Real World V – Irrefutable Proof

In my last post of 2011, Wondering in Western Washington, questioned the merit of the claims made by UTILX^® in a document titled, “Life Extension Estimate for UtilX^® CableCURE^® Rejuvenation Fluid.”  That 17 page document includes numerous assertions that I examined in previous posts, Real World I, II, III, and IV. In this last in the series of five posts, I examine the veracity of the “irrefutable proof” asserted by the document’s author. Claims of “irrefutable proof” are actually quite easy to disprove. Even if there is a single decent argument that runs contrary to the assertion, the irrefutable proof rings hollow. This lowly frog cites five …

1.    If the proof is irrefutable, why would the author declare the analysis to be proprietary and confidential and sue his own customer to prevent its disclosure? UTILX did not prevail in its legal action. See UTILX v. City of Tacoma, No. 11-2-11594-7 in the Superior Court of the State of Washington in and for the County of Pierce. Click here and search on the case number to access court documents.

2.    The author failed to disclose that his first of three “real world” examples was treated unconventionally. The cable was treated from the inside-out as is in the normal case, but the cable was also treated from the outside-in. This deceptive tactic would not be used by someone with irrefutable proof. This Duke Deception lies outside the norm by about 240X!

3.    In the second of three examples presented, the author uses the Dominion Dodge, which lies outside the norm by a factor of between 20X and 150X.

4.    Why not provide data from a case or cases that are representative of typical “real world” cables? The author has access to a study performed by Florida Power and Light (FPL) that contradicts his assertions. Why does he fail to disclose that data? The FPL study was conducted in cooperation with the author’s firm. The FPL study was described semi-publically to NEETRAC members participating in a process to design a new side-by-side experiment to compare the post-injection performance of the commercially significant technologies. UTILX participated in the experimental design, but withdrew from the study when it was ready to begin, citing “business and commercial reasons.”  If UTILX’s technology is irrefutably better than that offered by Novinium, why would UTILX withdraw? NEETRAC, NEETRAC members, and Novinium completed the study.

5.    The author has access to the entire post-injection failure history of his firm. Why not simply publish this realest of “real world” data? Novinium publishes its full failure experience. Click here to view Novinium’s “Lessons Learned.”

Veritatem dies aperit (from Lucius Seneca, Time discovers truth)

T. B. Frog

Real World IV – NE Utilities – finally a ray of sunshine

In my last post of 2011, Wondering in Western Washington, questioned the merit of the claims made by UTILX^® in a document titled, “Life Extension Estimate for UtilX^® CableCURE^® Rejuvenation Fluid.”  That document includes 17 pages and numerous claims. In this fourth in a series of five posts, I consider two paragraphs on page 15 devoted to some “real, real world” data provided publically by Northeast Utilities, Connecticut Light & Power subsidiary.  The author devoted the previous 14 pages to the “Duke Deception” and the “Dominion Dodge,” each a poster child for the Wikipedia entry for “Non-representative Sample.” We saw that those two examples were displaced from the “real, real world” by 20X to 240X! So here is what the author said with his characteristic flair about his third and final example:

Part Three:  Connecticut Light and Power Co. Published Success:

Part One of this paper demonstrated that the fluid content contained in a cables' insulation even many years post injection is very high. Part Two of this paper demonstrated the long term effectiveness of that fluid on real cables that underwent real world ageing. Part Three of this paper shows a published real world accounting of the effectiveness of treatment on a real world population of cables. This accounting was performed by Connecticut Light and Power Co (CL&P). It was presented in the spring 2008 ICC and published in those notes. The spreadsheet describing their injection program success has been included as Appendix C of this report. That spreadsheet makes the following points.

CL&P has been carefully maintaining the failure records of the cable they consider to be 'at risk' since 1995. They began their injection program in 1999 selecting cable from that same pool of 'at risk' cables. Although the appendix includes a detailed breakout by year, the summary is succinct. From 1999 to 2007 the pool of at risk un-injected cable totaled 7.8 million feet upon which they experienced 2512 failures. From that same pool of at risk cables, 2.1 million feet had been pulled for injection. Across that same time period there are only 43 failures experienced on the 2.1 million feet. The un-injected pool is suffering a failure rate per foot of cable that is larger than 15 times greater than the cables that have been injected.

