Application of Polyethylene-Insulated High-Voltage Cables in Chemical Plants [includes discussion]

The term "chemical plant" no longer defines any specific type of industrial activity or resulting end product, nor does it embrace plants producing the tremendously wide variety of what are generally considered as chemical products. It could very well be extended to cover many of the modern industrial plants whose end products may not be chemical in nature but may involve numerous chemical operations during the manufacture of these products. Electrical installations in such production areas may be subject to the same deteriorating influences as would be encountered in similar installations located in plants whose end products are chemical and known to industry as such. It is obviously impossible for a cable manufacturer to have investigated in his laboratories the effect of every type of chemical influence on a given material such as polyethylene. For present purposes, the author has therefore reviewed a substantial amount of the technical and trade literature of possible interest, data on actual installations in chemical plants, plus some data accumulated in the laboratories of the company with which he is associated, in order to present a fairly comprehensive survey dealing with the possible merits of using polyethylene-insulated high-voltage cables in chemical and allied plants.