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Modelling of Ageing Distribution Cable for Replacement Planning

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS
Modelling of Ageing Distribution Cable
for Replacement Planning
Muhammad Buhari, Student Member, IEEE, Victor Levi, Senior Member, IEEE, and
Selma K. E. Awadallah, Student Member, IEEE
Abstract—The paper proposes a new reliability model of ageing
distribution cable and simulation methodology for prioritization
of cable replacement. The proposed reliability model combines
IEC cable thermal model, Arrhenius aging model and Weibull
probability distribution. Here, Weibull scale parameter is defined
through the Arrhenius aging model, in which conductor temper-
ature is governed by the cable thermal model. A novel estimation
method for the calculation of Arrhenius model parameters is
proposed. The cable reliability model is then incorporated into
the developed sequential Monte Carlo simulation procedure and
reliability indicators and loss-of-lives are calculated. An industry
based cable ranking scheme is further proposed to prioritize
individual cable due for replacement. The whole methodology is
tested on several medium voltage distribution networks.
Index Terms—Ageing distribution cable, Arrhenius model, cable
thermal model, Weibull stochastic process, distribution system re-
liability, replacement planning.
I. INTRODUCTION
D EVELOPMENT planning in power utilities is tradition-
ally divided into ‘load-related’ (i.e., reinforcement) and
‘non-load related’ (i.e., replacement) activities usually funded
from separate sources. Whilst reinforcement schemes stagnate
in many developed countries due to limited load growth and
introduction of energy efficiency measures, replacement pro-
grams can still be very extensive because of asset ageing and
requirements to meet quality-of-supply targets. It is estimated
that more than two-thirds of reliability challenges originate
from the distribution segment, in which medium voltage net-
works account for more than 80% of network failures [1],
[2]. Distribution network replacement planners are tasked
with developing asset replacement strategies under the limited
financial resources. Prioritization of replacement assets then
becomes activity of highest importance. Traditional methods
for asset ranking used in today's distribution companies are
based on asset age, failure history or asset ‘health indices’ [3],
Manuscript received May 29, 2015; revised June 05, 2015 and September
02, 2015; accepted October 22, 2015. This work was supported by the Nigerian
Petroleum Technology Development Fund—PTDF Nigeria. Paper no. TPWRS-
00763-2015.
The authors are with the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,
University of Manchester, Manchester, U.K. (e-mail: muhammad.buhari@post-
grad.manchester.ac.uk; victor.levi@manchester.ac.uk; selma.awadallah@post-
grad.manchester.ac.uk).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRS.2015.2499269
0885-8950 © 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
1
[4]. All these methods consider individual assets in isolation so
that system aspects are not modelled.
Different aspects of distribution cable replacement have
been studied in [5]–[9]. Mathematical modelling of cable
failure probability and determining the optimal replacement
time based on failure-replacement economics has been done
in [5]. Condition based replacement using measurements of
water treeing was studied in [6]. Optimal cable replacement
considering age, previous failures, insulation deterioration and
failure rate was solved using dynamic programming in [7].
Authors of paper [8] highlight the replacement strategies in
EDF; they include on- and off-line monitoring of partial dis-
charge, calculation of health indices and testing of aging cable
in laboratory. Finally, an overview of distribution planning
methodologies is presented in [9].
A possible solution to replacement asset prioritization can
be probabilistic evaluation of prospective system performance
over the envisaged planning period. To this end, reliability
modelling of asset aging or end-of-life characteristics needs
to be incorporated into the simulation procedure. Most of the
so-far developed models are parametric and based on fitting
the best probability distribution function (e.g., Weibull or
Log-normal) to the available historic data and then performing
goodness-of-fit testing [10]. On the other hand, non-parametric
models rely on estimation of the failure rate function using, for
example, Kaplan-Meier's estimator [11]. The latest advances
in this area move towards modelling the component physical
properties within the probabilistic simulation procedure. For
example, use of Arrhenius-Weibull probability distribution for
modelling transformer unavailability is proposed in [12], [13].
This paper deals with prioritization of distribution network
cable for asset replacement under financial constraints. A prob-
abilistic approach based on the sequential Monte Carlo simula-
tion (SMCS) procedure is proposed to calculate financial impact
of individual cable replacement and build a cable replacement
ranking list. Distribution network components are classified as
either at the ‘useful life’ or ‘wear-out’ stage of the life cycle [14].
Standard two-state model based on exponential distribution of
up- and down-times is used to model components from the first
group [15]. Aging distribution cables are modelled with the aid
of Weibull distribution for up-times and exponential model for
down-times. Scale parameter in the Weibull distribution repre-
sents life expectancy of the considered component and can be
defined using the Arrhenius model [13], [16]. Dominant element
of the Arrhenius model is the conductor temperature which can
be further linked to the physical cable properties and loading in
accordance with the cable thermal model [17]. This approach
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2 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS

led to the proposed ‘IEC-Arrhenius-Weibull’ model for model- (pdf) [15], [21], whose survivor function and time varying
ling up-times of aging distribution cable in which parameters of failure rate are:
the Arrhenius model are estimated using a novel technique that
considers historic cable loading. (1)
Within the developed SMCS procedure, customer interrup-
tions (CIs), customer minutes lost (CMLs) and the numbers of (2)
failures are associated with each cable section, clearly showing
each section's contribution towards unreliability. They are then where is the time factor of the component
combined with appropriate unit costs to form a new cable is pdf, is the scale parameter and is the shape
ranking list. The proposed ranking method is finally compared parameter .
to the cable ranking using thermal loss-of-life [18]–[20]. When shape parameter , time dependent failure rate
is monotonically increasing. The scale parameter is a
II. GLOBAL FORMULATION OF THE METHODOLOGY life measure and it can be replaced by the quantifiable life from a
Prioritization of cable sections for replacement is based on life-stress model, such as Arrhenius relationship [12], [13], [16].
the extensive probabilistic analysis of the considered network in The Weibull based concept can be further extended to model
the envisaged planning period. Sequential load and demand pro- consecutive repairs of aging components through the Weibull
files, network characteristics including available controls, cable renewal process [21]. To this end, concept of virtual age is in-
physical and installation properties, as well as thermal and aging troduced in [10], [22]. In Kijima model [10], the virtual age at
models of cable are built into the SMCS procedure. The main th repair stage is defined as:
building blocks are:
• Simulate historic loading of cable and estimate parameters (3)
of the Arrhenius model using an iterative numerical proce- where is virtual age after th repair, is repair adjustment
dure. Also classify cable as either non-aging or aging using factor, is the up-time and is the arrival time. The repair ad-
the thermal loss-of-life criterion. justment factor can take one of the following values:
• Initiate the SMCS procedure over the planning period • For a perfect repair, the component is as good as new fol-
and sample loads and generations from a window around lowing a repair. In this case , indicating the virtual
the specified annual load/generation profiles. Up-times age is set to zero after every repair.
of aging components are determined from the proposed • For a minimal repair, the component is as good as it was
‘IEC-Arrhenius-Weibull’ model, whilst exponential dis- immediately before the repair. In this case , meaning
tribution is used in all other cases. the virtual age is equal to the real age.
• Calculate CIs, CMLs, energy not served (ENS) and • Other repair strategies can be modelled by assuming dif-
thermal loss-of-life in all system states. Allocate reliability ferent values of , which is usually .
indices to the individual cable section(s). Create cable The Weibull model (1) is combined with the virtual age model
ranking lists using the proposed approach and the total (3) into a Weibull renewal process and used for sampling of
thermal loss-of-life. up-times for aging components.

