4

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 21, NO. 1, JANUARY 2006

Nonlinear-Coupled Electric-Thermal Modeling

of Underground Cable Systems
Niksa Kovac, Ivan Sarajcev, and Dragan Poljak, Member, IEEE

AbstractAn original nonlinear-coupled electric-thermal

model of underground cables with the solid sheaths is proposed.
The model deals with the numerical evaluation of losses, heating,
and ampacity.
The computation of the current dependent losses is undertaken by means of the filament method, where conductors and
sheaths are represented by a number of smaller subconductors
or filaments. Furthermore, heat-transfer phenomena through an
infinite domain beneath the soil surface are modeled combining
the finite and the mapped infinite elements, respectively. The corresponding finite-element meshes are generated by the advancing
front method.
The numerical results presented throughout this work suggest
that the International Electrotechnical Commission relation concerning the external thermal resistance for touching cables, placed
in flat formation, having appreciable sheath losses, should be re-examined.
Index TermsAmpacity, numerical modeling, underground cables.

I. INTRODUCTION

OSSES, heating, and ampacity are unavoidable parameters in underground cable design depending on cable materials, laying condition of the cable system, thermal properties
of the media, bonding arrangement, etc.
Generally, numerical methods provide more accurate modeling of underground cable systems than purely analytical or
analytical/numerical techniques. However, numerical methods
are sometimes too complex to be handled by engineers. Some
of the papers dealing with a numerical approach to the analysis of underground cable losses [1][4], external or internal
thermal resistances [5][10], as well as heating and/or ampacity
calculations [11][30] are highlighted in this work. On the other
hand, rare are the papers dealing with the complete numerical
approach for the evaluation of all quantities of interest (i.e.,
losses, heating, and ampacity). Thus, losses have often been assumed to be known values, or computed by means of International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) or NeherMcGrath
relations, while heat-transfer phenomena have been handled via
numerical methods using losses as input data [11][17], [19],
[21][23], [27][30].
Manuscript received April 7, 2004; revised September 4, 2004. Paper no.
TPWRD-00173-2004.
N. Kovac and I. Sarajcev are with the Department of Electrical Engineering,
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture, Split University, Split 21000, Croatia (e-mail: nkovac@fesb.hr; isarajcev@fesb.hr).
D. Poljak is with the Department of Electronics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture, Split University, Split
21000, Croatia (e-mail: dpoljak@fesb.hr).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2005.852272

Hwang [18] has proposed the finite-element modeling of both

losses and heating for underground cable systems. The numerical computation of these parameters always requires considerably high computational effort. In [18], the cable cross-section
has been approximated by an octagon. Also, the shield and dielectric losses have been incorporated into the model as heat
sources distributed at the cable surface. However, this simplified modeling of the cable cross-section is not quite satisfactory,
since the temperature drop between conductor and cable surface could be significant. Moreover, by posing the Dirichlets
boundary conditions at a certain distance from the cable structure to solve the heat conduction equation, an infinite domain
beneath the soil surface has been truncated. The truncation of the
domain size represents a compromise between opposite requirements: the higher accuracy of numerical results and the lower
computational cost.
It has been shown in [27] that the cable domain temperatures have been influenced by the truncation, even in the case
when the truncated domain boundaries have been placed quite
far away from the cables. The more accurate treatment of the
infinite domain containing underground cables can be carried
out by the integral or integro-differential equation formulation.
Thus, the application of the boundary-element method (BEM)
and the coupled finite/boundary-element approach (FEM/BEM)
have been reported in [28], [29], and [30], respectively.
The present work deals with an original nonlinear coupled
electric-thermal model of underground cables with the solid
sheaths. The proposed model provides numerical evaluation
of losses, heating, and ampacity. The computation of current dependent losses is performed by means of the filament
method [4], [31], [32], where conductors and sheaths are
replaced by a number of smaller subconductors or filaments.
Furthermore, heat-transfer phenomena through an infinite
domain beneath the soil surface are modeled combining the
finite elements and the mapped infinite elements [33], [34].
In particular, the finite-element meshes are generated by the
advancing front method [35]. The accurate thermal modeling
of both cable cross-sections and surroundings is performed
by the second-order isoparametric elements. Some illustrative
computational results, presented throughout this work, clearly
demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed approach.

