Research on mechanical and dielectric properties of XLPE cable under accelerated electrical‐thermal aging

Research into the electrical‐thermal aging properties of cross‐linked polyethylene (XLPE) cable has great significance, because of its wide application. This study conducted accelerated electrical‐thermal aging tests on 10‐kV XLPE cable in order to assess the cable's mechanical and dielectric properties. After being aged by applying 34.8‐kV AC voltage at the four temperatures of 90, 103, 114, and 135°C, the cable samples were taken out in five stages according to the aging time and cut into slices. The slices were conducted experiments to test the breaking elongation, tensile strength, gel content, breakdown voltage, and frequency spectrums of the dielectric constant and dielectric loss. The results demonstrate that the mechanical strength and gel content of XLPE vary greatly under different aging temperatures, a finding that is associated with the crystallization characteristics of the material. The breakdown voltage shows a slight decreasing trend with aging time. The dielectric constant decreases with aging time in high‐frequency areas (10³–10⁶ Hz), while the dielectric loss factor increases with aging time at low frequencies (10^?2–0 Hz). These two parameters can be used to characterize the degree of aging in cable. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

聚集态和陷阱对交联聚乙烯真空沿面闪络特性的影响

研究了半结晶聚合物交联聚乙烯的聚集态和陷阱等对真空沿面闪络特性的影响.交联聚乙烯(XLPE)在135℃下恒温10min后,分别经过-56℃,-25℃淬火处理,自然降温,或1℃/min,0.5℃/min慢速降温等热处理过程,测量了热处理后试样的电气性能、显微结构、陷阱分布和真空中的沿面闪络特性.实验结果表明,与未热处理试样相比,热处理试样的直流闪络电压最高提高了76%,脉冲闪络电压最高提高了19%.认为热处理改变了XLPE试样的聚集态和陷阱,从而提高了XLPE试样的真空沿面闪络性能,提出了可以通过控制半结晶聚合物的聚集态和缺陷结构提高其真空沿面闪络性能.     

外电场下交联聚乙烯电介质材料分子结构变化及其电老化微观机理研究

为了从微观角度分析交联聚乙烯(XLPE)材料的电树枝老化,本文采用分子模拟方法计算并优化得到了XLPE分子结构.沿着聚乙烯链施加不同大小电场强度,分析交联聚乙烯分子的几何结构、偶极矩、极化率、电荷分布、前线轨道能量和红外光谱变化规律.计算结果表明,随着外电场的增大,交联聚乙烯分子红外光谱发生较大变化;当外施电场达到0.026a.u.后,红外光谱图中出现虚频,表明分子空间结构不再稳定,易发生断键;另外从前线轨道图的变化可以看出断键现象最先发生在交联聚乙烯链端部;沿着电场方向,原子所带电荷量由交联处向端部转移,当外施电场达到0.029a.u.后,链端部的C-H和C-C键断裂产生H·和CH_3·自由基.游离的自由基会形成空间电荷并发生积聚,产生局部较大场强,从而进一步影响交联聚乙烯链的空间结构.而电介质内部微观特性的变化必定会导致交联聚乙烯材料绝缘性能的下降,这些变化对揭示交联聚乙烯电缆电树枝形成的微观规律具有重要研究意义.     

High efficiency voltage stabilizers for XLPE cable insulation

A set of new voltage stabilizers has been synthesized, tested and has shown to suppress a degradation mechanism, i.e. electrical treeing, present in cross-linked polyethylene used for high-voltage cables. Electrical treeing is seen at very high and divergent electrical fields and has a rapid lapse from initiation to total breakdown of the insulation material. The new voltage stabilizers presented in this paper have increased the electrical tree inception field with up to 50% at such low additions as 0.4%-wt. Furthermore, the best-performing materials have also proven to increase the threshold level for tree inception, i.e. before this level no deterioration of the material is seen, up to 50%.     

Investigation on water treeing behaviors of thermally aged XLPE cable insulation

The power cable insulation is in permanence subjected to thermal aging during its operating service. Thermal aging may influence not only the electrical, physicochemical and other properties of the XLPE cable insulation, but also the initiation and propagation of water tree inside it. Our research on the influence of thermal degradation to the water treeing behavior of XLPE cable insulation shows that thermal oxidation is the most influential to the initiation and growth of water treeing from the surface of XLPE cable insulation among all the probable factors caused during thermal aging.     

Chain dynamics in partially cross-linked polyethylene by combined rheology and NMR-based molecular rheology

In recent years, ¹H double-quantum NMR (DQ NMR) was established as a suitable molecular-rheology technique to elucidate chain dynamics and to determine entanglement or crosslink densities in linear entangled polymer melts and permanent as well as transient networks. In this work, industrial grade high-density polyethylene, partially cross-linked via electron beam irradiation in the semicrystalline state, is probed in the melt state by low-field DQ NMR and shear rheology. The DQ NMR data is analyzed by two approaches, one assuming the presence of a permanent network and the other considering the potentially complex relaxation spectrum of the studied inhomogeneous systems. A correlation between the DQ NMR results and extent of cross-linking is found. By direct comparison of the rheological results and the NMR-based segmental orientation autocorrelation functions (OACF) via time–temperature superposition (TTS), qualitative consistency between the microscopic and macroscopic observables is established. In this way, the frequency range of shear rheology can be extended by about two decades into the 10 krad/s range. The NMR method is thus a valuable extension of the toolbox of characterization techniques, where gel content measurements by solvent extraction proved to be the least sensitive.     

