|
|
|
SOLUTIONS
Ultrinium™ brand and Perficio™
brand fluids are safer to use
|
Tailored Formulation
Every solution that Novinium offers includes the double top secret Novinium
Element. Safety is the number one design criterion for each Novinium product and
service. Unlike older technology, all Novinium®-brand rejuvenation fluids are not
flammable and all Ultrinium™-brand rejuvenation fluids contain no known carcinogens
or reproductive toxins.
Novinium is proud to offer two power cable rejuvenation fluids. Keep an eye on this
web site for the introduction of revolutionary technology for in situ strand filling
of air-core copper telephone, fiber optic, and power cables. Solutions available
now include:
Perficio™ 011 is evolutionary and delivers a long-term
performance advantage in excess of 30% compared to the older silicone injection
approach. Perficio™ 011 has all of the safety advantages Novinium and risk managers
demand and the low fluid cost of the older technology. It’s cheaper, because the
base chemical, phenylmethyldimethoxysilane or PMDMS, is a commodity, which is made
in large quantities for 100's of other applications. But we improved the catalyst
so the fluid supplied to the strands stays in the cable longer and we made it less
flammable. To learn the details of how Novinium improved upon the older fluid, check
out "Advances in Chemical Rejuvenation: Extending Medium Voltage Cable Life
40 Years" presented in Versailles France at the Jicable Conference
on June 26, 2007. In non-demanding applications (low soil temperature and low load),
Perficio™ 011 can provide 20 years of reliable life.
Ultrinium™ 732 and Ultrinium™ 733 fluid are
revolutionary and are the fluid technology of choice for the most demanding
applications. The silane chemicals of 732 and 733 are custom designed for the rejuvenation
application. Sure that means they cost more, but they provides greater than 2 times
the life extension of Perficio™ 011. 732 and 733 fluids are not flammable and contain
no known carcinogens or reproductive toxins.
Tailored Injection
Novinium developed a patented method called Tailored Injection™ for delivering cable
rejuvenation fluids utilizing either sustained pressure rejuvenation (SPR) or unsustained
pressure rejuvenation (UPR). Tailored Injection™ assures that the correct fluid
formulation and the optimum amount of cable rejuvenation fluid is available to provide
the desired life extension. Tailored Injection™ is particularly critical for 7-strand
and 19-strand cables. The chart near-by shows the robustness of each injection approach
with each fluid as reflected by the warranted post-injection reliable life. The
primary choices are Ultrinium™ 732 fluid delivered with Sustained Pressure Rejuvenation
(SPR) as a first choice and with Un-sustained Pressure Rejuvenation (UPR) as a second
choice. For less demanding circumstances Perficio™ 011, can be delivered at a lower
cost. For high temperature feeder applications (>60°C) Ultrinium™ 733 fluid provides
the highest performance.
|
*Non-demanding applications only. Warranted life extension by injection
paradigm (UPR or SPR) and fluid choice. SPR and Ultrinium™ 732 together provide
the highest reliability and best capital efficiency for small diameter cables. **Ultrinium™
733 is used for large diameter cables and where conductor temperatures may exceed
60°C.
|
Temperature Is a Big Deal
The temperature at which a cable operates has a profound effect on the duration
of reliable life extension that can be delivered with chemical rejuvenation. Over
time all fluid injected into a cable permeates out of the cable. Fluid that is not
in the cable is not adding to that cable’s reliability. For each 10°C (18°F) temperature
increase the rate of permeation triples. With the Perficio™ 011 technology or the
older technology it replaced, the same fluid formulation is used regardless of the
anticipated operating temperature of the cable. This approach is fine for lightly
loaded cables in mesic soils (the green areas on the Soil Temperature Regimes map
nearby), but provides about three times less life extension for cable in Central
Arizona, South Texas, or Florida even for lightly loaded cables.