III. DEVELOPED MODELS B. Sampling of Up-Times for Aging Components

This section briefly presents reliability model of aging com- Several techniques for sampling from the non-homogenous
ponents, random sampling of aging component up-times, Ar- Poisson process have been developed; the modified approach
rhenius thermal stress model, cable thermal model, developed proposed in [10] has been adopted. Assuming is the end of
IEC-Arrhenius-Weibull model and the SMCS procedure. the previous up-time interval and is unknown up-time
(or inter-failure time) in the th interval to be sampled, the
A. Reliability Modelling of Aging Components Weibull cumulative distribution function (cdf) that accounts for
Power system components can be classified as either non- the repair adjustment factor is obtained from (1):
aging or aging (or end-of-life). Operation of non-aging compo-
(4)
nents is characterized by the constant failure rate and
modelled using the Markov stochastic process in which both up- where denotes the cdf in the considered interval and
and down-times are exponentially distributed [2], [15]. Aging parameter . The difference of exponents in (4) comes
(or end-of-life) failures occur on those components nearing the from the fact that the component virtual age at the beginning of
end of their design life, or on components that have experi- the considered interval is and during -th interval it is
enced excessive loading for an extended period of time. Once . Random sampling of the up-time is done by
an ageing failure has occurred, the component needs to be re- equating the Weibull cdf (4) with a randomly generated number
paired or replaced. The aging stage in a component's life is from the uniform distribution. Since has the same
characterized with the increasing failure rate over time distribution as , following sampled up-times are obtained:
[14]. Mathematical modelling is often based on the non-ho-
mogenous Poisson process in which up-time (or time-to-failure)
(5)
is modelled using the Weibull probability distribution function
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BUHARI et al.: MODELLING OF AGEING DISTRIBUTION CABLE FOR REPLACEMENT PLANNING 3

(9)
(6)

Equations (5) and (6) are used to obtain sampled up-times
of aging components in the SMCS procedure. Parameter
in (5) and (6) needs to be further developed. The scale
parameter can be linked to the Arrhenius thermal stress model
as in [12], [16]; this is presented in the next section.
C. Arrhenius Thermal Stress Model
The ultimate goal of the reliability model of aging cable is to
relate cable up-time with its age and loading. This can be done
by combining the aging reliability model and the thermal stress
model, which would represent an ‘agent’ for cable loading. In
this way, cable loading will be linked to its age, which in turn
will be connected to the aging reliability model.
In case of cable and overhead lines, thermal stress is de-
fined through the conductor temperature. In this paper, Arrhe-
nius life-stress model has been adopted [16], [23], [24]; it gives
relationship between a life measure and relevant temperature.
The following Arrhenius relationship has been used [23], [24]:
End-of-life statistical data from the international study on
aging assets [25] were further used to estimate parameters
and . It was found that the mean and the standard deviation
of the cable life estimates are, respectively, 51 and 20 years. In
our study, it was assumed that the actual cable age can follow
the life distribution provided in [25]. Assuming Normal distri-
bution is a good fit to the cable end-of-life data, the seven-step
discrete approximation has been adopted [10]:
(10)
where is probability, is mean and is standard deviation.
Assuming the cable age can be any one of the values in (10),
parameters and are then calculated for each discrete step
in turn:

(7) (11)