Investigation of the electrical properties of XLPE/SiC nanocomposites

The interface between nanoparticles and the polymer matrix, which dominates the electrical properties of nanocomposites, can effectively improve the DC breakdown and suppress space charge accumulation in nanocomposites. To research the interface characteristics, XLPE/SiC nanocomposites with concentrations of 1 wt%, 3 wt% and 5 wt% were prepared. The DC breakdown, dielectric properties and space charge behavior were examined using pulsed electro-acoustic (PEA) equipment and a dielectric analyzer. The test results show that the nanocomposites with concentrations of 1 wt% and 3 wt% have higher DC breakdown field strength than neat XLPE. In contrast, there is a lower DC breakdown strength at a concentration of 5 wt%, possibly due to the agglomeration of nanoparticles. Nanoparticle doping increases the real and imaginary permittivities over those of neat XLPE. Furthermore, with increasing concentration, a larger increase in the permittivity amplitude was observed. Based on the space charge behavior, all nanocomposites could suppress space charge accumulation, but the nanocomposite with a concentration of 1 wt% exhibited the best effect. Meanwhile, heterocharge accumulation near electrodes was observed in neat XLPE and the nanocomposite with a concentration of 5 wt%. In contrast, homocharge accumulation near electrodes was observed in the nanocomposite with a concentration of 3 wt%. This phenomenon may be due to different amounts of shallow traps in nanocomposites with different concentrations, which might lead to differing electron or hole mobility.     

Structure characteristics of electrical treeing in XLPE insulation under high frequencies

Electrical tree structure is one of the most important influencing factors for electrical treeing characteristics in polymers. In this paper, we focused on the structure characteristics of electrical treeing in cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE) insulation under high-frequency voltages. The tree structure characteristics include structure distribution characteristics and structure conversion characteristics. The influences of voltage, frequency, and pin-plane spacing on tree structure characteristics were analyzed based on the experimental results. It can be concluded that tree structures regularly change with the local electric field and frequency. The electric field in a very small zone near the needle tip is an important influencing factor for the formation of bush-like trees, and the lowest frequencies for the observed pure-vine-like trees increased with voltage. For double-structure trees, the local electric field at the transition location of the two structures remained almost unchanged with voltage and pin-plane spacing, but obviously increased with frequency. In order to investigate the relations of the growth rate and fractal dimension with tree structure characteristics, a new parameter, the energy threshold W_t, has been introduced and calculated for different tree structures.     

Accelerated water tree aging of crosslinked polyethylene with different degrees of crosslinking

The effect of crosslinking degree on accelerated water tree aging in crosslinked polyethylene (XLPE) was investigated. The peroxide-crosslinking process was adopted to make XLPE specimens with different degrees of crosslinking by controlling the doping content of dicumyl peroxide (DCP) in low-density polyethylene (LDPE). The water blade electrode method was applied to accelerate water-tree aging of LDPE and XLPE specimens (hereafter referred to as the specimens), and their morphologies were observed using an optical microscope. The variation of crystalline morphology and anti-cracking performance of the amorphous region in the specimens were analyzed by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and an electronic universal testing machine. Based on the experimental results, it was found that XLPE has great anti-water-treeing performance compared to LDPE. In addition, the higher the crosslinking degree, the better the anti-water-treeing performance. Although crystal growth is inhibited due to the crosslinking reaction, the density of tie molecular chains greatly increases in the amorphous region and exhibits significantly tighter lamellar stacking, which is the reason that water tree growth is restrained with increasing crosslinking degree.     

Assessment of thermally aged XLPE insulation material under extreme operating temperatures

The degradation of cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE) insulation material is critical for the safe operation of cables. While there are extensive studies on the thermo-oxidative ageing of XLPE at or below 130 °C, the maximum overload conductor operating temperature, the short circuit temperature can rise above 150 °C, and the ageing patterns at these situations have not been fully understood. Here, chemical, crystalline structure, cross-linking density as well as the mechanical properties were characterized. The results demonstrate the importance of antioxidants in the high temperature situation. Before antioxidants are completely consumed, most of the mechanical and physicochemical properties remain stable. While antioxidant is depleted, the thermo-oxidative degradation is detrimental to the structure and properties of the insulation. The activation energy is around 160 kJ/mol for the thermo-oxidative ageing, from which the lifetime allowed before serious destruction of the insulation at different shortage or overload temperatures can be calculated.