Bilfinger makes high-voltage power safer

Iden­ti­fy­ing flaws at the ear­li­est pos­si­ble stage, ensur­ing qual­i­ty, and avoid­ing com­plaints – this is the pur­pose of Bil­fin­ger Cable Check. Work­ing in close col­lab­o­ra­tion with the glob­al chem­i­cals cor­po­ra­tion Bore­alis, the Bil­fin­ger sub­sidiary Bil­fin­ger Indus­tri­al Ser­vices Swe­den has devel­oped a cable-inspec­tion device used to con­firm the qual­i­ty and puri­ty of the insu­lat­ing mate­r­i­al used in high-volt­age cables. This allows the man­u­fac­tur­ers of cables and insu­lat­ing mate­ri­als to detect impu­ri­ties or irreg­u­lar­i­ties in the mate­r­i­al, there­by reduc­ing the risk of malfunctions.

“With Bil­fin­ger Cable Check, we are mak­ing high-volt­age pow­er safer. We iden­ti­fy defects before the end prod­uct leaves the fac­to­ry. This sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduces the risk of lat­er com­plaints. Many of these cables lat­er will be laid on the ocean floor, mean­ing that any mal­func­tions would end up being very expensive.”

Anders Ols­son, Prod­uct Man­ag­er at Bil­fin­ger Indus­tri­al Ser­vices Sweden

Cable Check was devel­oped in response to the need for a pre­cise and easy-to-use lab­o­ra­to­ry device capa­ble of ana­lyz­ing qual­i­ty and puri­ty in the pro­duc­tion of cross-linked poly­eth­yl­ene (XLPE), a syn­thet­ic mate­r­i­al used pri­mar­i­ly to insu­late high-volt­age elec­tri­cal cables. The cable-inspec­tion device is already being used in Europe, the Unit­ed States, and Asia by cable man­u­fac­tur­ers, OEMs, XLPE pro­duc­ers, and test­ing insti­tutes. It con­sists of a stereo micro­scope, i.e. a spe­cial opti­cal micro­scope fea­tur­ing ultra-intense illu­mi­na­tion and an inte­grat­ed cam­era that is mount­ed on a mul­ti-axle base. The micro­scope is hooked up to a com­put­er so that the ana­lyt­i­cal find­ings can be record­ed. The unit also includes inte­grat­ed func­tions that allow the user to ful­ly re-trace the ana­lyt­ic process­es performed.

Dur­ing the cable-inspec­tion process, the cable’s exter­nal semi­con­duct­ing lay­er is removed and sub­merged in a heat­ed oil bath. In the process, the crys­talline com­po­nents melt and the sam­ple becomes amor­phous and trans­par­ent. This allows any impu­ri­ties or cav­i­ties in the insu­la­tion as well as any defects of the inter­nal semi­con­duc­tor to be visu­al­ly iden­ti­fied. Under cer­tain con­di­tions, branch­ing struc­tures in the cable known as “water trees”, which orig­i­nate at defec­tive points in the cable insu­la­tion, will become recognizable.

In 2018, Bil­fin­ger was able to secure four orders for cable-test­ing devices. The most recent of these was award­ed by Maille­fer, the glob­al leader in wire, cable, pipe and tube pro­duc­tion tech­nolo­gies. The scope of deliv­ery for the indi­vid­ual orders includ­ed spare parts, train­ing ses­sions, and start-up ser­vices, as well as options for enhanced functionalities.