Abstract
Since discovering the water treeing phenomenon (WT) in polymeric cables in the early 1970s, water treeing has been presumed to be the main cable degradation mechanism for polymeric cables and has been extensively researched up to the late 90s. Historically, different theories were proposed to describe this phenomenon's mechanism. The two most prominent theories link the initiation and growth of WTs to (i) Environmental stress cracking (ESC) and (ii) Stress-induced chemical degradation (SIED). Additionally, different experimental investigations were conducted to highlight the correlation between different operating conditions and the initiation and growth of WTs. Despite that it has been challenging to determine or agree upon a particular water treeing mechanism, it is generally accepted that there are main factors that can influence the inception and growth of water trees and can possibly steer the water tree growth mechanism to adhere ESC or SIED theories. This paper presents a comprehensive review of different selected papers and technical reports between 1969-2020 on the topic of water treeing in polymeric cables with an emphasis on the development of standing theories and operation factors that influence the initiation and growth of WTs.