Patent ID: 6853196
Filing Date: 2005-02-08
Classification: G01R

Abstract:
1. A method for determining the location of a defect site in an electrical cable, comprising: injecting into the drive end of the cable a short-duration incident pulse having sufficient voltage to cause an electrical breakdown at the defect site and wherein the incident pulse has energy of less than 1 joule, thereby generating a breakdown-induced reflected pulse in the cable; detecting the incident pulse with at least one diagnostic sensor at the drive end of the cable and recording the arrival time of the incident pulse; detecting the breakdown-induced reflected pulse with the at least one diagnostic sensor at the drive end of the cable and recording the arrival time of the breakdown-induced reflected pulse; and estimating the location of the defect site from the time delay between the arrival times of the incident and breakdown-induced reflected pulses at the drive end of the cable and the propagation velocity of the pulses in the cable by a time-of-arrival technique.