2006 Annual Report Conference on Electrical Insulation and Dielectric Phenomena

A theoretical investigation for the development of a water tree dielectric response model

A.J. Thomas and T.K. Saha

University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

Abstract: Underground medium voltage XLPE cables
are at risk of failure from water tree degradation and it
is vital that water tree degraded cables be detected in a
power system network before they can cause outages.
Time domain and frequency domain diagnostic
techniques can be used to assess the insulation condition
but the interpretation of the results from these
measurements, and how they are correlated with
degradation indicators such as water tree density and
length, is unquestionably difficult. This paper intends to
investigate the polarisation and conduction mechanisms
within water tree degraded cables, paying particular
interest to the effect of space charge accumulation at the
water tree tip. It is postulated in this paper that the
electric field at the tree-tip will be strong enough, from
the contribution of space charge, to induce non-linear
effects in the local surrounding, healthy XLPE. It is
predicted that this non-linear effect will act to ‘amplify’
the healthy XLPE response to a higher magnitude,
resulting in higher losses, polarisation and conduction.
Introduction
With the aging of power networks all over the world,
condition monitoring of power system components is
becoming increasingly important to avoid unexpected
failures and to ensure well informed maintenance
schemes. Water tree degradation is a significant risk to
medium voltage XLPE cables, and therefore the ability
to interpret non-destructive dielectric response
measurements is very desirable.
arisen from studies performed in recent years [2, 3] on
the amount of space charge accumulation at water tree
tips under the excitation of an electric field. It is
proposed in this paper that the local field enhancement
caused by this accumulated space charge will be enough
to cause non-linear polarisation and conduction
processes at the tree tip. It will be shown that this has
the effect of magnifying the polarisation and losses of
the cable, and also leads to non-linear behaviour of the
dielectric response with varying applied charging
voltages.
Space charge in water trees
If Maxwell’s equations are analysed, particularly
Poisson’s equation and the conservation of current
equation:
ρ
∇⋅E =
ε0
(1)
∇⋅ J = 0
along with the current density equation:
∂D
J =σE+ (2)
∂t
a first order linear differential equation may be derived:

However, because of the complex morphology of ρ = σE 0 ∇⎜

⎛ε ⎞
⎟ cos (ωt ) − ε∂ρ
(3)
water trees and the uncertainty of how they behave ⎝σ ⎠ σ ∂t
electrically, this is a very difficult task. Therefore to aid
in the interpretation of dielectric response if the applied field is a cosine with a magnitude of E0.
measurements, dielectric models can prove to be quite This may be solved using an integrating factor, with the
useful. In particular, because the AC breakdown final solution being:
strength (ACBD) of a cable has been found to be
roughly inversely proportional to the longest vented tree ⎡σ ⎤
lengths [1], a model that can accurately describe how
εE 0 ⎢ ε cos ωt + ω sin ωt ⎥
⎛ε ⎞
these long vented trees affect the dielectric response ρ= ∇⎜ ⎟ ⎢ σ
⎥ (4)
⎝σ ⎠ ⎞ ⎢ σ −ε t
2
would be especially valuable. ⎛ε ⎥
1+ ω2⎜ ⎟ ⎢− e ⎥
⎝σ ⎠ ⎣ ε ⎦
This paper attempts to construct a dielectric response
model of water treed insulation by paying particular With the above derivational steps being performed in
attention to the conduction and polarisation processes at [2]. As can be seen, there is a grad operator term
the water tree tips. The focus on these processes has operating on the ratio of the permittivity to the