The first two sentences are of course untrue. Part One and Part Two demonstrate that under conditions unrepresentative of typical cables and in the least demanding of applications, PMDMS (phenylmethyldimethoxysilane) fluid works quite well. What this frog struggles to fathom is why the author didn’t just stick to CL&P data. The CL&P data show the profoundly positive impact that PMDMS fluid has on, dare I say it, real world reliability. The post injection failure rate is 0.7% and it is does represent an over 15-fold improvement over the untreated cable population. In the interest of transparency, I have attached the CL&P data to the bottom of this post.

Conspicuous by its Absence

What’s missing from the “Life Extension Estimate for UtilX^® CableCURE^® Rejuvenation Fluid” document is any analysis that shows the “real world” concentration of treatment fluid in the CL&P cables. This would be the proper way to draw together the Duke, Dominion, and CL&P data. At Novinium, we don’t have to make measurements to know what the concentration profile looks like. We have two U.S. Patents (7,643,977 and 7,848,912), which allows us to calculate the profile with uncanny precision. If the author were to make a measurement, it would not support his narrative. The author would find that the concentration of fluid found in the Duke transmission cable and the unloaded 35kV Dominion feeder cable are substantially greater than that found in a similarly aged 7-strand or 19-strand CL&P URD cable. I should think the author would want to revise his thinking.

In any case, there is good news. For non-demanding applications in cool mesic soils such as those in Connecticut, even the first generation of fluids performs admirably. Novinium offers the same PMDMS-based treatment fluid with several safety and performance improvements. We call our PMDMS-based material, Perficio™ 011 fluid. Numerous improvements in the next generation of technology made by the Novinium Masters of Reliability™ provide up to twice the life and twice the post injection reliability with the Ultrinium™ 73X fluid family. What do the “real world” folks in Connecticut use today for their rejuvenation program? To find out you will have to ask them, but I can say that I have added granite to my habitat.

In my upcoming fifth and last post on this thread …

Real World V – Irrefutable Proof, …

I will provide a final peer review and editorial of UTILX’s “Confidential and Proprietary” document.

Until then,

T. B. Frog

80-20120127_Real_World_IV-NE_CLP_Cable_Injection_Program.pdf (8.14 kb)

Real World III – Dominion Dodge

In my last post of 2011, Wondering in Western Washington, questioned the merit of the claims made by UTILX^® in a document titled, “Life Extension Estimate for UtilX^® CableCURE^® Rejuvenation Fluid.”  That document includes 17 pages and numerous claims. In this third of a series of posts, I consider extrapolated life claims scattered across pages 13 through 15.  The author of the document presents a series of arguments built around a cable that was treated with CableCURE^®/XL fluid at Dominion Virginia Power. The 35kV, 3-phase circuit included 1000 kcm aluminum conductors and 260 mils of XLPE insulation. One phase was treated with XL fluid; another phase was left untreated as a control. The cable lies in thermic soil (12-22°C) about one meter deep with no load. In fact, the circuit has had zero load since it was treated. I will share some of the more colorful assertions by the author below, but first the context suggested by the author is that this “real world” example is representative of the population of aging cables. Presumably the reader is encouraged to assume that the measurements made on this circuit can be extrapolated to what I have taken to call, the “real, real world.”  The “real, real world” includes the 7-strand and 19-strand cables that make up the bulk of the rejuvenated cable universe. Like we saw in yesterday’s post, “Real World II – Duke Deception,” the author has not been very vigilant at choosing representative samples.

Point – Counterpoint

“This makes the result very conservative and only useful as an unrealistically low minimum boundary.”

Using very lively language the author appears to coax the reader that the analysis that follows can be applied to any case … we shall see.

“It is generally assumed that the reduction of breakdown strength over time is polymeric slowing over time. Modeling this reduction as a straight line is absolutely the most conservative approach.” 

This frog is reluctant to put words in the author’s mouth, but I believe he meant to say “a polynomial” where he said “polymeric.” Even with that correction the author is still in error. The dielectric degradation slope of solid dielectric cables is best described as an exponential decay or hyperbolic decay … but I am quibbling now. The real point of the adverb-rich language again appears to be to encourage the reader to accept the analysis which follows without undue diligence. This frog will not willingly suspend her disbelief.

“The absolute most conservative evaluation of its remaining life would be to assume that from this moment on (Time = 14 years post injection) its' decay rate is linear and equal to the decay rate of its un-injected counterpart. In other words, we assume for the sake of absolute conservatism that the fluid at this point has no effect on the cable.”