II. NONLINEAR-COUPLED ELECTRIC-THERMAL MODEL

The electric-thermal model is outlined in a few steps: 1) losses
evaluation; 2) heating evaluation; 3) electric-thermal coupling;
and 4) ampacity evaluation.

0885-8977/$20.00 2006 IEEE

 et al.: NONLINEAR-COUPLED ELECTRIC-THERMAL MODELING OF UNDERGROUND CABLE SYSTEMS

KOVAC

where

..
.

Fig. 1.

Representation of an electrical section of a cable transmission line.

A. Losses Evaluation
In order to determine heating of underground cable system,
the system losses have to be known. The current dependent
losses of cables with the solid sheaths are computed by means
of the filament method [4], [31], [32]. The calculation of the dielectric losses is considered as a rather straightforward task, and
details can be found elsewhere [31]. Sheaths are predominantly
made of aluminum, lead, or lead alloy. The filament method provides conductors and sheaths to be represented by a number of
smaller subconductors or filaments, sufficiently small to assume
the uniform current density. Moreover, the governing equations
are formulated using the additional assumptions: 1) cables are
arranged in parallel, and 2) cable line is longitudinally homogenous. The skin and proximity effect are taken into account by
the filament method, as well. An electrical section of a transmission line composed of three single-core cables is considered, as
shown in Fig. 1.
The line is assumed to be a part of an earthed circuit. The
sheaths are solidly bonded and earthed at both ends. The conand
filaments, reductors and sheaths are divided into
spectively. Hence, the total number of filaments is
. The earthed circuit can be replaced by a balanced oper, as well as a balanced load
ating voltage system
impedance system
(Fig. 1). This
simplified circuit modeling is satisfactory for the losses evaluation, since the systems are used only to set up the corresponding
flowing through the filaments.
currents
The filament currents are calculated by the mesh-current
method. Each mesh is represented by a loop consisting of:
1) the associated conductor or sheath filament; 2) both the
associated voltage and the load impedance phase, if the loop
contains the conductor filament; and 3) the ground return path.
The corresponding matrix equation can be written as follows:

..
.

..
.

are
vectors of phase voltages concerning the loops with
stand for
the conductor filaments;
self and mutual impedance submatrices of the loops with
the filaments of the conductors
, and , respectively;
denote
mutual impedance submatrices between the loops with the filaments of the different
is
mutual impedance submatrix
conductors;
between the loops with the conductor filaments and those
stands for
containing the sheath filaments;
self and mutual impedance submatrix of the loops with the
sheath filaments.
are given by
Elements of the submatrices
(3)
where
mutual impedance between th and th filament
in the presence of the ground return path;
self impedance of the filament in the presence of
the ground return path.
The mathematical details regarding the assessment of the imand
, as well as their testing procedure, can be
pedances
found in the Appendix.
The elements of the other impedance submatrices are
(4)
The vector of the filament currents can be obtained by simply
inverting the matrix in (2).
If the cables are a part of a circuit with the insulated neutrals,
between these points, providing
there is a voltage difference
the following condition equation is to be posed:
(5)
The resulting matrix equation then can be written as follows:
..
.

(1)
where
vector of the loop voltages;
matrix of self and mutual impedances of the

..
.

..
.

loops;
vector of the filament currents.
Equation (1) can be written in a more convenient matrix form

(2)

(6)
The matrix equation (6) contains
equations with
unknowns (i.e., filament currents and the voltage difference
). Solving the matrix (6), the unknown currents and voltage
difference are obtained.

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 21, NO. 1, JANUARY 2006

as well as the load vector

The global conductivity matrix
are assembled from each element

Fig. 2. Boundary conditions.

(13)

Knowing the filament currents, the losses of the conductors

and sheaths are simply computed from the relations
(7)
(8)
where
filaments of conductors;
filaments of sheaths;
resistances of conductor and sheath filaments, respectively.
The resistance of each filament is computed on the basis of
of its associated metallic partmp
the average temperature
(i.e., the conductor or sheath).
B. Heating Evaluation
Two-dimensional steady-state temperature distribution in the
infinite domain beneath the soil surface, generated by underground cables (assuming negligible moisture migration in
the cables vicinity) is governed by the heat conduction equation
(9)
where is the thermal conductivity coefficient and is the heat
generated per-unit time and volume. The following boundary
conditions [40], associated with the heat conduction equation,
are:
on
on

