Partial Discharge Localization on Power Cables Based on a Novel Signal Relay System

Time domain reflectometry (TDR) is an effective method used to detect partial discharge (PD) and localize PD sources on power cables. However, for long-length power cables, the attenuation and dispersion of PD signals are significant due to the propagated distance. The attenuation causes a serious reduction of the pulse amplitude, which makes the defects located far away from the PD detector difficult to find. The dispersion causes appreciable asymmetry in the PD pulse waveform. Thus, the localization accuracy is reduced. To solve the problem of long-length cable fault localization, a novel signal relay system is proposed in this article. Once a weak PD pulse is captured in the signal relay system, another standard Gaussian pulse signal is initiated by a function generator. The Gaussian pulse signal is injected into the cable and travels along the cable. During this procedure, the weak PD pulse is likely to be amplified, and the fault localization accuracy is notably enhanced. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed method, an experimental platform is built in a laboratory, and PD detection of an artificial defective cable is performed. The experimental results show that the signal relay system can effectively “enlarge” the PD pulse on a long-length cable. For long-length power cables, PD detection can achieve a higher localization accuracy based on the proposed method.