The analysis is not just conservative it is absolutely conservative. It’s difficult for me not to correct the grammar and punctuation, but I successfully restrained myself.

“Assuming that [the treated cable] will age from this point on at the same rate as its un-injected counterpart is obviously nearly ridiculously conservative. By doing so however we are able to arrive at irrefutable proof of injection effectiveness as well as absolute certainty of the absolute minimum value of added life.”

These two sentences are gems. Thinking about the meaning of “obviously nearly ridiculously conservative” is a bit like thinking about one of those science fiction time paradoxes. If I went back in my time machine and swallowed my father when he was a tadpole, how could I have ever been spawned in the first place?  What does “nearly ridiculously” mean? Almost, but not quite, ridiculous? This frog is not sure about that, but I am quite confident the author is trying to sell me an idea I shouldn’t be buying. I can be confident, because if the author actually had irrefutable proof, why would he hide it within the shroud of a “Confidential and Proprietary” document and actually sue his customer to prevent its public disclosure? (See UTILX v. City of Tacoma, No. 11-2-11594-7 in the Superior Court of the State of Washington in and for the County of Pierce.)

Fallacy of the Anecdote II

Putting aside the overenthusiastic use of adverbs and hyperbole the author makes a reasonable case for the efficacy of his product in an unloaded, 1000 kcm, 35 kV feeder cable buried in thermic soil. The problem arises because he holds out this example as one of a handful of “real world” examples and implies that these few anecdotes prove the universal efficacy of his product. The Dominion cable is not representative of the population of “real, real world” cables. In the table nearby I tally up the estimated impact of some differences between this single sample and the “real, real world.” In yesterday’s post, we saw that the Duke cable was off the mark by about a factor of 240X.  The Dominion Dodge is not nearly so egregious. Here the error is a paltry 20X-150X! The author appears headed in the right direction.

Executive Summary

If you have a cable, like the Dominion cable with no load, treatment with even low performance injection fluids should provide several decades of post-injection reliable life. However, that success cannot be extrapolated to 7- and 19-strand cables that carry cyclic loads. The old fluid utilized at Dominion Virginia Power was deployed by a Novinium founder and is available from Novinium for non-demanding applications.  Perficio™ 011 fluid works well in non-demanding applications, like cables with really thick insulation, low loads, and non-constrained conductors. In the decades since the introduction of the first generation of technology, the masters of reliability at Novinium came to recognize that one cannot treat all cables the same. Novinium is the only supplier in the world of patented technology (U.S. Patent 7,611,748) which addresses the full spectrum of cable types and sizes.

Using adverbs sparingly,

Real World II – Duke Deception

In my last post of 2011 one of my local fans, Wondering in Western Washington, questioned the veracity of the claims made by UTILX^® in a document titled, “Life Extension Estimate for UtilX^® CableCURE^® Rejuvenation Fluid.”  That document includes 17 pages and a bunch of interesting claims. In this second of a series of posts, I consider two claims proffered on the bottom of page 3.  To wit …

“[Micro Infrared spectroscopy is] performed routinely on post injected cables. An example is provided by the published paper [3]; ''Case Study: Rejuvenation Fluid Injection Results from Duke Power's Little Rock Retail Tap Line, a 115kV XLPE, Buried Transmission Circuit."  Figure One shows a chart from that paper demonstrating that the quantity of fluid, even after 10 years, exceeds the target concentration for a six to nine month old injected cable. Two points are established by Figure One. The first is that fluid in optimum injection quantities still exists in the cable's insulation. The second is that the rate of fluid decay is too small to measure after 10 years.”

Notes: Reference 3 above is to a non-peer-reviewed paper provided Stagi & Kimsey at the IEEE T&D Conference (Dallas, TX), May, 2006. An augmented facsimile of "Figure One" referenced above is shown in the graph below in the third illustration. All punctuation and grammatical errors were left as they were found by this frog.

Fallacy of the Anecdote

The author is attempting to make a case for the efficacy of his product.  This Duke cable, and as we shall see in future posts, all of his examples except for the example of Northeast Utilities, is not representative of the population of “real world” cables. Let’s enumerate the problems with this single anecdote.  Of the population of treated cables, the vast majority is single-phase URD cables with 7- or 19-strand conductors. The vast majority has insulation thickness of less than 260 mils and is unjacketed with bare concentric neutrals. The Duke cable has a 61-strand conductor, holding much more fluid and the insulation thickness is three to four times thicker than the population norm.  The Duke cable has a copper taped shield, semi-impervious to permeation, and a 170 mil thick PVC jacket. In the table nearby I tally up the estimated impact of some differences.