(14)
where
total number of elements;
area of an element;
number of nodes assigned to any element;
vector of the shape functions of an
element;
heat generated within an element area
per unit time and volume;
portion of the boundary of
which
lies on .
Heat sources associated with the current dependent losses are
conductors and sheaths (i.e., the metallic partsmp). As they
are not placed alongside a domain boundary , the last term in
(14) concerning the load vector of the metallic parts equals zero.
The heat generated per-unit time and volume within an element
of the cable metallic part is determined by

(10)
(11)

(15)
where

where
temperature at infinity;
portion of the domain boundary at infinity;
heat flux on the ground surface;
portion of the domain boundary with the heat flux ;
convective heat-transfer coefficient by which the average radiation is included [14], [18];
air temperature, as shown in Fig. 2.
Using the weighted residual approach and applying the
GalerkinBubnov scheme of the finite-element method, the
following matrix equation is obtained:

denotes the losses generated within element

,
is the area of element
, and stands for the length
of a cable section. Due to the rather high thermal conductivity
values of the metallic parts, the uniform losses distribution can
be assumed over a particular conductor or sheath through the
heating evaluation. On the other hand, the nonuniform distribution is taken into account through the losses evaluation by means
of the filament method, since the nonuniformity can affect the
total value of a particular sheath losses and, consequently, the
cable heating. Therefore, it follows:
(16)

(12)
where

where
global conductivity matrix;
vector of the unknown values of the nodal temperatures;
global load vector.

total losses of a particular conductor or sheath con;

taining element
cross-section of a particular conductor or sheath con.
taining element

 et al.: NONLINEAR-COUPLED ELECTRIC-THERMAL MODELING OF UNDERGROUND CABLE SYSTEMS

KOVAC

C. Electric-Thermal Coupling

Fig. 3.

Two-dimensional mapping.

Hence, the load vector of the metallic part element can be

written in the form

The nonlinear behavior of the electric-thermal model is

caused by an electrical conductivity of a material, which
depends on the corresponding temperature value. The iterative procedure of the temperature matching starts with the
evaluation of losses according to Section A, by using the
arbitrarily chosen conductor and sheath temperatures as well
. Assembling the global equation
as the load impedance
system (12) yields the first iteration of nodal temperatures
, where
denotes the total number of
nodes. Subsequently, the average temperature of a particular
conductor and sheath is calculated by the following formula:

(17)
(22)
The infinite domain beneath the ground surface is treated
via the mapped infinite elements [33], [34]. Applying the
method of images, the heat transfer of underground cables can
be considered as the dipole source-type problem. Two-dimensional (2-D) dipole-source-type problems have been solved
very accurately using the mapped elements [33]. Consequently,
the application of the mapped infinite elements is expected
to be well suited for the treatment of underground cables.
Furthermore, if the finite/infinite approach is applied, one can
retain the differential equation formulation (9).
Since the detailed theoretical background of the mapped infinite elements can be found in [33], for the sake of brevity, only
the basic concepts are given in this work. The algorithm is based
on a simple mapping of the global infinite element into the local
finite element. The mapping of a 2-D quadratic infinite element,
Fig. 3, can be written as

(18)

(19)
where
global coordinates;
local coordinates;
global nodes coordinates of an infinite element;
mapping functions;
standard Lagrange shape functions.
The mapping functions are given in the form
(20)
(21)
The mapped elements retain the finite-element integration
weights and abscissae and shape functions as well.

where

..
.
and
is the total number of elements associated with a particstands for the total number
ular conductor or sheath, while
of conductors and sheaths.
Using thus obtained average temperatures, the losses are
computed again. The procedure goes on repeatedly as long as
the prescribed permissible temperature discrepancy through
successive iterations is achieved.
It is to be mentioned that the noncoupled model incorporates the computation of the conductor and sheath resistances on
the basis of the arbitrarily assumed temperatures, thus causing
the non-negligible current and losses calculation errors. For example, the discrepancy of 15 C between the assumed and actual
temperature of aluminum conductor results in the corresponding
resistance error of around 5%.
D. Ampacity Evaluation
If the ampacity evaluation is of interest, as well, a new external iterative procedure of the load impedance matching is
required. As a matter of fact, it is necessary to determine the
and, hence, the corresponding currents, which
impedance
give the temperature rise to cable insulation up to the permissible value . Cable losses are not affected by the load power
, for the constant absolute value of
. Thus, the
factor
problem can be reduced to the assessment of the load resistance
only. The load resistance in the th iteration
is obtained
using the linear interpolation of the maximum temperature reand
sults obtained for cable insulation within the iterations
(Fig. 4).
The external iterative procedure ends up when the prescribed
and
is achieved.
permissible discrepancy between
The complete internal iterative procedure of the temperature
matching is performed through each external iteration. The

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 21, NO. 1, JANUARY 2006

Fig. 4. Assessment of the load resistance.

