A life loss tool for an optimal management in the operation of insulated LV power cables

An optimized system management of a commercial and industrial power system must take care of the actual operational and energetic duty of the power system distribution. A procedure based on the Arrhenius model of the Thermal Aging of Insulating Materials allows introducing the relative time coefficient (RTC) and promoting a heuristic method, as a rule of thumb, to estimate the life loss and the residual useful life for insulated power cables. The paper deals with simplified models of low voltage cable systems characterized by one and two time constants to evaluate the cable temperature behavior and the influences of the ambient and installation conditions. Furthermore, the paper proposes a device to count the “life loss hours” for LV power cables of main/critical circuits.