All of these differences place the Duke cable among the least representative samples one might choose to make a population extrapolation. On top of the unrepresentative nature of the Duke cable design, the author makes an egregious omission.  The Duke cable was not only treated from the conductor outward, as is the norm within the population of treated cables; the annular space under the cable’s jacket was also treated. The cable was treated from the inside-out and from the outside-in. This highly salient fact is not to be found in the author’s papers or accompanying slides.  Taken together the differences put the Duke cable outside of the norm by about a factor of 240!  That's not 240%; that's 24,000%!

First Assertion:  Fluid remains in optimum injection quantities

In this season of presidential debates, I am reminded of the single Reagan-Carter debate of 1980, which I recently watched on YouTube.  Over and over again, when Jimmy Carter made some bizarre claim, Ronald Reagan would chuckle and say, “There you go again.”  Frog to author:  There you go again – assertion without proof. What precisely are the “optimum injection quantities?”  Are you suggesting that if the concentration profile were say, 20% higher, that the reliability of the cable would be poorer? That notion is silly and directly contradicted by earlier peer reviewed work done on the same cable. I will reference that work in the next paragraph. In the graph that I reproduce nearby, the author presented a green dotted line labeled “Target Concentration,” just below 1.5%_w. If I were a betting frog, I would bet that the Target Concentration was chosen after the micro-infrared data was compiled. How else to explain an utter lack of justification for the figure? There you go again – assertion without proof.

Second Assertion:  Fluid decay is too small to measure after 10 years

There you go again – assertion without proof.  Where is the measurement from 10 years earlier to make the claim?  The author doesn’t provide the data. Fortunately, Novinium houses the world’s largest library on rejuvenation science and a decent comparison can be found there. In the figure nearby I have inset micro-infrared data from the same cable. The data was published in “Cable fault prevention using dielectric enhancement technology” presented in June, 1995, by Novinium’s own Glen Bertini at the peer-reviewed Jicable conference in Versailles, France. The assertion is false.  The average concentration in 1995 was about 3.5%_w, the average concentration a decade later was about 1.7%_w – a factor of two is not too small to measure.

Executive Summary

There is undoutedely a good reason that the author of “Life Extension Estimate for UtilX^® CableCURE^® Rejuvenation Fluid” tried to keep this paper away from reasonable scrutiny. A cynical reader might even think that the author is trying to mislead his audience.  Rejuvenation fluids do in fact improve the performance of transmission cables, but the author would have you believe that treating such cables is a greater technical challenge than treating a 15kV URD cable.  In fact the opposite is true. Cables like the Duke cable should experience extremely long post-injection life, but that success is not easily extrapolated to 7- and 19-strand cables. The old technology used at Duke was conceived and deployed by a Novinium founder.  That technology works well in non-demanding applications like cables with really thick insulation or low loads. In the decades that have transpired since the introduction of that old approach, those who are masters of rejuvenation technology came to recognize that one should not treat transmission cables the same as one would treat a URD cable. Only at Novinium is patented technology (U.S. Patent 7,611,748) available to address the full spectrum of cable types, sizes and flavors. This frog will not employ deception to convince anyone.

Novinium’s Integrity Value: Truth and knowledge are the foundation of the Novinium character. Each will be advanced at every opportunity and neither will be compromised.

Truly yours,

T. B. Frog

Real World I – High K

In my last post of 2011 one of my local fans, Wondering in Western Washington, questioned the veracity of the claims made by UTILX^® in a document titled, “Life Extension Estimate for UtilX^® CableCURE^® Rejuvenation Fluid.”  That document includes 17 pages and many, many claims. In this first of a series of posts, I examine the following set of claims from page 3:

Once the CableCURE^® molecule reaches those sites it performs two important functions. First, it chemically combines with the water, desiccating the water tree site. Second, it polymerizes; the polymeric chain that forms continues to grow until its chain length traps it inside of the water tree structure. Once trapped inside of the cables insulation, it serves as a “high K" style stress gradient reducing the electrical stress amplification that occurs at the tips of the water tree “branches". This two part functionality arrests the growth of water trees in aging cable.