Fig. 7.
Fig. 5.

Mesh of the cable cross-section.

Cable system domain.

Fig. 6. Boundary between the finite and infinite elements.

ampacity equals the conductor currents flowing in accordance

evaluated in the last iteration.
to the load resistance value

(a)

III. MESH GENERATION

Losses, heating, and ampacity are evaluated for the underground cable system in a flat arrangement. Three 35-kV,
direct-buried 400 mm copper conductor cables having impregnated paper insulation and aluminum sheath are shown
in Fig. 5. An automatic mesh generation, as a part of the finite-element approach, is an important step for the accuracy of
solution and reduction of computational time. The advancing
front method [35] has been widely used for the meshing of
arbitrarily shape domains. This meshing procedure starts with
the polygonal [polyhedral in three-dimensional (3-D)] discretization of material boundaries. The only input data required
for the mesh generation are the boundary nodes arising from
the discretization. The complete mesh generation algorithm has
been promoted in [35].
The soil meshing is performed using a software package
based on the advancing front method. Additional software is
developed to mesh the cable cross-section, consisting of the
specific shape materials, such as cylindrical conductor and
tubular insulation, sheath, and covering. The boundary between
the finite and infinite elements is chosen in accordance to
Fig. 6 to avoid the high-temperature gradients inside the infinite
elements. The finite-element mesh of the cable cross-section is
shown in Fig. 7. The curved edges of the six-noded elements are
somewhere drawn by two lengths connecting the corresponding
nodes due to the graph determination with less difficulty. The

(b)
Fig. 8. (a) Mesh of the surrounding soil, cable spacing s = 0 mm. (b) An
enlarged section in the cable vicinity, cable spacing s = 0 mm.

surrounding soil meshes concerning the different cable spacmm; double brick thickness
ings (touching
140 mm) are shown in Figs. 8 and 9, respectively.
IV. NUMERICAL RESULTS
The cable system, Fig. 5, having 1.5-mm-thick aluminum
sheaths bonded at both ends of an electrical section, is assumed
to be a part of a 35-kV circuit with the insulated neutrals. The
stranded 400 mm copper conductor consists of five layers repfilaments. The layers are composed of
resenting
wires with the diameter
mm.
filaments, as it is visible
The sheath is divided into
from Fig. 10. Hence, the total number of filaments related to the
. In general, one deals with a
three-phase system is

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TABLE I
AMPACITY COMPARISON

(a)

(b)
Fig. 9. (a) Mesh of the surrounding soil, cable spacing s = 140 mm.
(b) An enlarged section in the cable vicinity, cable spacing s = 140 mm.

Fig. 10.

Sheath filaments.

significantly lower number of unknowns than is required for the

losses evaluation via the finite-element method [1].
The operating voltage system can be written as follows:
kV,
kV,
kV. Furthermore, the elements
, (3)
and (4), of the submatrices associated with (2), are computed
and
of the
using the mutual and self impedances
filaments with the ground return path. The impedances are
determined by (A.2) and (A.7), presented in the Appendix.
The geometric mean distances, incorporated in impedance
expressions, are calculated via (A.8) and (A.9) concerning the
conductor filaments, while the distances of the sheath filaments
are computed using (A.10)(A.12).
computed using the coupled nonThe ampacity results
linear electric-thermal model are compared with the results
obtained via the IEC relations [41]. The relations are derived

in accordance with the assumption of the isothermal temperature value of the actually convective and radiative soil surface.
Hence, the results calculated via the coupled model are obtained
using the same assumption. Otherwise, the discrepancy between
the results would be affected by the different boundary condition. The temperature values at both the soil surface and infinity, respectively, are chosen to be 20 C. In general, the convective and radiative heat transfer through the soil surface can
be taken into account by the coupled model via (11). The dielecW/m are calculated in a straightforward
tric losses
manner and included in the thermal calculations.
It is worth mentioning that the effective cross-section area
mm (i.e., slightly
of the conductor considered is
differs from the value of 400 mm covered by IEC 228, where
the maximum dc resistances of stranded conductors at 20 C are
given). Therefore, the following equation [31] is used:

where 1.02 is the empirical factor taking the strands into account, while is the electrical resistivity of conductors. The
further IEC procedure for the ampacity evaluation follows the
standard one.
The ampacity values related to the various cable spacings
and soil conductivities
are shown in Table I. The negligible
, and , obtained
differences between the phase currents
by the model, arise from the unequal temperatures of the phase
conductors as well as the mutual electromagnetic (EM) coupling. The average phase current is assigned to as the ampacity
.
value

