Evaluation of Thermal Performance for Air-
Insulated Busbar Trunking System by Coupled
Magneto-Fluid-Thermal Fields
Wu Anbo, Chen Degui, Senior Member, IEEE, Wang Jianhua, Cai Bin, and Geng Yingsan, Member, IEEE
Abslracf- The temperature rise of busbar trunking system is a
vital factor that affects its performance. In this paper, a two-
dimensional coupled magneto-fluid-thermal finite element
analysis model is presented for the evaluation of electrical heating
and natural convection for busbar trunking system. The power-
frequency harmonic magnetic field, eddy currents and power loss
of an air-insulated busbar trunking system are calculated firstly,
then the Joule heat is coupled into the fluid field analysis as heat
generation load. Thermal field is directly coupled with fluid field:
Investigations show that there is a best midterm space between
busbars that can make the temperature rise lowest. The bigger
the size of shielding, the lower the temperature rise of busban.
Experiment results prove that this model can approximately
simulate the thermal field of air-insulated busbar trunking system.
Index Terms-Finite element methods, Magnetie field, Fluid
field, Thermal field, Coupled field, Busban, Temperature rise.
I. INTRODUCTION
usbar trunking system has grown to become an integral
B part of electric power distribution systems. The busbars
are protected against mechanical damage and dust
accumulation by steel shielding, which is exposed to the
magnetic field produced by the nearby busbars carrying large
currents and as a result, eddy current losses are induced inside
the steel shielding [I]. The Joule beat cost by source currents
and eddy currents leads to temperature rise of busbars, which
is a fatal factor that will weaken its performance. In order to
predict the thermal performance of busbar trunking system, a
combined analysis to determine electromagnetic and thermal
effects is required.
Chang-Chou Hwang developed a coupled magneto-
thermal finite element method to analyze the thermal field of a
kind of compact bus bar duct system [l]. H. Hedia discussed
systematically the influence that the arrangement of phases
impacts on the temperature rise of busbars for compact busbar
trunking system [2]. Both these two researchers developed
two-dimensional Finite Element Analysis @EA) models to
analyze the thermal field of non air-insulated compact busbar
trunking system. As the insulating material between busbars
and shielding is solid, they needed only to cope with the
This work war supported in part by the Natural Science Foundation of
Shaanxi Province under the Research b p Grant No.ZWOCZ0.
A. B. Wu,D. G. Chcn, J. H.Wang, B.Cai, and Y. S. Geng are with the
School of Elccbical Engineering Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049,
China. (smail: ysgeng~mail.xjlu.edu.cn).
0-7803-7459-Z02/$1700 9 2 0 0 2 IEEE . -2159-
natural convection outside of the solid trunking area. But for
air-insulated busbar trunking system, the Joule heat generated
by busbars is mainly transferred through the convection of
inside air to outer shielding, then dissipated from the shielding
to ambient atmosphere by radiation and air convection.
Therefore conjugate heat transfer problem must be involved.
To deal with this heat transfer phenomena totally, a coupled
magneto-fluid-thermal finite element method is needed, by
which the Joule heat is gained by harmonic magnetic field
calculation, then fluid field and thermal field are coupled
directly under Joule heat source load and some other proper
boundary conditions according to Navier-Stokes Equations.
Thermal conduction, convection and radiation are
synchronously considered, the convection of the air inside the
shielding and the thermal conduction within solid areas are to
be calculated in the same domain.
In this paper, by utilizing ANSYW Multiphysics v6.0
software, a two-dimensional coupled FEA model is established
to analyze the magneto-fluid-thermal fields of 3-phase/4-pole
air-insulated busbar trunking system, which is non-ventilated
and enclosed by steel shielding. Fig.1 illustrates the sketch of a
3-phasel4-pole air-insulated busbar trunking system. From left
to right, the four busbars are phase R, S, T and N in turns.
180
- Shielding
Busbar
Air
Rg I Sketch of 3-phasd4-pole air-msulsted busbar tnrnkmg system
Wait mm)
11. THEORY AND EQUATIONS
The analysis presented in this paper .is based on the
following assumptions:
1. The busbar trunking system is infinitely long, so that the
problem becomes a two-dimensional one. . .
2. Charges and displacement currents are neglected.
3. The permeability of the steel shielding is constant,
A . Magnetic Field Analysis 111. FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS MODEL
‘When steady AC current flows in main conductor, the
A . FE4 Model and Eounday Conditions
goviming equation can be expressed in 2 - 6 method [31[41: The FEA model of air-insulated busbar trunking system
vxv ( ~ x = i)3, - ub+ jw.2) (1) consists of five layers: busbars, the air inside the steel
shielding, the steel shielding, the air outside the shielding and
Where 2 is the magnetic vector potential, &J is the scalar the infinite element layer. Sequential coupled-field method is
potential. Considering the z-directional current, (I) can be adapted to couple the magnetic field and fliid field, the

