Health monitoring of electric power communication line using a distributed optical fiber sensor

Optical fiber ground wire (OPGW) is used for both the earth line and communication line in electric power systems. It is important to find an effective to monitor the status of OPGW and diagnose some possible damages. Fault location of the optical fiber transmission line, lightning stroke location and early-warning of ice covering of OPGW are common tasks for OPGW health monitoring and maintenance. As to these issues, Brillouin optical time domain reflectometry (BOTDR) is employed for the health monitoring of OPGW. In experiment, a positive electrode with high pulsed current and a negative electrode are adopted to form a lightning impulse system with duration time of 200ms for simulation of the lightning stroke process, and a tensile force loading apparatus is also constructed to simulate the strain influence of the ice covering on the OPGW. Experimental results demonstrate that the BOTDR can sensitively locate the lightning stroke incidents with the quantity of electric discharging larger than 100C and the strain component has little interference on temperature monitoring as the fiber contained in the OPGW is generally free of strain, and in the ice covering condition the strain feature appears only when the extra tensile force on the OPGW is over 30kN. In addition, the vibration of OPGW does not disturb both the temperature and strain monitoring. As to further applications of distributed optical fiber sensors (DOFS) for the OPGW health monitoring, it is important to enhance its spatial resolution.