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TABLE II
LOSSES COMPARISON

Fig. 11.

When single-core cables with appreciable sheath losses are

installed in flat formation, the losses nonlinearly increase together with the cable spacing , providing the greater generated heat per-unit time and volume. The whole procedure of
the sheath losses evaluation can be found in [31], [42]. On the
other hand, the external thermal resistance decreases for the
greater spacing [31]. Hence, the optimal spacing, for which
the maximum ampacity is obtained, stands in a balance between
these effects. Since the actual cable has a rather thick aluminum
sheath and, thus, the low value of the associated resistance, a
very rapid increase in the sheath losses is achieved for
mm and
mm, compared with the spacing of
mm. Consequently, the greatest ampacity value, taking into account the spacings shown in Table I, refers to the cable touching.
If the cables are touching each other, the discrepancy between the ampacity results evaluated via different approaches
%. On the other hand, if the cables are
is approximately
spaced, very close agreement is achieved.
The analysis of the ampacity discrepancy for the touching
cables starts up with the comparison of the system losses obtained via the coupled model and IEC relations (Table II). The
,
IEC losses are calculated for the coupled model currents
shown in Table I, since the losses comparison should be based
on the same conductor current through both of the approaches.
The phase and sheath losses computed by the coupled model are
and
.
The conductor and sheath losses obtained via the IEC relaand
. Obviously,
tions are
the very close agreement is achieved for the spaced cables.
The discrepancy of the sheath losses for the touching cables
(particularly for the middle onephase ) arises from the
nonuniform distribution of a particular sheath losses (Fig. 11),
which is not taken into account by the IEC relations. Such a
distribution originates from the proximity effect. Particular
sheath losses for the spaced cables do not possess such a
nonuniformity (Figs. 12 and 13). Also, the discrepancy arises
from the linkage simplifications undertaken in the evaluation of
the inductances via the IEC relations, according to the approach
presented by Arnold [42].
In order to eliminate the influence of the losses discrepancy
to the value of the ampacity discrepancy , the losses for the
touching cables, obtained by the proposed model, are used

Sheath losses distribution s = 0 mm, k = 1 W/m C.

Fig. 12. Sheath losses distribution s = 70 mm, k = 1 W/m C.

Fig. 13.

Sheath losses distribution s = 140 mm, k = 1 W/m C.

within the IEC procedure of the ampacity evaluation. The novel

, as well as the discrepancy value
are
ampacity value
is around
%.
shown in Table III. It can be noticed that
Consequently, the use of the same losses evaluation procedure
through both of the approaches decreases the ampacity discrepancy of approximately 3%.
The rest of the ampacity discrepancy originates from the IEC
formula of the external thermal resistance for touching cables
in flat formation, based on Symms paper [43], since the computation of the internal resistances for the single-core cables is
rather straightforward. The integral equation method assuming
the isothermal cable surfaces has been used in [43]. The numerical results presented in Table III show that the IEC relation
should be re-examined for touching cables with unequal appreciable sheath losses. The temperature distribution of the cable

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11

TABLE III
AMPACITY COMPARISON FOR THE TOUCHING CABLES (s = 0 mm)THE
LOSSES COMPUTED BY THE MODEL ARE USED WITHIN THE IEC
EVALUATION
PROCEDURE OF THE AMPACITY I

Fig. 15. Temperature values through the cable cross section, phase B, s = 0
mm, k = 0:5 W/m C, # = 0 .

Fig. 16. Temperature values through the cable cross section, phase B, s = 0
mm, k = 1:5 W/m C, # = 0 .

