Corrosion Detection in Steel Reinforced Aluminium Conductor Cables (CorCab)

NDT Consultants LTD (NDTC) will partner with NPL to look into the feasibility of improving the the non-destructive, safe and cost-effective method the company uses to assess galvanisation corrosion in powerline Aluminium Conductors Steel Reinforced (ACSR) cables. The partners will focus on magnetism technologies such as Eddy current and line current-based magnetic field measurements.

Currently, the most common way to assess corrosion in powerline cables is to take a sample by cutting out a section of conductors. This is a destructive/intrusive method that is also unsafe and costly. Some non-destructive techniques such as visual, infra-red imaging, magnetic flux leakage are sometime used.

However, they have marginal usage because of their complexity and low sensitivity. When the corrosion takes place inside the conductor, it is not detectable by visual or infra-red inspection except when the corrosion products are large enough to bulge the conductor but, at this stage, the conductor's failure may be imminent.