where is a quantifiable life measure, is conductor tem-

perature in degrees Kelvin, and and are empirical constants (12)
that can be estimated from historic loading data. Quantifiable
life has been used in [12], [13], [16] to model relative life
where denotes cable relative life calculated
of the transformer insulation; it will be used in this study as the
as the ratio of the discrete statistical life (i.e.,
life-scale parameter in the Weibull distribution.
) and the actual cable age. The final estimates are
The parameters and in (7) are component specific con-
weighted parameter averages (weights are from (10)):
stants derived from empirical studies. These parameters are usu-
ally not available; a novel way to determine the Arrhenius pa-
rameters and using the simulation of historic cable loading (13)
has been developed.
Cable manufacturers specify cable nominal life under the The main steps of the iterative calculation procedure are out-
nominal loading conditions, or constant continuous tempera- lined below:
ture . Many polymeric insulated cables operate at higher 1) Load cable historic loading data, or if unavailable, assume
conductor temperature, typically 90 C, whilst cable manufac- relative historic hourly loading of cables over the historic
turers specify nominal life of 40 years under the nominal, con- period (i.e., 8760h * actual cable age in yr). Where no
stant conditions [1], [8], [16], [17]. It was therefore assumed structural changes occurred in the past, the same (relative)
that nominal life is 40 years for the constant temperature of hourly profile can be assumed within all historic years.
90 C (or 363 K). Replacing these values into Arrhenius model 2) Initiate three loops: a) The outer loop is over seven discrete
(7) gives , where is either in years cable lives as defined by (10); b) The mid
or in hours. Assuming conductor temperature in hourly interval loop represents iterations until parameter
is , the relative life in interval is calcu- converges; and 3) Inner loop is over hourly intervals of the
lated by dividing life from (7) by nominal life : historic period .
3) Take into consideration historic hourly interval in which
(8) relative loading is specified . Assume
an uncertainty window which is typically a percentage
where is the Arrhenius relative life in interval . Equation of the relative loading . Determine the cable loading
(8) shows that where conductor temperature is greater than in Amps from , uncertainty window, generated uni-
nominal temperature relative life is less than unity, and vice form random number and peak loading in the historic year.
versa. Summation of relative Arrhenius lives over the entire his- 4) Determine temperature of the cable conductor by sub-
toric period gives the total cable life: stituting the previously calculated cable loading into the
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
4 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS
cable thermal model—see below. Build the corresponding
term of (12), where parameter estimate is being
used.
5) Increment index and repeat steps Nos. 3) and
4) until all historic hourly periods are considered, i.e.,
in (11). This gives estimated cable life in the
-th numerical iteration with the estimated parameter
6) Set parameter estimate to so that the improved
cable life (11) can be obtained. Repeat the steps Nos.
3), 4) and 5). Go to the next step if convergence of the
mid loop is obtained. The convergence criterion is
, where is defined by the
end-of-life statistical data [20] and is assumed tolerance.
Tolerance %, gives a good trade-off between the ac-
curacy and the computation time required for the iterative
procedure.
7) After having calculated converged , find parameter
from (12).
8) Repeat steps Nos. 3) to 7) for each discrete life
. After having completed the outer loop, calculate
final parameter estimates and from (13).
The described method for finding Arrhenius parameters has
been applied to derive the proposed IEC-Arrhenius-Weibull
model. Before presenting this model, a cable thermal model is
briefly given in the next sub-section.
D. Cable Thermal Model
The international standards IEC 60287 [17] and IEC 60853-2
[30] present the calculation of cable ampacity. The main prin-
ciple is the heat balance between the heat generated by Joule
losses and the heat dissipated into the environment through
cable insulation and soil. The main factors that affect cable
ampacity are:
• Thermal resistivity and soil temperature; the assumed
values are always specified when presenting ampacity
tables [17], [30],
• Installation and laying conditions, such as installed in air,
directly buried, in ducts, in cable trenches, etc.,
• Phase spacing and arrangement (trefoil, flat, etc.),
• Cable properties (cross section, sheath bonding, etc.).
The IEC model [17] gives the relation between the cable
loading (or ampacity) and the temperature rise above the am-
bient temperature. It is briefly summarized below:
where:
is conductor temperature rise above ambient
soil temperature (K),
are the Joule and dielectric losses per unit length
of the conductor (W/m),
are the thermal resistances per unit length:
between a conductor and the sheath; cable sheath and ar-
mour; of the external serving (or jacket); and between the
cable surface and the surrounding medium (K m/W),
are the ratios of losses in the metal sheath to losses
in all conductors and the ratio of losses in the armour to
total losses in all conductors, respectively,
is the number of equally sized conductors in the cable,
are the insulation loss factor, cable capaci-
tance per unit length in (F/m) and phase to earth voltage
. (V),
are cable current (A) and AC unit resistance at
temperature ( /m), whose calculation is given in [17].
To find the functional dependence between conductor tem-
perature and cable loading , (15) with being a func-
tion of are replaced into (14). The conductor temperature so
calculated, denoted as , can then be inserted into the Ar-
rhenius model (7) giving the relationship between the cable life
and loading.
E. IEC-Arrhenius-Weibull Model
The Weibull scale parameter (also known as characteristic
life) and shape parameter are typically estimated from historic
failure data. As is a life measure, it can be substituted by
from the Arrhenius model (7) [12], [13]. Next, conductor
temperature can be determined from the cable thermal model
(14)–(15), which will be denoted as . This gives the cdf of
the IEC-Arrhenius-Weibull model:
(16)
The IEC-Arrhenius-Weibull model (16) is used for sampling
the up-times of aging cable within the SMCS procedure. To this
end, (5) and (6) are still applicable, with and
, where is conductor temperature-current
relationship obtained from the cable thermal model (14)–(15).
Parameters and are determined using the method described
in Section III.C.
F. Developed SMCS Procedure
The ultimate goal of future studies will be to investigate the
impact of new low carbon technologies and new operational
procedures on cable aging and replacement. It is for this reason
that sequential Monte Carlo simulation was selected as the ap-
propriate tool.
The developed SMCS procedure is supposed to cover a plan-
ning interval which is equal to the regulatory period—typically
(14) 5 to 8 years. In that respect, one full simulation will consider
(15) hours and it will be repeated several thousand times
until convergence is achieved. Coefficient of variation of the ex-
pected energy not served (EENS) was used as the stopping rule.
The global flow chart of the SMCS procedure is shown in Fig. 1;
its main steps are briefly summarized below.
Step 1: Input the network data including historic and fore-
cast load profiles, envisaged new demand/generation connec-
tions, existing and future network controllers; input cable data
including physical and construction properties, soil tempera-
ture, thermal resistivity, historic failure data, etc.; input param-
eters of the load-flow and the SMCS calculations.
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.

