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Electrical Engineering Department
–
2
nd
year
–
Electric Power
Report in :
Skin Effect & Ring Power Distribution .
By :
Ahmed El-Sayed Mohamed Sakr (Ahmed Sakr).
1 . Skin Effect Phenomenon .
Skin effect
is the tendency of an alternating electric current (AC) todistribute itself within a conductor with the current density being largestnear the surface of the conductor, decreasing at greater depths. In otherwords, the electric current flows mainly at the "skin" of the conductor,at an average depth called the
skin depth
. The skin effect causes theeffective resistance of the conductor to increase at higher frequencieswhere the skin depth is smaller, thus reducing the effective cross-sectionof the conductor. The skin effect is due to opposing eddy currentsinduced by the changing magnetic field resulting from the alternatingcurrent. At 60 Hz in copper, the skin depth is about 8.5 mm. At highfrequencies the skin depth may be much smaller. Because the interior of a large conductor carries so little of the current, tubular conductors suchas pipe can be used to save weight and cost.
Fig-1 : Skin depth is due to the circulatingeddy currents (arising from a changingH field) cancelling the current flow inthe center of a conductor andreinforcing it in the skin.
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Current
density in the conductor due to skin effect :
The
AC current density
J
in a conductor decreases exponentially from itsvalue at the surface
J
S according to the depth
d
from the surface, asfollows:where
δ
is called the
skin depth
. The skin depth is thus defined as thedepth below the surface of the conductor at which the current densityhas fallen to 1/e (about 0.37) of
J
S. In normal cases it is wellapproximated as:where
ρ = resistivity of the conductor
ω = angular frequency of current = 2π
×
frequency
μ = absolute magnetic permeability of the con
ductor.
Resistance :
The
effective resistance due to a current confined near the surface of alarge conductor (much thicker than
δ
) can be solved as if the currentflowed uniformly through a layer of thickness
δ
based on the DCresistivity of that material. We can therefore assume a cross-sectionalarea approximately equal to
δ
times the conductor's circumference.Thus a long cylindrical conductor such as a wire, having a diameter
D
large compared to
δ
, has a resistance
approximately
that of a hollowtube with wall thickness
δ
carrying direct current. Using a material of resistivity we then find the AC resistance of a wire of length L to be:The final approximation above assumes
D
>>
ð
.
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A convenient formula for the diameter
D
W
of a wire of circular cross-section whose resistance will increase by 10% at frequency
f
is:The increase in AC resistance described above is accurate only for anisolated wire. For a wire close to other wires, e.g. in a cable or a coil, theac resistance is also affected by proximity effect, which often causes amuch more severe increase in ac resistance.
In
a good conductor, skin depth varies as the inverse square root of theconductivity. This means that better conductors have a reduced skindepth. The overall resistance of the better conductor remains lowereven with the reduced skin depth. However this means that there is lessreduction in A.C. resistance when substituting a metal of higherconductivity, compared to the reduction of D.C. resistance, when itsdiameter is larger than the skin depth for that frequency. Skin depth alsovaries as the inverse square root of the permeability of the conductor. Inthe case of iron, its conductivity is about 1/7 that of copper. Howeverbeing ferromagnetic its permeability is about 10,000 times greater. Thisreduces the skin depth for iron to about 1/38 that of copper, about 220micrometers at 60 Hz. Iron wire is thus useless for A.C. power lines. Theskin effect also reduces the effective thickness of laminations in powertransformers, increasing their losses. Iron rods work well for direct-current (DC) welding but it is impossible to use them at frequenciesmuch higher than 60 Hz. At a few kilohertz, the welding rod will glow redhot as current flows through the greatly increased A.C. resistanceresulting from the skin effect, with relatively little power remaining forthe arc itself. Only non-magnetic rods can be used for high-frequencywelding
.
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