Acoustic Guided Wave Detection of Corrosion in Ground Rods

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Electricity plays a critical role in our economy and society and is distributed via electric power substations. These substations depend upon an electrical grounding grid system to protect control equipment from damage and ensure personnel safety in the event of a fault current or lightning strike. Currently, excavation is the main method used by electrical utilities to access the status of grounding grids in aging substations that are, in many cases, over 50 years old. The overall objective of this project is to identify innovative, robust, low-cost solutions for accessing the integrity of the grounding grid system in electrical power substations, without the need for excavation. The development of improved ground rod corrosion detection sensing systems will improve condition monitoring in and maintain the reliability of power distribution systems. This will improve Canadian power security by contributing to the minimization of power outages and disruptions due to sudden equipment failure. It will also provide an economic benefit to both Canada and Manitoba by avoiding the losses in economic productivity associated with power outages and by ensuring the availability of energy for export to international markets. Our research group has demonstrated approaches based on acoustic guided waves (AGW) can detect corrosion in ground rods, without excavation. In this method, acoustic signals are launched into the grounding electrodes. As they travel through the electrodes, the signals will be reflected when they encounter corrosion defects in the rod. The reflected wave signals provide information that can be used to determine the location and severity of defects that would cause grounding faults. However, the utility of this method can be greatly improved. The goal of this partnership is to develop: 1) transducers that can access the rod from multiple points, such as the side of the rod and 2) robust automated algorithms to determine the degree of corrosion with varying environmental conditions, that can run in a handheld mobile battery powered embedded computational platform. This proposal will also produce unique, highly specialized HQP and will educate partner staff in the new field of acoustic guided wave corrosion detection.