I added highlighting to focus on the words and phrases of the claims that could create confusion; I left all puctuation and grammer errors untouched.  The first two words I highlighted could be characterized as quibbles, but I endeavor to be precise in my language. I am sure the author will appreciate my clarifications, since these claims taken together with others are held out as “irrefutable proof” of CableCURE efficacy. The third highlighted “high K” claim will receive the majority of my attention today.

Desiccating

The CableCURE molecule to which the author refers is phenylmethyldimethoxysilane or PMDMS for short. The chemical reaction of PMDMS with water is well understood. On average each PDDMS molecule consumes about one water molecule.  The effect is real, but the implication of the claim is that this desiccation-by-reaction is one of PMDMS’s two important functions.  It is not. The reaction with water is a necessary precursor to a subsequent condensation reaction. In the next sentence the author refers to this second reaction as polymerization.* Chemical desiccation is not important because the phenomenon is fleeting.  Consider the data reported by another UTILX employee in “The Importance of Diffusion and Water Scavenging in Dielectric Enhancement of Aged Medium Voltage Underground Cables” at the IEEE PES T&D meeting in Chicago, 1994.  Figure 4 and the accompanying text indicate that the water reactive capacity of PMDMS is exhausted at between 54 and 67 days for a 1/0 conductor at 60°C.  At lower temperatures the time to exhaustion might be longer, even on the order of a year or even two. When one is talking about decade-long life extension, a couple of months or a couple of years is not of critical importance. None-the-less, PMDMS does help keep the insulation dry for many, many years, but not by the mechanism suggested by the author. Instead, the mechanism is preferential wetting, which is well described in U.S. Patent 7,976,747 held by Novinium and in the paper “Advances in Chemical Rejuvenation of Submarine Cables” available here. The reason the distinction is important is that only Novinium^® brand Ultrinium™ 73X fluids include components with preferential wetting properties superior to PMDMS. Reducing the amount of water present in the insulation is indeed important, but not all rejuvenation fluids perform the same in water reduction efficacy.

Trap

The word “trap” is too absolute for this frog. Trap implies eternity and it just isn’t so.  In a December 29, 2010 post, “Chain Entanglement,” I explain how the larger oligomers substantially retard the exudation of the rejuvenation fluid, but it is not trapped. As shown in the figure nearby, improvements in rejuvenation molecules patented by Novinium (U.S. patent 7,658,808 and others pending) are designed to stick around in the insulation longer than PMDMS.

High K

There is no agreed-upon definition for High K, when applied to stress grading in power applications.  At 20°C and 60Hz, the dielectric constant or “K” of unfilled polyethylene is about 2.3 and EPR insulation varies from about 2.7 to 2.8 depending upon the specific compound. (See Bartnikas & Srivastava, Power and Communication Cables, IEEE 2000.)  The dielectric constant for PMDMS is 3.2. The dielectric constant of PMDMS is indeed higher than PE and EPR insulation, but using the word “high” is a bit of a stretch.  High K materials are quite often used in shrink-to-fit splices and terminations.  For example, 3M’s data sheet for its Quick Term II Silicone Rubber Termination Kit states:  “The High-K material has a dielectric constant of about 25.”  Pure water has a K of 78. Cyanobutylmethyldialkoxysilane or CBMDAS for short, a patented component of Novinium^® brand Ultrinium™ 73X fluids, has a K much greater than that of water.  3M’s stress control material, water, and CBMDAS are “real life” High-K materials.  I have arranged these six materials in a table nearby for easy reference.

I object to the statement proffered by the author for two reasons …

     1. It is an assertion without proof.  If the author believes that the mechanism he claims is significant with a K of just 3.3, he should provide a calculation or measurement as substantiation.

     2. The PMDMS is replacing water, which has a much higher dielectric constant.  How could that conceivably provide stress grading?  CBMDAS on the other hand, enjoys a K greater than the water it replaces.

Executive Summary

The author of “Life Extension Estimate for UtilX^® CableCURE^® Rejuvenation Fluid” is not a master of the facts. While CableCURE fluid does dry the cable and extend its life, the explanation of why this is so lacks foundation. Stress grading at the microscopic scale is possible with materials that have dielectric constants greater than the water that they replace.  One example of such a material is available only from Novinium and is protected by a U.S. Patent, other pending patents, and their foreign equivalents. While this frog cannot be sure what the author was thinking when he made his claim, I can provide a common-sense recommendation: Do not rely on secret documents that have not been peer reviewed … especially if they include assertions without proof.

