Moisture Effects in Medium-Voltage Underground Distribution Systems: a perspective overview

Diana Enescu; Elena Otilia Virjoghe; Simone Vincenzo Suraci; Luigi Calcara; Radu Porumb; Lucia Rosso; Giulio Beltramino; Valentina Picco; Andrea Mazza

arXiv · 2608.06074

Moisture Effects in Medium-Voltage Underground Distribution Systems: a perspective overview

Diana Enescu·Elena Otilia Virjoghe·Simone Vincenzo Suraci·Luigi Calcara·Radu Porumb·Lucia Rosso·Giulio Beltramino·Valentina Picco·Andrea Mazza

View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

The distribution system is becoming a fundamental part for enabling the energy transition. The fault causes may be several and of different nature, embracing a variety of specializations. This review aims at providing an integrated overview of moisture effects across underground Medium Voltage (MV) cable systems and their accessories. The study collects both literature contributions and practical experiences derived from distribution system operators and research projects on the topic. The findings highlight that the choice of the insulation material is fundamental for mitigating the various consequences of the moisture ingress, linked to chemical and physical processes, as well as mechanical, thermal, and electrical factors, all of which are analysed in detail in the paper. The paper examines the effects of moisture on different types of materials, both traditional and innovative, and discusses diagnostic techniques to detect moisture ingress from the surrounding environment as well as internally generated moisture. The path towards increasing MV distribution reliability, reducing outages, and support the energy transition with more robust distribution infrastructure, is hence achievable through improving moisture management across design, installation, monitoring, and maintenance.

Explore related subjects

eess.SY cs.SY

Keep this discovery

BibTeX RIS

Diana Enescu, Elena Otilia Virjoghe, Simone Vincenzo Suraci, Luigi Calcara, Radu Porumb, Lucia Rosso, Giulio Beltramino, Valentina Picco, Andrea Mazza. 2026-08-06. Moisture Effects in Medium-Voltage Underground Distribution Systems: a perspective overview. https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.06074

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Structured Stochastic Representations of Integrated Dynamic Strategies

Dynamic allocation decisions couple present resource use to evolving internal conditions, delayed returns, and future costs. We represent this interaction by four probability localizations linked through regime-indexed, graph-constrained column-stochastic operators. Pre-action state or context selects a locally affine model, while action-dependent changes update subsequent regimes, yielding a causal switched representation of nonlinear evolution. We characterize operator identifiability relative to the graph, the stochastic constraints, and the sampled embedding, separating coefficient recovery from predictive equivalence on the decision domain. Decision making is then formulated through implementable return--cost acceptability regions. Finite-horizon error propagation supplies conservative classification margins, and simultaneous intervals distinguish model-relative near-optimality from certified $\epsilon$-optimality over a declared finite policy class. Regime-indexed stochastic feedback is admitted when it satisfies the same certification test. Reproducible synthetic laboratories for personal preparation, supplier participation, and customer retention illustrate exact, operator-supplied, and noisy feedback cases. Multinomial experiments show improving recovery of the feedback function and fewer unresolved decisions with increasing sample size, while unrestricted off-policy recovery remains limited. The contribution is a structure-preserving representation--identification--decision workflow, not a domain-specific physiological or commercial calibration.

eess.SY↗

arXiv2026

Fusion Estimation in Multi-sensor Systems for Data Packets with Disrupted Identities

In this paper, we explore the problem of fusion estimation for a multi-sensor system where the identity of the data packet received by each sensor may be disrupted or incorrect due to confusion in device identity allocation, communication protocol defects, or the lack of a clear sensor identifier. This can result in a random shuffle of the data components during the fusion estimation process, compromising the performance of the fusion estimation. To address this issue, we introduce the concepts of permutations and symmetry groups to describe this phenomenon as data packet permutation. We construct statistics to simplify the information set, developing two algorithms: a Bayesian approach, which performs fusion using posterior arrangement probabilities, and a greedy approach, which effectively improves estimation performance by guessing the likely data arrangement. We compare these two algorithms and demonstrate that both are expectation error-bounded. We improve algorithms for information-scarce scenarios. By employing the expectation-maximization algorithm, we fill in the prior information of data arrangement where the correct convergence is proven. Finally, we present numerical simulations to validate our results.

eess.SY↗

arXiv2026

Quantifying the Reality Gap for RL-Based UAV Placement at mmWave and Sub-THz

Reinforcement learning (RL) policies for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) placement in mmWave and sub-terahertz networks are typically trained on simplified analytical channels. We quantify the resulting sim-to-real gap on a real urban map of Doha, Qatar, at carriers {28, 140, 183, 300} GHz and altitudes {50, 75, 100, 125} m, evaluating three channel pipelines: an analytical model (FSPL + atmospheric absorption + cuboid LoS), full Monte-Carlo ray tracing in Sionna RT with ITU-R P.676-13 absorption, and a deterministic-LoS hybrid that reuses Sionna's mesh under a closed-form path-gain expression. We formalize the gap on the spatial SNR distribution via four metrics, namely bias, RMSE, Jensen-Shannon divergence, and optimum-deployment displacement. Three findings emerge: at 28/140 GHz, $\sim$70% of the apparent -5.6/-4.8 dB Sionna bias is Monte-Carlo undersampling and shrinks to -1.7/-1.5 dB after mitigation; at 183 GHz a -9.2 dB residual isolates the atmospheric absorption / ITU-R P.676 line-shape disagreement; at 300 GHz the stochastic ray tracer agrees with the analytical model only coincidentally, with a +3.8 dB structural offset exposed by the deterministic-LoS pipeline. Across all carriers the linear-domain regret of the analytical-trained policy stays $\geq$ 0.93, indicating practical near-optimality but with a carrier-resolved SNR bias that warrants explicit reporting.

eess.SY↗