|
|
|
Safer
- 3-times less exposure to high voltage components
- Less flammable than older injection fluids
- No potentially energized equipment creating unusual hazards
|
*Non-demanding applications only. Warranted life extension by injection
paradigm (UPR or SPR) and fluid choice. SPR and Ultrinium™ 732 together provide
the highest reliability and best capital efficiency for small diameter cables. **Ultrinium™
733 is used for large diameter cables and where conductor temperatures may exceed
60°C.
|
Paradigms & Fluids
Replacement is the least safe rehabilitation option. Cable rejuvenation in any of
its incarnations is inherently safer than cable replacement. For rejuvenation there
are three injection paradigms and four choices of chemistry. The twelve possible
combinations are shown in the chart nearby. Not all of the possible combinations
are commercially significant. CableCURE® fluid is delivered with the Unsustained
Pressure Rejuvenation (UPR) and soak paradigm. Because Novinium holds several patents
and pending patents on Sustained Pressure Rejuvenation (SPR) and advanced catalysts,
CableCURE fluid cannot be delivered with SPR technology and requires a soak period
on all 200 amp cables except those with 4/0 round conductors. These constraints eliminate
two of the possible twelve choices. While Novinium can and does deliver rejuvenation
in all nine of the remaining possible combinations shown, as a practical matter
many of those choices only utilized in very special circumstances. The five rehabilitation
choices arranged from highest risk to lowest risk are shown below.
|
- Replacement
- Unsustained Pressure Rejuvenation, with Soak and CableCURE fluid
- Unsustained Pressure Rejuvenation, with no soak and Ultrinium™ 732/733 fluid
- Sustained Pressure Rejuvenation, with no soak and Perficio™ 011 fluid
- Sustained Pressure Rejuvenation, with no soak and Ultrinium™ 732/733 fluid
|
|
Perficio™ 011 fluid uses the same base monomeric silane as the CableCURE/XL fluid,
but improves upon its catalysis. The improved catalyst boosts its efficacy. More
importantly the Perficio formulation substitutes a high flash point component for
a low flash point component. This improvement makes Perficio fluid much less flammable.
Ultrinium™ 732 and Ultrinium™ 733 represent a family of the highest performance
treatment fluids available and enjoy the same or higher flash point (i.e. low flammability),
as Perficio™ 011 fluid. Perficio™ 011 fluid, Ultrinium™ 732 fluid, and Ultrinium™
733 fluid are preferably delivered using the state-of-the-art Sustained Pressure
Rejuvenation paradigm, but both may optionally be applied using Unsustained Pressure
Rejuvenation.
Unsustained Pressure Rejuvenation requires a hole in an otherwise perfectly good
elbow to provide physical access to the conductor. Warning tags alert trouble staff
that equipment might be energized – but it is difficult to be assured that they
will stop to read them if they visit this pad mount transformer at 2:15 in the morning.
UPR with a soak period requires at least 3 times more visits to energized transformers
than the SPR paradigm. Each visit multiplies the risk of electrical contact. When
the UPR paradigm is combined with CableCURE/XL fluid, which
has a flash point of 55°F (13°C), making it more flammable than jet fuel A, there
is also a potential for fire or explosion. A reservoir of flammable fluid is stored
in a high voltage environment at an elevated pressure for 60 days, 120 days, or
even more. The actual conditions in electrical equipment are not the same as the
conditions utilized to determine closed cup flash point values.