Always basking in transparency,

Thermonuclear Bull Frog

*The correct terminology is oligomerization, but I will let that slide.

Real World

Dear Forthcoming Frog-

A bid proposal from your competitor included a report entitled “Life Extension Estimate for UtilX^® CableCURE^® Rejuvenation Fluid,” written by W. R. Stagi of UTILX.  The document is claimed as “Confidential and Proprietary” and makes many claims.  I have reproduced my favorite claim below.

“Assuming that [cable insulation] will age from this point on at the same rate as its un-injected counterpart is obviously nearly ridiculously conservative.  By doing so however we are able to arrive at irrefutable proof of injection effectiveness as well as absolute certainty of the absolute minimum value for added life.”

Tell me if it is true, oh wise one!

Wondering in Western Washington 

Dear Wondering-

I highlighted a few of the phrases from the quotation above, because the language is so colorful.  Where else can you see three adverbs strung together like “obviously nearly ridiculously?”  Where else can you find “absolute certainly?”  And where else can you find “absolute” twice in a single sentence separated by only three words?

I had to see the rest of the document to which you refer.  My team made a public disclosure requests to the City of Tacoma.  I have all 17 pages and I can summarize my reaction by noting the category under which I am publishing this and future posts regarding your inquiry, namely “Crazy Competitor Claims.”  In Future posts, we will examine some of the specifics, but I’ll give you some other hints of the fun we will be having by asking two rhetorical questions.

1.    In any 17 page document where the phrase “real world” was used 26 times, do you think that the pronouncements are really real world?  There are a couple of even more colorful “actual real world” phrases – presumably the actual real world is even more real world than the regular real world.

2.    Why would the author of the document try so hard to keep secret, irrefutable proof?

I will answer these and many more questions in 2012.

Sunlight has a way of revealing the truth,

Thermonuclear B.F.

Really Long Term Life

In my December 29, 2010 post at …

Crazy-Competitor-Claims

Wonderer in the Wilderness inquired …

1. How can Novinium get the same cable life extension without a soak period?  It would seem to me that Novinium puts less fluid into the cable than one would get with a soak period.

In my first post addressing this question I provided an abbreviated answer. We learned from the abbreviated answer that that when Novinium founders conceived of the first generation of treatment fluid over two decades ago, there was a failure to check the relative diffusion rates of the phenylmethyldimethoxysilane (PMDMS) monomer and the condensation catalyst we had chosen to provide long life.  This turned out to be a grave mistake, which we have corrected.  In a subsequent post on January 3, 2011 at …

Catalytic Considerations – Component I

… I provided a more comprehensive answer, but I promised five new posts that would explain the functional improvement of the five kinds of ingredients in Ultrinium™ 732 and Ultrinium™ 733 fluids.  In this last of those five sub-posts, I explain how a component with a really ugly name provides extraordinarily long life.  Chemists call the material found in Ultrinium™ fluids cyanobutylmethyldimethoxysilane (Pronounced: Sigh-an-Oh•butte-ill•meth-ill•die-meth-ox-ee•sigh-lane); we will call it CBMDMS for short.

In the graph nearby I explain the first dimension of why CBMDMS works so well for so long.  The graph plots the “permeation product” of the three most commercially important rejuvenation silanes.  Permeation is the product of the diffusion coefficient and the solubility of the material in cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE).  The rate of fluid exudation from a cable is directly proportional to this permeation product.  Remember that if a fluid exudes out of the cable, it is not providing any life extension benefit.  The lower the permeation value, the longer the fluid will stay in the cable.  The permeation of the primary ingredient in Novinium’s Perficio™ 011 fluid and other older technology fluids is illustrated by the light-blue-colored (upper-most) line over the range of 15 to 90°C.  This fluid is called phenylmethyldimethoxysilane (Pronounced: Fen-ill•meth-ill•die-meth-ox-ee•sigh-lane) by chemists; we will call it PMDMS.  In a recent post, Chain Entanglement, I explained how extending the length of the side chains entangled the silicone in the polyethylene polymer chains and slowed the diffusion.  The orange line shows the advantage enjoyed by tolylethylmethyldimethoxysilane (Pronounced: Tall-ill•eth-ill•die-meth-ox-ee•sigh-lane by chemists) or TEMDMS, which is a result of this chain entanglement.  The permeation rate and proportional exudation rate of TEMDMS, is always lower than that of PMDMS.  At low temperature they are about the same, but at 75°C, the TEMDMS permeates about 5-times slower.  But the focus of this post is the amazing CBMDMS, which enjoys a 25-fold to 45-fold permeation advantage over the PMDMS.  That’s a really big deal!  At 75°C CBMDMS will outlast PMDMS by a factor of 45!

