Offline fault localization technique on HVDC submarine cable via time-frequency domain reflectometry

Fault localization is one of the most significant aspects in the maintenance of high-voltage direct current (HVdc) submarine cables that have unconventional installation characteristics, such as long cable lengths and underwater installation locations. In order to protect and diagnose the cable, an improved fault localization technique, that is, time-frequency domain reflectometry (TFDR) and tangent distance pattern recognition are proposed in this paper. The fault location information of the HVdc submarine cables can be obtained from the tangent distance, to support the results of TFDR. To verify the performance of the proposed method, a commercial HVdc submarine cable is used in the experiments. A test bed is constructed for creating a similar environment with that of the submarine cable and filled with sea water. Both low- and high-impedance faults are emulated in this experiment by local insulation faults with iron, sea water, and air. The theoretical concepts and experimental results of the proposed method are presented. It is expected that the proposed method can improve the reliability of real-world HVdc power systems.