| Summary: | The Location of a fault in a power cable is by no means a simple task and the techniques used at present warrant further improvement. Many methods of fault location have been devised but each has its particular limitations. Some of these methods include D.C. and A.C. bridge methods, echo-ranging methods, and high-frequency methods. The limitations and impracticability of these various techniques has been the main reason for this research.
In this thesis, a review of the high-frequency method has been made, resulting in the development of a method of locating high-resistance faults. Expressions, permiting the use of this improved method in instances where cable potheads are relatively inaccessible have also been developed and checked experimentally. Briefly, the method consists of determining the input impedance of the cable with its remote end terminated in its surge impedance. This is done by simultaneously measuring the voltage drops across a standard resistor and across the cable. The ratio of these drops is an indication of the cable impedance at that frequency. Observations are taken on a band of frequencies on a faulted cable and on a good cable, both terminated in the characteristic impedance. The difference of these two effects is attributed to the reflections from the fault. From the plot of the impedance as a function of the frequency, by a short graphical computation, the distance to the fault may be obtained. Faults as high as twenty times the surge impedance have been successfully located on relatively short lengths of cable. The distance to the fault has been estimated well within [page missing] === Applied Science, Faculty of === Electrical and Computer Engineering, Department of === Graduate
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