TEMDMS and CBMDMS are available only from Novinium, as their use is protected by U.S. Patent 7,643,977, other pending applications, and their foreign equivalents.

The cyano-group, found only in Novinium rejuvenation products, grades stress in the same way, but at the nano-scale.    Before I explain how this works we need to define a thermonuclear-sized word:  dielectrophoresis, pronounced die-EE-lek-trow-for-EE-sis or DEP for short.  DEP is a phenomenon in which a force is exerted on a dielectric molecule when it is subjected to a non-uniform electric field – the greater the dielectric constant of the material, the greater the force.  The illustration nearby explains how the diverging electrical field near an imperfection imparts a force upon CBMDMS molecules and draws them into the local-region of highest electrical stress.  The presence of the high dielectric constant material smoothes the electrical stress and interferes in several ways with dielectric failure mechanisms:

1.    The local AC stress is reduced, and water trees grow more slowly.

2.    The high electrical fields around space charges are reduced, which reduces the likelihood of UV photon creation and the inception of free electrons.

3.    Any free electrons will not be accelerated to the same energy as they would have been in a greater field.

4.    The reduced local field increases both the partial discharge inception and extinction voltages.

Greater persistence in the insulation and stress grading provide longer post-injection life even in demanding applications.  Performance at high temperature and performance in cables with constrained geometry that limit the amount of fluid that can be supplied, are greatly enhanced by the presence of CBMDMS.

Longer life through better chemistry,

Thermonuclear B.F.

Chain Entanglement

In my December 29, 2010 post at …

Crazy-Competitor-Claims

Wonderer in the Wilderness inquired …

1. How can Novinium get the same cable life extension without a soak period?  It would seem to me that Novinium puts less fluid into the cable than one would get with a soak period.

In my first post addressing this question I provided an abbreviated answer. We learned from the abbreviated answer that that when Novinium founders conceived of the first generation of treatment fluid over two decades ago, we failed to check the relative diffusion rates of the phenylmethyldimethoxysilane (PMDMS) monomer and the condensation catalyst we had chosen to provide long life.  This turned out to be a grave mistake, which we have corrected.  In a subsequent post on January 3, 2011 at …

Catalytic Considerations – Component I

… I provided a more comprehensive answer, but I promised five new posts that would explain the functional improvement of the five kinds of ingredients in Ultrinium™ 732 and Ultrinium™ 733 fluids.  In this fourth of five sub-posts, I explain the concept of chain entanglement.

I use one of the tailored molecules found in Ultrinium™ fluids called tolylethylmethyldimethoxysilane or TEM for short.  I was not willing to go on a diet of any kind, but because I desired to better illustrate chain entanglement, I had to create a much smaller clone of myself.  I call my clone Nano-me, because she will be exploring molecular interactions in the nanometer range.  Do not let her diminutive size fool you; she is as clever as I.

On Frogograph 1, Nano-me shows the rather boring structure of cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE).  The carbon-carbon chains are typically several thousand carbon atoms long.  About once every one-thousand carbons there is a cross link site, which Nano-me is illuminating with her green laser.

On Frogograph 2, an electron micrograph¹ at 40,000X magnification illustrates the structure of the crystalline and amorphous phases of the polymer.  Roughly half of the PE is crystalline; the balance is amorphous.  If you had frog eyes you would be able to see the lightly shaded, generally parallel lines that are crystalline platelets.  The darker areas between the crystalline regions are amorphous.

On Frogograph 3, Nano-me is illuminating a representation of a carbon-carbon polymer chain – the squiggly line.  The chains are tightly packed serpentines in the crystalline region and wander randomly in the amorphous region.  Each crystalline platelet is about 10 nano-meters thick, or about 75 carbon-carbon bonds.  The amorphous layer sandwiched between platelets is roughly the same thickness.  The vast majority of diffusion that occurs, does so in the amorphous region, but even crystalline polymers are not impervious to diffusion.

