Patent ID: 8593153

Claim:
A method of detecting damage in an electrical wire comprising: (i) delivering one or more test electrical signals to (a) an outer electrically conductive material in a continuous or noncontinuous layer covering (b) an electrically insulative material layer that covers (c) an electrically conductive wire core; (ii) detecting the one or more test electrical signals in the outer electrically conductive material layer (a) to obtain data about the one or more test electrical signals in the outer electrically conducting material layer; (iii) processing the data to identify damage in the outer electrically conductive material layer, the electrically insulating material layer, or the wire core; wherein the wire is a live wire and the electrically conductive wire core carries an operating energy under a potential at least as large as the one or more test electrical signals in layer (a) during the delivering and detecting steps; wherein the method comprises delivering the one or more test electrical signals in step (i) and detecting the one or more test electrical signals in step (ii) and processing the data in (iii) by time domain reflectometry or frequency domain reflectometry.