The combination of Ultrinium™ 732 fluid for small diameter cables or Ultrinium™
733 fluid for large diameter cable, which are not flammable and the SPR paradigm
provides the lowest risk and the highest reliability performance. The hazard classification
chart below provides a taxonomy of 39 hazards associated with injection. Of these
39 hazards 30 are non-trivial. Trivial risks are 9 of the 39 identified risks where
both the equipment risk values and the personnel risk values are less than $1. The
30 non-trivial risks are plotted for the two paradigms in the Injection Hazard Ranking
graph. There are at least two significant conclusions from this analysis. First,
utilizing the “sustained pressure; not flammable fluid” paradigm eliminates entire
classes of risks. The 30 non-trivial risks of the “unsustained pressure; flammable
fluid” paradigm are reduced to 18. Second, the 18 remaining non-trivial risks of
the “sustained pressure; not flammable fluid” paradigm are reduced by substantial
factors over the earlier approach in all but three cases. For those remaining three
cases the risks are essentially identical.
|
|
|
Entire classes of risks are eliminated (signified by an “X”) with utilization of
the SPR paradigm, where injection occurs only when the cable is not energized and
prevents fluid coming into intimate contact with cable components such as splices
and terminations. Besides eliminating entire risk categories, not using flammable
fluid reduces fire and explosion risks by at least of a factor of 2 (signified by
a “÷2”) and the single visit – single switch™ approach, reduces electrical contact
and driving risks by at least a factor of 3 (signified by a “÷3”).
|
|
Environmental (2.1) and toxicological (2.2) risks often come to circuit owners minds
when they consider rejuvenation technology. In fact these two classes of risk are
too low to consider in the figure above. To learn more view “Environmental & Safety Frequently Asked Questions” or
the full hazard analysis
available from the Novinium library.
CableCURE® is a registered trademark of UTILX Corporation.
|
|
Faster
Independent laboratory tests demonstrate that Ultrinium injection technology increases
the AC breakdown performance of solid dielectric cables 87-times faster than the
older ‘841 approach. That’s 87-times, not 87%! After 7 days at 25°C in the experiment
illustrated nearby, the AC breakdown strength of a cable treated with Ultrinium™
technology (orange) had increased by 24 kV/mm (600 V/mil). Similar performance increases
take two years for the older approach (blue). Faster dielectric strength increases
along with chemistry tailored to address partial discharge (PD) allow post-failure
treatment which dramatically reduces the repeat-failure rate.
|
|
|
Better
Independent laboratory tests confirm superior performance with accelerated aging
conditions over 3 times longer than the old (‘841) approach. These tests and others
were used to extrapolate post-injection performance of Ultrinium 732 fluid (orange)
and ‘841 fluid (blue) for cool soils and light loads (solid lines), and for warm
soils with heavy loads (dashed lines) for 1/0 15kV cables in Illustration 2.
|
|
In all cases, Ultrinium 732 fluid provides trouble-free performance (AC breakdown
performance above 400 V/mil or 16 kV/mm) in excess of 40 years. While Novinium’s
Tailored Injection provides roughly the same performance for any conductor size
and voltage class, the performance for the old approach will vary depending upon
these variables. 7-strand conductors, which suffer from an even greater under-supply
of fluid will not perform as well as the 1/0 benchmark of Illustration 2.
Data and estimates for other soil and loading conditions are available upon request.
For a complete explanation of the data and modeling used to generate Illustration
2, see Accelerated Aging of Rejuvenated Cables – Part I and Accelerated Aging of Rejuvenated Cables – Part II.
|
|
Applicability Footprints
For each of the 5•Ps along the x-axis of the “Rehabilitation Applicability Footprints”
illustrated nearby, circuit owners have up to 4 rehabilitation options. Because
the older approach (blue) was designed as a preventative treatment and only provides
reasonable life extension in lightly loaded cables in cool soils, it should only
be used in the least demanding applications in the lower right corner of the illustration.
Perficio™ 011 (blue-grey) is an improved version of the older technology and hence
its operating envelope is slightly larger than its predecessor.
State-of-the art tailored formulations™ utilizing Ultrinium™ 732 fluid and Ultrinium™
733 fluid can be applied at very high temperatures even for post-failure or problematic
circuits. Of course, replacement (olive) can be utilized over the complete strategic
rehabilitation spectrum, but typically at a capital cost two to ten times higher
than cable rejuvenation.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|