a[ s]+[ 21
written as: thermal field and fluid field are coupled directly according to
. . Navier-Stokes equations. Firstly, magnetic field and eddy
a6
v, + vy = j w u A, - J , + U - az (2) currents are calculated, From which the Joule heat is got.
Secondly, the Joule heat is coupled into the fluid field analysis
The power loss in busbar conductors and steel shielding per as heat generation rate, in addition to some other proper fluid
unit length is: and thermal boundary conditions, the thermal field and fluid
field is simultaneously calculated.
(3) We choose PLANE53 element to solve magnetic field. A
kind of “infinite” boundary condition, which is equivalent to
E Natural Convechon and Navier-Stokes Equahons
set d to zero at infinite distance, is put on the outside of
The natural convection of busbar hunking system is inftnite element (INFINI IO) layer. Taking eddy currents into
governed by Navier-Stokes Equations, which consist of three account, the voltage potential DOF should be coupled to the
groups of equations. For two-dimensional incompressible same value. The harmonic source currents that are put on
steady fluid, the Navier-Stokes Equations can be simplified a s phase R, S, T and N busbars are respectively
following 151: INLO”,I,L120°, INL2400and 0. I, represents the RMS
Continuity Equation:
value of current ratings of the busbars.
a(p v,) vy) We choose FLUID141 element to solve fluid field and
-+-=O (4)
ax ay thermal field. Proper boundary conditions should be set as
Momentum Equations: followings:
Set non-slip boundary condition ( vx = 0 . v y = 0 ) on
the inside surfaces of shielding and on the surfaces of
busbars.
Set surroundings temperaturaere 28‘c in accordance
with the experimental surrounding temperature).
Energy equation: Set reference pressure tn zero at the upper left node in
the inner air region.
a(fcVxT) +a(pcvJ’T)= v 2 ( k T ) + Q (7)
ax ay Set convective heat transfer coefficients on the outside
Where p is fluid density: p is kinematics viscosity; c is surfaces of shielding (using the C O W load label).
Set radiative heat transfer boundary conditions for the
specific heat capacity: k is thermal conductivity; vs ,vy are. surfaces of shielding and busbars (using RAD load
components of the velocity vector in the x, y direction label for radiation from outside surfaces of shielding
respectively; g , ,g , represent components of acceleration due to ambient, using RDSF for radiation from busbar
surfaces to inside surfaces of shielding). Set Stefan-
to gravity: Sx ,Sy represent any source terms the user may
Boltzman constant to 5.67e-8 and temperature offset
wish to add; and Q is heat generation rate to 273. Here all the emissivity is set to 0.9.
Load the Joule heat generated by mume currents aid
C Radrahon
eddy currents from harmonic magnetic field result set.
For a system of two surfaces (surface i and j) radiating to
Table I expresses the configurations of this non-ventilated
each other, the heat transfer rate between surfaces i and j is
air-insulated busbar Irunking system, as sketched in Fig.1.
expressed as (detailed in [5]): TABLEI
Q,=UE,F,,A,(T,‘-T,‘) (8) PARAMETERSOF mE FEA MOOEL
Parametcl3 Values
Where U is Stefan-Boltzmann constant; &, is the effective
,
emissivity of surface i; 4 represents the radiation view factor Busbarsizs(mmXmm)

behueen surface i and j; A, is the area of surface i; I;, T,

represent the absolute temperature of surface i and j

-2160-
 ~

Table I1 describes the material properties of all

components of this air-insulated busbar trunking system.
TABLEII . .
MA= PROPERT~ES OF m BUSBAR TRUNKING SYSTEM
Electrical Thema1 Relative

Surfaces ofshielding Film Coefficient ( W . K 2."C-l)

49.3 500 Top surface 3.082
Bomm surface 6.164
Air 2.67~ Side surface 5.436
B. Calculation of Convective Heat Transfer Coefticients
The beat flux transfer exchanged between the outside
surfaces of shielding, at temperature Ts, and the surrounding
air, at temperature Ta, is quantified by the following
expression:
4 .ii = h(T, -To) (9)
The heat transfer coefficient (h) is an empirical parameter
determined by non-dimensional numbers, i.e. Grashof (Gr),
Prandtl (PI), Rayleigh (Ra) and Nusselt (Nu) (cited from [Z]).
1) Grashof number: It is defined by the relation:

