to laborious construction, intricate deployment and perplexing monitoring. In this paper, we briefly introduce the specific challenges of power cable monitoring in a cable tunnel in the Hengqin New Area and elaborate on the problems that are encountered due to design ignorance. Some parameters that were not addressed by the existent standards or criteria but nonetheless incurred problematic situations are analyzed. Case studies are also given, based on which different power cable online monitoring strategies are examined. In summary, we expect that the experience and suggestions proposed in this paper will be useful for the design and implementation of power cable monitoring in future underground utility tunnels.