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Ageing Diagnostics and Prognostics of low-voltage I&C cables

Objective

The assessment of the condition of low-voltage instrumentation, control, and power cables in nuclear power plants is of increasing importance as plants age and lifetime extensions are envisaged. Furthermore as new reactors are being constructed and many other are planned for the near future, the initial cables choice and the use of effective in-situ condition monitoring (CM) techniques to follow cable condition indicators from the beginning, can result to be very valuable at a later time for an effective cable lifetime management.
The overall objective of the proposed project is to adapt, optimise and assess electrical CM techniques for nuclear cables that would allow utilities to assess in-situ the current cable degradation condition and, together with the establishment of appropriate acceptance criteria, to verify its qualified state over its entire length and to estimate its residual lifetime.
To this extent, the project will consist in studying with accelerated ageing tests a representative selection of cables already installed in European Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) in order to evaluate the ability of electrical CM techniques to detect local and global cable ageing. The results will be compared and correlated to those obtained with more conventional CM techniques for validation and residual life estimation. These tests will be supported by the study of the impact of cable polymers ageing on the electrical properties. These studies will allow not only to guide the adaptation and the optimisation of existing CM techniques, but also to interpret the results of the electrical measurements, to extend the validity of the results to other similar cables and to adapt the future cable design and formulations to electrical CM techniques. This investigation on innovative cables for future plants could open the way to a new generation of “intelligent” cables with improved diagnostic capability.

Fields of science

Programme(s)

Topic(s)

Call for proposal

FP7-Fission-2010
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

CP-FP - Small or medium-scale focused research project

Coordinator

ELECTRICITE DE FRANCE
Address
Avenue de wagram 22
75008 Paris
France

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Region
Ile-de-France Ile-de-France Paris
Activity type
Private for-profit entities (excluding Higher or Secondary Education Establishments)
Administrative Contact
Christophe Moreau (Mr.)
Links
EU contribution
€ 365 381,00

Participants (10)

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Last update: 26 May 2017

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Permalink: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/269893

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