BUHARI et al.: MODELLING OF AGEING DISTRIBUTION CABLE FOR REPLACEMENT PLANNING 5

of the SMCS procedure is reached. Final reliability indices and

cable ranking lists using the thermal loss-of-life and the pro-
posed method are then calculated.

IV. CABLE RANKING FOR REPLACEMENT

This study was initially set to find the impact of aging cable
on the network performance and suggest ‘appropriate’ cable
ranking method. Two ranking methods are studied:
• Using the thermal loss-of-life,
• Using the proposed, financial-based ranking method.

A. Ranking Based on Thermal Loss-of-Life

The exposure to higher temperatures leads to chemical
changes in cable insulation and reduced life. The life can
be related to the conductor temperature using the Arrhenius
relationship (7). Based on this model, it has been shown in
[18]–[20] that the (relative) thermal loss-of-life at variable
conductor temperatures can be expressed as:

(17)

where is the thermal loss-of-life, and denote historic and

planning intervals, and are durations of interval and
in which conductor temperature is constant, and and are
lives at temperatures and , obtained from the Arrhenius
Fig. 1. Flow chart of the SMCS procedure.
model (7).
Equation (17) represents a summation of fractional loss-of-
life increments in the considered historic and planning periods.
Step 2: Consider the historic period and calculate Arrhenius The sum approaches unity when the cable reaches the end of
parameters and in accordance with the methodology de- thermal life. Those cables with the highest thermal loss-of-life
scribed in Section III.C. Calculate the relative thermal loss-of- are put on the top of the list.
life—see Section IV. Classify individual cable sections as ei-
ther non-aging or aging. An empirical threshold of has B. Ranking Based on Financial Consequences
been used to classify the cables as aging or non-Aging [25]. This Real-life replacement programmes tend to replace those as-
choice is based on the relative operational performance of the sets which may have highest financial implications in the forth-
network cables such as the assumption that any cable that lost coming regulatory-planning period. Distribution companies are
at least 35 years of its thermal life should be considered as aging regulated monopolies and they get capital allowances for ‘load’
(i.e., ). and ‘non-load’ investments for the next regulatory period. In
Step 3: Initiate the SMCS procedure over the envisaged plan- that respect, distribution companies have a pre-specified ‘re-
ning period (typically 5 years, with hourly granularity). placement pot’ and they need to make prioritization lists of dif-
Step 4: Analyze the current hourly period with the aid of ferent types of assets to be replaced. Prioritization can then be
the load-flow. Loads and generations are randomly generated based on the financial exposure in the regulatory period. The
from a window around the specified profile values. Where following costs are considered:
appropriate, change the status of network component(s) using • Revenue lost under the quality-of-supply (QoS) incentives.
the data from the previous sampling of these components; then It usually consists of two parts; the first is related to CIs (or
sample the component(s) from the IEC-Arrhenius-Weibull SAIFI) and the second to CMLs (or SAIDI).
model if the aging component has just been repaired, or the • Cost of repairing the faulty cables.
exponential model in all other cases. Using this approach, ranking of cables for replacement is
Step 5: Update the data for the calculation of reliability in- based on the following financial criterion:
dices SAIFI (or CIs), SAIDI (or CMLs) and expected energy
not supplied (EENS). Allocate the reliability indices to the cable
section which had caused supply disruption: (18)
• In case of total loss of continuity, all CIs, CMLs and EENS
are attributed to the faulty cable section. where and are customer-interruptions
• In case of the partial loss of continuity, a proportion of the and customer-minutes-lost caused by the considered cable
load/customers is shed and allocated to the cable section. on the system in the regulatory period, SAIFI Incentive and
Step 6: After having completed simulations over the plan- SAIDI Incentive are monetary values of one customer interrup-