Where
g is gravitational acceleration;
p is Coefficient of thermal expansion;
B is temperature difference;
L is representative linear dimension;
v is coefficient of thermal expansion.
2) Prandtl number: It is the ratio of two difiivities,
Viscosity and temperature, and is given by:
p, =.E
k
(11)
Where
p is coefficient of viscosity or simply the viscosity;
c is specific heat capacity at constant pressure;
k is the thermal conductivity of the fluid (here of the air).
3) Rayleigh number: It appears that the relation for a Fig 2 Is&mes ofmagnetic vector potential (real component)
laminar (non-turbulent) flow is simply:
I -..en
R, =G, xP, (12)
4) Nusselt number: It appears that the relation for laminar
flow can be adequately represented by a power law:
b
N , =aR. (13)
Where a and b are constants dependent of the system. In our
case b=0.25 and a is equal to [2][6]:
0.59 for the vertical surfaces;
0.54 for the upper horizontal surface;
0.27 for the lower horizontal surface.
In fact the Nusselt number is the non-dimensional heat
transmission coefficient and it is also defined by following
equation:
h, L
N =-
" k0

-2161 -
 m,,
am I,
6.0
so02
From Fig.5 and Fig.6, we can find that: The temperatures of
. . ~~. ...
Phase R, S and T are higher than the neutral line (N) because
~

*l:l,:Do
"rcm
$TI..%
,m -1 of their source currents; Warmer air rises in the middle of
: ,UO._
a7 busbar trunking system and colder air goes down along the
lLlb477,L
. . . .a..246I+a,
--.17#rX17
inside surfaces of shielding.
. , .
! Table N describes the comparison between the calculated
result and experiment result of busbars temperature. It is
shown that this FEA model can approximately near the real
model. The maximum error of temperatures between
. .
simulation results and experiment results is about 9.5 *C,
which is mainly due to the neglect of solid brackets that are
installed almost every 25 cm for the fixing, installation and
insulation of busbars, as illustrated in Fig.7. Because a part of
~ . . .. .~ ~~ ~. .. .... . .
_LPl. oc -ilr ,,e16 Of B&.r m"st>no37,s.- heat can be conducted from busbars to outer steel shielding via

From Fig.4, we can find that eddy currents are induced in

the shielding and phase N busbar. Moreover, the distribution
of total currents of phase R, S and T are also reallocated due to PhaseR Phases PhaseT
eddy currents. CalculationRmults --C (C) 91.5 92.5 90 1
Expecment Results --E (C) 83.2 85.3 81.2
Errors (C-EYE 10.0% 8.4% 11.8%

Fig.7. The sketch map of the insulatingbracket for the fixing and
insulationof busban.
Fig.5. Steady thermal field of 3-phasd4-pole air-insU1at.d busbar we also investigated the influence that the configuration of
uunking system (C).
busbar bunking system puts on the temperature rise of busbars.
Analysis 1: The current ratings, size of busbars, size and
thickness of shielding, were set to constant values as listed in
0 Table I . Then we changed the space between busbars from
.0*157P l2mm to 28mm to analyze its influence on the temperature rise
of busbars, with the four busbars symmetrized along the axis
Y(as shown in Fig.1). After eleven FEA models was analyzed,
,086318
a curve was illustrated in Fig.8. It is shown that the
temperature rise will increase when the space between the
,10789,
busbars is too big or too small; there is a best midterm space
.119177jj between the busbars that can make the temperature rise lowest.
,151056 When the space between busbars is too narrow (e.g. 12cm in
,172635 Fig@, the airflow in the channels hetween adjacent busbars
,191715
becomes extremely slow, even is stagnated, this lead to serious
weakness of convective heat transfers in these channels.
Therefore the temperature rise is very high. When the space
between busbars is too broad, consequentially the space
Fig.6. Velocity field of air inside 3-phasd4-pole air-insulated busbar
uunking system (ds). between the shielding and outer busbars, i.e. phase R and N,

-2162-
will be narrower and influenced. simulation. in spite of its approximation, this model still leads
Analysis 2: The current ratings, size of busbars, space to a better understanding of the thermal performance of non-
between busbars, and thickness of shielding were set to ventilated air-insulated bus bar trunking.
constant values as listed in Table I . Then we changed the The configurations of busbar trunking system have obvious.
width and height of the shielding to research the variation of effect on the temperature rise of the busbars.at the same source
the temperature rise of busbars, we got another two curves as current. The temperature rise will increase when the space
shown in Fig.9. For one instance, the width of the shielding between the busbars is too big or too small, that is, there is a
was set to l80mm the height of the shielding varied from best midterm space between the busbars that can make the
l20mm to 280mm; for another instance, the height of the temperature rise lowest. Moreover, the bigger the size of the
shielding was set to ISOmm, the width of the shielding varied steel shielding, the lower the temperature rise of the busbars.
from l20mm to 280mm. It is shown that the bigger the size of
the steel shielding, the lower the temperature rise of the VI. REFERMCES
[I] Chang-Cau H-g, J. J. Chang, and Y. H. Jiang, "Analysis of
electromagnetic and thermal fields for a bus duct system, " Eieitric
Power SysIem Research, "01.45. pp. 39-45, 1998.
[2] H. Hedia, F. Henratte, B. Meys, P. Dular, and W. Legros, "Anmyemem
of ahases and heatins constraints in a busbar. " IEEE Tm&. on Morn.. " I

voi351pp. 1274-127?, Mar 1999.

