Integrity Analysis Inspection and Lifecycle Prediction of Subsea Power Cables

Subsea power cables are critical assets within the distribution and transmission infrastructure of electrical networks. Based on review of historical failure data, we have discovered that 70% of their failure modes are not monitored by current commercial monitoring systems, which predominately focus on the internal failure modes associated with partial discharge or overheating using online monitoring methods or embedded fibre-optics. In this paper, we proposed a fusion prognostic model for subsea cable lifetime prediction, employing an analytical model which is supported by accelerated aging data. In addition, we presented the preliminary results of our low frequency (LF) sonar analysis of subsea cables with a view to insitu integrity monitoring of cables. Seminal analysis on the echo data allowed us to distinguish cable samples with different types and diameter differentials of 2mm. Future work will focus on the integration and validation of this sonar data into the predictions of a cable's remaining useful life.