ning period, steps Nos. 4, 5 and 6 are repeated until convergence tion in and one customer minute lost in
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
6 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS
Fig. 2. 33 bus test system.
(specified by the QoS regulatory regime) and $ per failure is
cost of a failure repair. Corresponding values used in this study
are presented in Table III below.
Quantities and Number of Failures are
calculated for each cable section within the considered planning
period using the SMCS procedure. Those cables with the highest
cost criterion (18) are placed on the top of the list.
V. TEST NETWORKS AND CABLE DATA
A brief description of two test networks and cable data is
given below.
A. IEEE 33-Node Test Network
The 33-node, 22 kV medium voltage radial network depicted
in Fig. 2 [27] has been used as the first test system. There are
32 underground cable sections and 5 tie-lines (or normally open
points), which are marked with dashed lines. The total peak load
in the base year was 3.715 MW and 2.3 MVar and it was extrap-
olated over the planning and historic periods. The conventional
IEEE RTS-96 chronological load profile was adopted as the ref-
erence hourly load profile within each year [28]. It was derived
from weekly peak loads that are percentages of annual peaks,
daily peak loads being percentages of weekly peaks and hourly
loads as percentages of daily peaks [28]. As there are no cable
section data, it was assumed that all sections are 1 km in length,
which was deemed appropriate for urban areas. Besides, this
length generated ‘sufficient’ number of failures within the sim-
ulation procedure. The cable sections are marked with L1, L2,
, L37 in Fig. 2; all loads of distribution substations are rep-
resented as (kW, kVAr) quantities next to each node.
B. IEEE 69-Node Test Network
The second test system is the 69-node network with all data
presented in [29]. This is a 22 kV medium voltage network op-
Fig. 3. Time varying soil temperature over one year.
TABLE I
SEASONAL SOIL THERMAL RESISTIVITY (K M/W)
erated radially. The peak load of the network was 3.8 MW and
2.62 MVar in the base year. The IEEE RTS-96 chronological
hourly load profile was again used as the reference yearly pro-
file [28].
C. Cable Data
The full set of cable data, required for the solution of the
complete IEC cable thermal model [17], [30], can be found in
[31]. Two most critical cable parameters for the heat dissipation
are thermal resistivity and soil temperature [17], [30]. A time
varying soil temperature profile, characteristic for the U.K., was
adopted from [32] and shown in Fig. 3. The maximum soil tem-
peratures were: 8 C (winter), 27 C (summer) and 17 C (spring
and autumn). The minimum temperature was 2 C.
Soil thermal resistivity is used for the calculation of in
(14). It is dependent upon the soil/backfill type, moisture con-
tent, particle size and distribution, etc. In this study, ‘typical’
seasonal values of soil thermal resistivity were adopted; they
are presented in Table I. Soil thermal conductivity is highest
during winter months, when there is a lot of rainfall. In this study
the cable thermal ratings are updated periodically for each line
during the SMCS process based on the time varying soil tem-
perature and thermal resistivity.
VI. SIMULATION RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
This section presents the calculated parameters of the Ar-
rhenius model, reliability indices for the two test systems with
non-aging and aging cable, and cable ranking using the thermal
loss of life and the proposed cable ranking criterion. The section
also provides results from the sensitivity studies carried out to
find the impact of variation of shape parameter in Weibull
distribution (i.e., Weibull ageing stress parameter) on the simu-
lation results.
The estimated Arrhenius model parameters and were ob-
tained using the proposed iterative method for two cable types,
namely, polymeric—XLPE and paper insulated. The results are
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
BUHARI et al.: MODELLING OF AGEING DISTRIBUTION CABLE FOR REPLACEMENT PLANNING
Fig. 4. Normalized Arrhenius thermal graph.
presented through the normalized Arrhenius thermal life graph
(Fig. 4), which is expressed in per unit of 40 years (i.e., cable
rated life). The assumed aging cable mean age and standard de-
