Electrical and mechanical diagnosis of aging 600 V rated STP cables in a nuclear power plant

This paper proposes electrical and mechanical diagnostic methods to estimate the aging effects of 14 American wire gage (AWG) 600 V rated shielded twisted pair (STP) cables used in nuclear power plant. The cables were accelerated to be degraded in a dry oven using Arrhenius's equation, and the properties of healthy and degraded cables were estimated electrically and mechanically as well. S-parameters were measured using a vector network analyzer (VNA) and were used to assess the aging effects of the degraded cable. An effective modulus was also used as an aging indicator of the mechanical properties. An indenter was designed and fabricated to measure the effective modulus of aged cables. Both methods' results were compared and found to be effective for diagnosing the deterioration of the aging cables. Therefore, the proposed methods could be very useful for maintaining power cables in nuclear power plants.