Frogograph 4 shows a 3D-section of two crystalline platelets and an anatomically accurate representation of the tangle of carbon-carbon chains that make up the amorphous cream filling – think about one of those chocolate cookies with the sugary white filling.  In the upper right-hand corner and to the same scale – a water molecule is illustrated.  It is pretty easy to visualize the water diffusing through the intra-molecular spaces of the amorphous polymer.  On the left of the cream filling is a monomer of the aforementioned tolylethylmethyldimethoxysilane or TEM monomer.  Considerably larger than water, the TEM monomer can squeeze through the amorphous layer, but it must bend and rotate tortuously to diffuse.  As we have previously explored in Catalytic Considerations I and Catalytic Considerations II, the monomer reacts with water it encounters, and it grows as it does so.  Nano-me is pushing gently on a typical hexamer.  Six monomers, plus seven waters, yield a hexamer.  Nano-me is encountering a great deal of resistance because of chain entanglement.  If you look closely at the TEM molecules you will notice rings of six carbon atoms.  These rings include what chemist call conjugated double bonds.  This ring structure is quite rigid.  Furthermore, the rings have a two-carbon chain to the silicone backbone and another carbon hanging off the end of the ring.  These structures stick out from the molecule and slow diffusion.  It is a bit like sticking your paws straight out to the side of your body and then pushing your way through a crowd.  Movement is retarded and you are unlikely to make any friends.  These “rude sidearms” were tailored for entanglement … specifically for the rejuvenation application.  The TEM-class of materials is available only in Novinium’s Ultrinium formulations and is protected by U.S. Patent 7,643,977, other pending applications, and foreign equivalents.

TEM is a custom designed molecule for the rejuvenation application.  It has no other commercial uses.  This is in contrast to the legacy class of materials in use prior to the introduction of Ultrinium fluids.  Those older materials, which have dozens of applications and hence were readily available, are not optimized for the cable life extension application.  The molecular optimization included in TEM facilitates a significant increase in post-injection anticipated life or reduces the volume of fluid required for more modest life extension periods.  Longer life through better chemistry!

Encouraging entanglements,

Thermonuclear

¹Kindly provided by Fred Steennis of KEMA in the Netherlands.

AO, AO … it’s home from work we go

In my December 29, 2010 post at …

Crazy-Competitor-Claims

Wonderer in the Wilderness inquired …

1. How can Novinium get the same cable life extension without a soak period?  It would seem to me that Novinium puts less fluid into the cable than one would get with a soak period.

In my first post addressing this question I provided an abbreviated answer. We learned from the abbreviated answer that that when Novinium founders conceived of the first generation of treatment fluid over two decades ago we failed to check the relative diffusion rates of the phenylmethyldimethoxysilane (PMDMS) monomer and the condensation catalyst we had chosen to provide long life.  This turned out to be a grave mistake, which we have corrected.  In a subsequent post on January 3, 2011 at …

Catalytic Considerations – Component I

… I provided a more comprehensive answer, but I promised five new posts that would explain the functional improvement of the five kinds of ingredients in Ultrinium™ 732 and Ultrinium™ 733 fluids.

In this third of five sub-posts we will explore the role of the anti-oxidants (AO).  Every human knows the benefits of including anti-oxidants in their diets.  I am not as susceptible to oxidative damage, because I keep my temperature lower – that way I do not have to consume foul tasting raspberries and blueberries.  Besides their sickening sweet taste, the antioxidants found in berries are single-shot deals.  A single anti-oxidant molecule consumes a single oxidizer.  What we need for cables is a molecule that quenches the nasty oxidizer and then regenerates itself – indefinitely.  It would be nice for people too, but don’t hold your breath.  For cables the folks at BASF^® and Novinium have a solution.

The primary AO in Novinium’s Ultrinium™ fluid formulations is BASF’s Irgastab^® Cable KV10.  Furthermore all of the components of the Ultrinium UV package have anti-oxidant properties.  These materials were described in To UV or not to UV.  In the vernacular, these UV components are “two-fers” or “two-for-one” ingredients, because they fulfill at least two¹ independent and important life-extension functions.

Antioxidants are included in virtually all modern cable compound formulations.  Originally deployed by polymer compound manufacturers to prevent oxidation during cable extrusion, it has been shown by

Cold blooded and not oxidized,

Thermonuclear

¹Ferrocene and Tinuvin^® 123 are “three-fers.”  Ferrocene is an anti-oxidant (AO), an ultra-violet absorber (UVA), and a voltage stabilizer.  Tinuvin^® 123 is an anti-oxidant (AO), a hindered amine light stabilizer (HALS), and a methanolic corrosion inhibitor.