viation were, respectively, 51 and 20 years, which is in line with
the results of the study [25]. Fig. 4 shows two plots of the ratio of
cable life (at service temperature) to the rated life (at rated tem-
perature) versus service temperature for XLPE and paper cables.
As would be expected, Fig. 4 suggests that the actual life of the
cables could exceed rated life to some degree depending on the
thermal loading cycle. On the other hand, when the cables are
overloaded, typically due to faults when the network reconfig-
uration and backfeeding are being done, conductor temperature
can exceed 90 C and result in the loss of relative life greater
than unity. Besides, it is clear that XLPE cables are more re-
silient than the paper cables at higher temperatures. The Arrhe-
nius parameters and for XLPE cable type were used in fur-
ther studies, as a part of the IEC-Arrhenius-Weibull reliability
model within the SMCS technique. It is important to note that
the values of and and subsequent reliability indices depend
on the cable age at the beginning of the planning study.
Prioritization of aging underground cables for replacement
under financial constraints was done using the developed SMCS
procedure. The system-wide indices SAIDI and SAIFI are cal-
culated for the considered 5-year planning period and they are
shown in Table II. To quantify the impact of cable aging and
thermal stress, SMCS studies were run for different values of
the Weibull stress parameter . Base case means that
there is no cable aging (i.e., Weibull distribution becomes ex-
ponential—(5)), whilst the highest implies very high
aging stress level. This range was selected in line with the re-
search carried out in [12], [13]. The repair adjustment factor
is set to 1 in order to account for the full impact of aging on the
repair process.
Table II presents the SAIDI and SAIFI results for the two test
systems and several values; the per unit values are in relation
to the non-aging SMCS results . The total number of cus-
tomers connected to the 33 bus and 69 bus test systems was,
respectively, 1600 and 3400. It can be deduced that ignoring the
impact of cable aging can lead to gross underestimation of the
system performance in future. More specifically, as increases
7
TABLE II
TEST SYSTEMS RELIABILITY INDICES
TABLE III
COST ASSUMPTIONS
Fig. 5. Cable ranking based on thermal loss of life in historic period: (a) 33
Bus test system, (b) 69 Bus test system.
the system reliability worsens considerably. Therefore, the prac-
tical choice of should be based on the comparison with the
real-life company data on historic network/circuit performance.
It is expected that the parameter is likely to be around 1.4; this
value was used in our studies.
Classification of cables to non-aging and aging was done by
studying the historic period and using the thermal loss-of-life
criterion. The results are presented in Fig. 5, which shows rela-
tive losses of cable lives for both studied systems. An empirical
threshold of loss-of-life ( yr/40 yr) has been used
to classify the cables as aging. This choice was based on the
comparison of the relative performance of the network cables
and the assumption that any cable that lost at least 35 years of
its thermal life requires closer monitoring. Fig. 5 shows that ca-
bles L1-L5, L7, L8 and L26 of the 33 bus test system, as well as
L5, L6, L40 and L48 for the 69 bus network will be classified
as aging and will require monitoring of their network impact.
The performance of the individual cable sections within
the planning period was then assessed within the SMCS pro-
cedure and a ranking profile developed using the proposed
financial based ranking criterion. The cost assumptions are
presented in Table III, whilst changes in system reliability
indices— and allocated to each cable
section in Fig. 6. It can be observed that the aging cables L1-L5,
L7, L8 and L26 of the 33 bus test system, as well as L5, L6,
L40 and L8 of the 69 bus network contribute % and %
of the total system interruptions and the durations, respectively.
This means that fixing these cables would enhance the system
reliability considerably.
The most important factors affecting the frequency of aging
failures and system reliability indices are the loading cycle,
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.

