Experimental Design and Teaching Practice for Cable Fault Location

Cable fault location is a typical engineering practice component of the High Voltage Technology Experimental Course. In response to the limitations of traditional cable fault location experimental teaching-such as single experimental content, insufficient engineering relevance, and high safety risks associated with high-voltage operations, the paper proposes an integrated experimental teaching system based on the fundamental principles of frequency domain reflectometry. The system follows a “theory-simulation-practice-field” framework and is supported by a self-developed reflection coefficient spectrum-based fault location instrument. A multi-level experimental curriculum is designed and implemented, including fundamental experiments, simulation experiments, comprehensive experiments, and extended experiments, forming a progressive teaching pathway from principle understanding and model analysis to fault diagnosis and field application. Practical implementation results demonstrate that the proposed system can improve students’ understanding of cable fault location principles and enhance their abilities in experimental operation, data analysis, and engineering application. The proposed teaching system provides an effective approach for cultivating electrical engineering talents with strong innovation capability and the ability to solve complex engineering problems.