Technological study on distributed fiber sensor monitoring of high voltage power cable in seafloor

The purpose of the paper is to find feasible technologies and approaches for seafloor cable fault detection. Examples of such faults include submarine power cable short circuit and cut faults that have happened several times in the Bohai sea of China. In this paper, we use distributed Brillouin scattering optical fiber sensing technology to detect inner temperature and outside strain damage of submarine power cables. Temperature field and strain field from outside compression of three-cored seafloor power cable cross section are mathematically simulated by finite element method. Different temperature testing fields and strain testing fields in submarine power cable specimen are shown by distributed simultaneous temperature and strain sensor devices. The field monitoring data from optical fiber sensor systems, together with traditional leveling observation, are comparatively presented. Our experimental results show that distributed Brillouin scattering optical fiber sensing technology is effective and reliable for submarine monitoring.