8 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS

the degree of cable aging (i.e., ) and the network topology

during contingencies. The loading cycle combined with the
time-varying cable thermal ratings can have substantial impact
on the reliability indices in certain intervals of the planning
period (e.g., winter, when temperature and thermal resistivity
are low), which coincides well with the contingencies. The
impact of parameter on reliability indices is even higher,
because it directly affects the length of time to failure of the
cable. For example, cable L5 on the 33 bus network (Fig. 6(a))
will contribute 1.36 hours of loss of supply over 5 years when
hours when , and 23.02 hours when
. Similarly, cable L6 on the 69 bus network (Fig. 6(c))
will contribute 0.84 and 8.97 hours when and ,
respectively. Finally, those outages which can be restored from
adjacent feeders have lesser impact on SAIDI (switching time Fig. 6. Ranking of critical cables for replacement: (a) 33 Bus
is shorter than repair time). system, (b) 33 Bus system (c) 69 Bus system (d)
The proposed financial-based cable ranking was then com- 69 Bus system.
puted by using the SAIFI/SAIDI values from Fig. 6, allocated
numbers of faults and cost figures of Table III; the results are
outlined in Fig. 7. It provides a logarithmic bar chart of the new
ranking of aging cables in the 33 bus (Fig. 7(a)) and 69 bus test
systems (Fig. 7(b)), for the different aging stress levels (i.e., pa-
rameters ). Fig. 7(a) shows that the cables best candidates for
replacement on the 33 bus system are L5, L2, L3, L4, L1, L7, L8
and L26. This is the same set of cable sections as those obtained
using the loss of life criterion (Fig. 5(a)), but the ranking order is
different. Similarly, cable sections best candidates for replace-
ment on the 69 bus system are L6, L5, L40 and L48, which is a
different priority order to the ranking based on the thermal loss
of life (Fig. 5(b)).
Finally, from the discussions thus far it can be concluded that
the effective prioritization of distribution cable for replacement
has to take into account overall system modelling, cable aging,
physical characteristics of components, as well as envisaged
network operating conditions in the planning period. This con-
cept can be further extended to a methodology that will provide
a single prioritization list of assets for both replacement and re-
inforcement.

VII. CONCLUSION
This paper proposes a new reliability model and a prioritiza-
tion method for ageing distribution cables. The reliability model
integrates the cable thermal model and Arrhenius aging model
into the Weibull distribution. A novel estimation method for the
calculation of Arrhenius parameters was proposed. The relia-
bility model is then incorporated into the developed sequential
Monte Carlo simulation procedure and a financially based cable
ranking scheme was employed to prioritize individual cable(s)
due for replacement.
The proposed technique was applied on two medium voltage
distribution networks. It was shown that aging models have sig-
nificant (negative) impact on network reliability. Prioritization
of cable using the financial scheme that considers system-wide
effects can give different results compared to the schemes based
on isolated assets (e.g., thermal loss-of-life).
Future studies will focus on assessing the impacts of new low
carbon technologies (e.g., wind, solar, storage, electric vehicle,
Fig. 7. Financial based cable ranking for replacement: (a) 33 Bus test system,
(b) 69 Bus test system.
etc.) and new control concepts, such as dynamic network re-
configuration, co-ordinated voltage control, etc. to extend asset
lives and improve the quality of supply-network reliability.
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220a65615218d5c9cc9e4785a3234bd0
Muhammad Buhari (S'12) received the B.Eng.
and M.Eng. degrees in electrical engineering from
Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria, in 2006 and 2011,
respectively. He also has an M.Sc. in entreprenuer-
ship and electrical and electronics engineering
from The University of Nottingham, U.K., in 2010.
Currently he is pursuing a Ph.D. degree at The
University of Manchester, U.K.
Victor Levi (S'89-M'91-SM'13) received the M.Sc.
and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the
University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in
1986 and 1991, respectively.
From 1982 to 2001, he was with the University of
Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, where he became a
Full Professor in 2001. He was with the University
of Manchester, Manchester, U.K. from 2001 to 2003,
and then with United Utilities and Electricity North
West, from 2003 to 2013. In 2013, he rejoined the
University of Manchester.
Selma K. E. Awadallah (S’09) received her B.Sc. degree in electrical engi-
neering from the University of Khartoum, Sudan in 2003 and her M.Sc. and
Ph.D. degrees from The University of Manchester, Manchester, U.K. in 2010
and 2014, respectively.
From 2004 until 2010, she worked with National Electricity Corporation,
Sudan. Currently she is a Research Fellow at The University of Manchester,
U.K.