Preliminary investigation on the feasibility of radiometric techniques to detect faults in buried cable joints

This paper investigates the preliminary use of radiometric techniques to the detection of PDs in buried cables, and in particular to cable joints. The transfer function from the source to the detector is a function of the propagation characteristics of the media involved. In the case of radiometric detection the inclusion of soil, in general a lossy and dispersive medium with frequency and content dependent characteristics, further contributes to signal attenuation. The work undertaken here examines whether a repetitive pulse of varying amplitude and frequency, injected into an experimental arrangement that simulates buried power cables, is being detected by two simple antennae above ground. Successful detection of the pulses showed the preliminary possibility of the use of such techniques in PD detection, which creates the need for further experiments and antenna designs to be explored.