Surface Inspection and Control Algorithms

Enabling industry 4.0 with surgical precision

Surface Inspection and Control Algorithms (SURFICAL)

High voltage extruded cables and the major accessories (joint, terminations) are generally acknowledged to be reliable and mostly immune from weather effects. However, when failures do occur, the restoration efforts may be lengthy.

The quality control (QC) procedures of cable accessory manufacturing and installation, as well as training associated with such operations, involves today proper monitoring of operator skill level and reliance on high quality workmanship.

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This is SURFICAL

Laser scanning of accessory geometries and cable ends
Short scan time per surface
Proprietary algorithms that process the scan data
Processing and visualization
Defect detection and evaluation
On-site direct quality feedback
On-site generated go/no-go criterion
Automatically generated QC reports
Full traceability of geometries during system’s life-time
Industry 4.0 enabler
Nexans patented technology

Cost of quality and potential savings

The HV industry is perfectly suited for SURFICAL, since poor quality ramifications stretch beyond assembly and aesthetic challenges, with large costs of a potential system failure. Extruded HVDC cable systems in operation today have seen on average 7 faults per 1000 kilometre each 10 years*, a few of which have been related to “improper jointing work”*. Such system faults result in the loss of transmission capacity and grid instabilities, creating substantial cost burdens. Nexans therefore aims to take QC to the next level by launching SURFICAL, aiming for increased reliability in all accessory installations, enabling large savings with a simple and robust QC. Furthermore, the geometric data generated by SURFICAL remains accessible and relevant during the full life-time of the cable system.

* Reference; Europacable, Recommendations to improve HVDC cable systems reliability, 2019.

Extremely detailed scanning

During the scanning process, live tracking of the generated data cloud is provided, and upon completion, the fully inspected surface is stored as a surface mesh. Laser scanning provides superior accuracy from down to 25 µm, resolution at 100 µm and rapid data aquisition from more than 1 000 000 measurements each second. This forms a robust backbone enabling SURFICAL to increase the reliability in on-site accessory installations.