Fig. 14. Temperature distribution of the cable surfaces s = 0 mm, k = 1

W/m C.
TABLE IV
AMPACITY COMPARISON FOR THE TOUCHING CABLES (s = 0 mm)BOTH
THE LOSSES COMPUTED BY THE MODEL AND VAN GEERTRUYDENS FORMULA
EVALUATION
ARE USED WITHIN THE IEC PROCEDURE OF THE AMPACITY I

of external thermal resistance than the relation accepted in IEC

standards, as can be noticed in Table IV. The ampacity results
, obtained using both the losses computed by the model and
Van Geertruydens formula within the IEC procedure of the ampacity evaluation, are compared with the coupled model results
. The absolute value of the discrepancy
is below 3%.
Upon the whole, it is worth underlining how important the
accurate modeling of the cable cross-section is, as can be seen
in Figs. 15 and 16. The temperature drops between conductor
and cable surface for the touching cables are around 6 C for
W/m C as far as 14 C for
W/m C.
V. CONCLUDING REMARKS

surfaces cannot be assumed as an isothermal one, as can be noticed in Fig. 14. For example, the temperature variation for the
outer cables (phases and ) exceeds 5 C.
Van Geertruyden [44] has also developed a relation for the
external thermal resistance, based on the finite-element analysis by which the infinite domain beneath the soil surface
has been truncated. However, the cable temperatures are influenced by the domain truncation, even in the case when the domain boundaries have been placed quite far away from the cables [27]. Hence, the appropriate relation taking into account the
infinite domain influence should be developed. Nevertheless,
the expression given in [44] is better suited for the computation

This paper proposes an original nonlinear coupled electricthermal model of underground cables with the solid sheaths,
thus providing the numerical evaluation of losses, heating, and
ampacity. The model is based on the filament method as well
as the FEM, including the infinite domain modeling carried
out by the mapped infinite elements. The corresponding finiteelement meshes are generated by the advancing front method.
The principal contributions of the approach presented so far are
as follows.
1) The cable systems, which cannot be handled via simplified analytical or empirical equations, can be treated by
the filament/FE model. Moreover, the proposed model
shows a certain advantage compared to the fully FE-based
model, since the use of the filament method for the losses
evaluation requires rather lower computational cost than
the FEM.
2) The finite/infinite element approach provides the differential equation formulation of the thermal problem, contrary to, up to now used, more complex integral or in-

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 21, NO. 1, JANUARY 2006

tegro-differential formulations featuring the boundary-element method (BEM) and coupled FEM/BEM approach,
respectively.
However, the thermal part of the model should be modified in
accordance to the equations given in [24] and [25] to solve the
problem of moisture migration in the cable vicinity.
The numerical results presented throughout this work suggest that the IEC formulation concerning the external thermal
resistance for touching cables, laid in flat formation, having appreciable sheath losses, should be re-examined. Future work
will deal with an extensive numerical analysis to develop a new
equation related to the external thermal resistance for touching
cables, by which the infinite domain influence will be taken
into account.

Fig. 17.

ith

filament associated with the conductor.

If the internal impedance is derived under dc conditions, it follows:

(A.5)

APPENDIX
and
are derived from
The mutual and self impedances
Carsons infinite integral solution, where the ground influence
is taken into account [36]. Well-known simple closed-form approximations for the overhead wires in the low-frequency range
are used in the present work. This range is relevant for the evaluation of underground cable losses.
The mutual impedance per-unit length of two solid circular
conductors in the presence of the ground return path is determined by [36]

where is the resistance of the circular nonmagnetic conductor

per-unit length. Hence, the self impedance can be written as
(A.6)
where
is the self geometric mean distance of the solid
circular conductor.
Consequently, the self impedance of the th filament of an
electrical section of the cable system with the ground return path
(Fig. 1) is

(A.1)

(A.7)

where

where

operating frequency;
angular frequency;
absolute permeability;
distance between the conductor centers;
electrical resistivity of the soil.
If conductors are arbitrarily shaped, the mean geometric distance should be used. The mutual impedance of the filaments
with the ground return path, related to the underground cable
system in Fig. 1, is written by

resistance of the th filament;

self geometric mean distance of the th filament.
It is to be mentioned that , concerning the conductor filaments, is multiplied by the empirical factor 1.02, by which the
strands are taken into account.