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 conductivity. At the water tree tip, there is a large
decrease in conductivity from 1-5×10-8 to 2×10-18 and a
decrease in permittivity from ~4 to 2.3 [4]. It is clear
that the dominating factor will be the change of
conductivity, rather than the change of the permittivity.
Therefore, from Maxwell’s equations it can be seen that
a space charge distribution is expected to develop at the
water tree – XLPE interface.
Various researchers have used the Pulsed-Electro-
Acoustic (PEA) technique to measure the space charge
densities at water tree tips [2, 3]. A typical measured
space charge profile from water tree degraded XLPE
can be seen in Figure 1 taken from [3].
Figure 1. Typical space charge profile for water tree degraded cable
As can be seen in the above figure, the space charge
densities are localised at the tips of the water tree as
expected. This has been further confirmed in [2], which
shows the maximum space charge density corresponds
with the locations of the identified water tree tips. In
[2], the measured space charge profiles were integrated
over the water tree length and the total charge
magnitude was found to vary linearly with applied
voltage. By taking the DC limit of (4), it was found in
[2] that the total interfacial space charge magnitude
could be expressed as:
ε XLPE ε 0VAi
Qi = (5)
w−l
Where V is the applied voltage, w is the insulation
thickness, l is the tree length and Ai is the area of the
interface. If (4) is used on a water tree of 3mm in
length, within a 6mm thick insulation, with an
interfacial area of half its length squared (1.5mm2), a
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charge magnitude of approximately 1×10-10C can be
expected with an applied voltage of 12kV. This charge
magnitude will lead to fields beyond the 20kV/mm non-
linear limit of XLPE [5] for distances within
approximately 100µm of the tip of the water tree. This
distance will increase for larger trees and applied
voltages. Therefore it is very reasonable to expect non-
linear conduction and polarisation processes to exist in
the localised area around water tree tips, and this will
affect the dielectric response of a water tree degraded
cable.
Theory of non-linear conduction and
polarisation mechanisms
In solids, polarisation and conduction processes occur in
a discrete space and time manner. This is in contrast to
dipolar liquids (such as water), whereby under the
action of an electric field all the dipoles may orientate
slightly to the field with large degrees of orientational
freedom, whereas in solids, charge orientations or
displacements occur in more restricted discrete ‘jumps’
to neighbouring potential wells. It has been suggested
that DC conduction in solid insulators is the product of
sequential long range ‘hopping’ between potential
wells, which is essentially a low frequency/long time
extension of short range charge movements at high
frequencies/short times.
It is well known that a high applied electric field will
alter the jump probabilities of charge carriers situated in
a potential well. This is illustrated in Figure 2.
eEa / 2 ∆W
W
eEa / 2
S
E
Figure 2. Potential well diagram with altered potential energies from
an applied electric field.
The resultant conductivity from these altered energies
and probabilities can be derived to give (a full
derivation is shown in [6]).
⎛ 2kT ⎞ ⎛ eEa ⎞
σ (E) = σ 0 ⎜ ⎟ sinh ⎜ ⎟ (6)
⎝ eEa ⎠ ⎝ 2kT ⎠
 Where σ0 is the low field limit of the conductivity, e is
the charge of the carrier and a is the distance between
the potential wells or traps. In this application, σ0 will
be taken as 2×10-18 (S/m), the conductivity of XLPE. In
the case of PE, the average distance between traps is
2nm [5], and this value will be used for a in this
circumstance (we are assuming a periodic lattice of
traps).
A similar reasoning can be applied to the polarisation
processes, as they are essentially short range
manifestations of the above mentioned processes (which
are obviously long range due to the nature of
conduction). In the case of polarisation at high
frequencies, the carriers will hop to nearest neighbour
potential wells, but no further within an AC cycle,
which will lead to polarisation but not conduction.
These hops by carriers can be considered as dipolar
orientations. The polarisation within a dielectric can be
expressed in two ways, relating to macroscopic and
microscopic processes:
P = (ε ' − ε 0 ) E = uµ
Where u is the number of dipoles operating at field E
and µ is the average dipole moment. If the simplistic
2-dimensional potential well case is considered, as
illustrated in Figure 2, then the average dipole moment
from the hopping of carriers can be expressed as:
∑q d
N
⎛ eEa ⎞
ea sinh ⎜
i i
( f f − f r )ea ⎝ 2kT ⎠ (8)
µ= i =1
= =
u ( f f + f r )ea ⎛ eEa ⎞
cosh ⎜
⎝ 2kT ⎠
Where ff is the probability of a hop in the direction of
the field for a negatively charged carrier, fr is the
probability of an hop in the opposite direction, q is the
charge of the carrier and d is the distance between the
dipolar charges. As can be seen from equation (8), the
simplification has been made that all potential wells are
a distance a apart (hence d = a), and all the carriers are
electronic (hence q = e). From (7) and (8) then, the
permittivity can be expressed as:
⎛ 2 kT ⎞ ⎛ eEa ⎞
ε ' = ε LF
'
⎜ ⎟ sinh⎜ ⎟ + ε0
⎝ eaE ⎠ ⎝ 2kT ⎠
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If we assume that XLPE follows the Universal
Relaxation Law (which is a fair assumption for a
hopping conduction system) [7], then the ratio between
real and imaginary parts of the susceptibility can be
considered to be constant, therefore allowing the
following expressions:
⎛ 2kT ⎞ ⎛ eEa ⎞
χ ' = κ LF
'
⎜ ⎟ sinh⎜ ⎟
⎝ eaE ⎠ ⎝ 2 kT ⎠
(10)
⎛ 2kT ⎞ ⎛ eEa ⎞
χ '' = κ '' = κ LF
''
⎜ ⎟ sinh ⎜ ⎟
⎝ eaE ⎠ ⎝ 2 kT ⎠
Where:
ε~
κ~ =
ε0
Therefore, it can be seen that the high field
susceptibility may be deduced from the low field
(7) susceptibility, after the assumption of some physical
parameters. If it is assumed that these hopping
processes are the dominant processes in the frequency
range of interest, then with knowledge of the electric
field the dielectric response to be modelled.
Modelling
The complexities of the water tree structure make it a
difficult task to model to exacting physical
specifications. Therefore in this paper, only simple
⎟
three dimensional rectangular structures were used to
represent the water trees. The space charge densities
⎟ were placed at the tips of the simulated water trees, with
the magnitude of the space charge calculated with (5).
The electric field in the healthy XLPE beyond the water
tree tip was determined using a finite element
calculation, along with the associated dielectric losses
using (10). Only the imaginary part of the susceptibility
was considered in this paper and is referred to as the
“loss”. Measurements at low voltage on new XLPE
cable samples were performed to provide the low field
reference. No geometric field enhancement was
considered.
Results
(9) Figure 3 shows the modelled dielectric response for
varying bow-tie tree densities at U0. A log-normal
statistical distribution was used, with mean lengths and
distribution parameters similar to those reported in [8].
371