[ 3 ] D. Labridis and P. Dokopoulos, "Finite element computation of field,
losses and forces in a threephase gas. cable witif nonsymmetrical
conductor arrangement," IEEE Tram. on Power Deiivery, "01.3,
pp.1326-1333,Oct. 1988.
[4] S.W. Kim,H.H.Kim,S.C. Hahn,B.Y. Lee,K.Y. Park,Y.J. Shin, W.P.
Song, J.B. Kim, and I.H.. Shin, "Coupled finite-element-analytic
technique for prediction of temperam rise in power appmNs," IEEE
Tram, on,M a p . , ~01.38,pp.921-924, Mar. 2002.
[5] ANSYS Inc. (Mar.2001). ANSYS Theoly Manual (12th ed.). [O"line].'
Available: h t t p l l w w l .ansys.com/custornerI~antent/documentati~~601
chOl .html:
[6] M. Necati Ozisik, Heof Trans/er: A Baric Approach. New York
McGow-Hill, 1990.
[7] Mario Chiampi, Daniels Chiarabaglia, and Michele Tartaglis, "A:
Fig.8. Temperature rise of phase-S busbar varied with space between' General Approach for Analyzing Power Busbar under A.C. Conditions,"
adjacent busbars IEEE nam. on Mogn., vol. 29, pp.2473-2475, Nov. 1993.
[E] G. Buonanno, A. Camtenuta, M. Dell'lsala. and D.Villscci, "Effect of
-en radiative and convective heat transfer an thermal transients in power
- - - ~ e m p e r a ~ m ~ " y l v ~ d e d m w aofmshrlding cables. " IEE Pme. Gener. Tramm. Dislrib., ~01.142,pp.436-444, Jul:
-~-Temprahlrerisevafied& heightofshielding 1995.

VII: BIOGRAPHIES
Wu Ambo w born in Hubei Province. China in 1974. He received the B.S.
and the M.S. degrees in electrical engineering fmm Xi'an Jiaotong University,
Xi'an 710049, China in 1996 and 1999 respectively. He is currently a Ph.D.
candidate with the School of Electrical Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotang
University. His research interests include computer simulation in electrical
enginmnng, infrasrmcture and technologies of distributed problem solving
and CADICAE twls.
1

E , ]im, , ,
im 110
, , ,
ten
, ,, ,
?en m
,
uo
, , . ,
110
, ,
xn zw xa
, 1 Cbso Dcgui (M'1999, "99) WBS born in Shanghai, China in 1933. He is
WdB or Height of Shielding (mm) currently a Pmfessor with the Schwl of Electrical Engineering, Xi'an
Jiaotong University. His mcarch interests include the theory and computer
simulation of IOW voltage electrical apparatus, electrical arc and CADlC.+E in
F i g 9 Temperature "se of phased busbar varied with the width or height Electrical Engineering.
ofbusbar shielding
Wmg Jimbua WBS barn in Shannxi Pmvince. China in1954. He received the
V. CONCLUSIONS M.S.and Ph.D. de- in Electrical Engineering tiom Xi'an liaotong
University, China in 1981 and 1985 respectively. He is currently a Professor
The coupled magneto-fluid-thermalFEA model proposed in with the Sehwl of Electrical Engineering Xi'an Jiaotong University. His
tliis paper can approximately simulate.the real world model of h- interests include the theory and application of intclligent elecwiical
apparatus system, CADICAE in Electrical Engineering.
air-insulated busbar trunking system involving electromagnetic
heating, free convection and thermal radiation. The neglect of Cai Bin i s currently B Ph.D. candidate with the School of Electrical
the ,heat conduction of assembly brackets is the main f a e r Engineqing Xi'an Jiaotong University.
that brings the error between experiment result and field result. Geng Yingssa (M'1999) is currently a Professor with the Schwl of
In the future improved model, the influence of these insulating Electrical Engineering Xi'an Jiaatong University. His reseanh interats
assembly brackets should be considered, thus a three- include the thenly and application of intelligent electrical apparatu system,
dimensional FEA model should be involved for precise CADICAE in Electrical Engineering.

~ 2163 - .