(A.2)

A. Conductor
Each layer of the stranded conductor is considered to be a
associated with
filament. The ith filament with the radius
conductor is shown in Fig. 17.
It consists of wires with the radius . According to [37],
the self mean geometric distance can be approximated by

where
length of an electrical section;
geometric mean distance between the th and th
filament.
The self ground return impedance per-unit length is given by
[36]

(A.8)
The mutual mean geometric distance between the th and th
conductor filament, where the second is placed inside the th
filament, is determined by
(A.9)

(A.3)
where is the conductor radius. The self impedance of the
circular conductor with the ground return path is obtained by
to (A.3)
adding the internal impedance
(A.4)

If the th filament is located outside the th one, the mutual mean

geometric distance equals the distance between their centers.
B. Sheath
The nonuniform losses distribution of the solid sheath, arising
from the proximity effect, can be taken into account using the
sheath partitioning. Thus, the sheath is replaced by a number

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Fig. 18.

Fig. 19.

13

Fig. 22.

Relative discrepancy in the resistive part of Z

Fig. 23.

Relative discrepancy in the inductive part of Z

;f

= 950 Hz.

Sheath partioning.

Configuration with two underground conductors.

;f

= 950 Hz.

The mutual mean geometric distance between the sheath filaments is approximated by
(A.12)

Fig. 20.

Relative discrepancy in the resistive part of Z

Fig. 21. Relative discrepancy in the inductive part of Z

;f

;f

= 50 Hz.

= 50 Hz.

of filaments having cross-section shape similar to a rectangle

(Fig. A2).
The self geometric mean distance of the th sheath filament
according to [38] can be written as
(A.10)
where

and

are assigned in Fig. 18.

Although Carsons method is widely applied to the overhead

lines, the underground cable analysis in this work is undertaken
and
due to their simby the approximate relations for
plicity. In order to test the accuracy of the approximations for
buried cables in the low-frequency range, the comparison to
Saads closed-form solution is performed [39]. Saads approach
to the impedances of underground cables seems to be the very
accurate for frequencies up to 1 MHz. For the comparison purposes, the configuration with two underground conductors is
considered as it is shown in Fig. 19. The relative discrepancies
from the Saads solution in the resistive and inductive part of
, for the fundamental frequency
Hz
the impedance
are shown in Figs. 20 and 21, respectively. The cable distance
varies from the 0.02 m (touching) to 1 m. The same data for the
Hz) are presented in Figs. 22 and 23.
19th harmonic (
Moreover, the relative discrepancies in the resistive and inducHz are
% and
%, respective part of , for
tively. The values corresponding to the 19th harmonic frequency
% and
%.
are
Therefore, the satisfactory agreement between the different
approaches is achieved. It can be also concluded that the simple
closed-form relations arising from Carsons integral solution
can be utilized for the computation of underground cable losses.

is given by
(A.11)

where
distance between the th sheath filament and cable
center;
central angle of the th filament.

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Niksa Kovac was born in Split, Croatia, on December 28, 1968. He received
the Ph.D. degree from the University of Split, Split, Croatia.
Currently, he is an Assistant Professor of Faculty of Electrical Engineering,
Mechanical Engineering, and Naval Architecture, University of Split. His research interests are numerical analysis related to the underground cables and
thermal effects of human exposure to electromagnetic fields as well.

Ivan Sarajcev was born in Split, Croatia, on October 28, 1947. He received the
Ph.D. degree from the University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia.
Currently, he is Associate Professor of Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Naval Architecture, University of Split. His primary
interest is in the fields of power cables, overvoltage protection, and electromagnetic compatibility (EMC).

Dragan Poljak (M96) was born in Split, Croatia, on October 10, 1965. He
received the Ph.D. degree from University of Split, Split, Croatia.
Currently, he is Associate Professor of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering,
Mechanical Engineering, and Naval Architecture, University of Split. His research interest is in computational methods in electromagnetics, particularly
in the numerical modeling of wire antennas and related electromagnetic-compatibility (EMC) problems using both frequency- and time-domain techniques.
He also deals with the numerical modeling applied to the environmental aspects of electromagnetic (EM) fields. He is a Series Editor of Advances in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Wessex Institute of Technology (WIT) Press,
Southampton, U.K. and was a Guest Editor of the International Journal of Engineering Analysis with Boundary Elements (EABE) Special Issue on Electromagnetics. He is author of five books, published by WIT Press. He is a reviewer
for IEEE TRANSCATIONS ON ELECTROMAGNETIC COMPATIBILITY. He has published five papers in several IEEE TRANSACTIONS.