Figure 3. Modelled dielectric response for varying bow-tie tree
densities
Figure 4 shows the modelled dielectric response for
varying long vented tree lengths, with a base bow-tie
tree density of 100 #/mm3.
Figure 4. Modelled dielectric response for varying long vented tree
lengths (expressed in percentage of insulation thickness).
Figure 5 shows the non-linearity of the model with
charging voltage.
(a) (b)
Figure 5. (a) Observed non-linearity for 200 #/mm3 bow-tie tree
density (b) Observed non-linearity for 93% bridging vented tree.
The above responses, and consequently the overall
behaviour of the model, match closely with measured
results published in [9] , which gives a level of
confidence for the proposed mechanism.
Conclusion
A theoretical investigation has been undertaken with
respect to the effect of space charge on the dielectric
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response of water tree degraded XLPE. A model has
been developed from the results of this investigation,
and the results and model behaviour match closely with
published data. If the model can be further confirmed
with measurements, it may become an important tool
for the interpretation of dielectric response
measurements from water tree degraded cables.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the Australian
Research Council and Ergon Energy for providing the
funding that made this study possible. The authors
would also like to acknowledge the academic support of
the project members at the Queensland University of
Technology.
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Author address: Andrew J. Thomas, School of IT and
Electrical Engineering, University of Queensland, St
Lucia, Brisbane, Australia 4072 Email:
andrew@itee.uq.edu.au