IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 17, NO.

4, OCTOBER 2002

1085

Calculation of Frequency-Dependent Parameters of

Power Cables: Matrix Partitioning Techniques
Richard A. Rivas, Member, IEEE, and Jos R. Mart, Fellow, IEEE

AbstractIn this paper, a new algorithm for the calculation of

the frequency-dependent parameters of arbitrarily shaped power
cable arrangements is presented. The algorithm uses digital images
to discretize the cable geometry and partial subconductor equivalent circuit method to estimate the cable parameters. The proposed methodology adapts itself to the physical memory of the computer, allowing the program to partition the partial subconductor
impedance matrices when their sizes exceed the available physical
memory. Coaxial cables and sector-shaped cables are studied, and
the results are compared with those obtained from analytical formulae and the finite-element method.
Index TermsConductor, EMTP, frequency-dependent parameters, inductance, PEEC, power cables, proximity effect, PSEC, resistance, skin effect.

I. INTRODUCTION

IGNIFICANT effort has been made to model power cables in EMTP-type studies [1], [2]. However, to perform
detailed transients simulations, an accurate calculation of the
frequency-dependent parameters of the conductors is required.
As far as the frequency-dependent parameter calculation of
power cables is concerned, very useful work has been carried
out for the analysis of cylindrically shaped arrangements [3],
[4]. Difficulties arise, nonetheless, when arbitrarily shaped configurations without closed-form solutions are studied. Typical
cases are oval- and sector-shaped cables, cables with concentric
neutral conductors, square busbars, and power rails of transit
systems, where numerical techniques must be applied to determine the parameters.
To include skin and proximity effects into the analysis, one of
the alternatives of solution is to represent the cable system with
equivalent coupled circuits of partial subconductors [5][9]. In
[10], we proposed that the cable geometry discretization for arbitrarily shaped cases can be automatically obtained from digital
images [11].
In the present paper, we discuss the details of the proposed
partial subconductor equivalent circuit (PSEC). The method and
its implementation in a general-purpose parameter calculation
program are also observed.

Manuscript received March 30, 2001; revised February 8, 2002. R. A.

Rivas was supported by La Universidad Simn Bolvar and El Consejo
Nacional para el Desarrollo de las Investigaciones Cientficas y Tecnolgicas
(CONICIT), both in Caracas, Venezuela, Apart. Postal 8900.
R. A. Rivas is with the Departamento de Conversin y Transporte de Energa,
Universidad Simn Bolvar, Caracas, Venezuela.
J. R. Mart is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2002.803827

The basic idea of the proposed technique is to draw the cable

geometry, or scan its photograph, and to use this digital image
(pixel map) to automatically identify the spatial coordinates
of the square-shaped (pixel-shaped) partial subconductors into
which the different conductors can be subdivided. Memory
requirements and solution time, however, increase noticeably
as the frequency and the number of subconductors rise.
To overcome the memory problems, an algorithm to partition
and reduce the impedance matrices is presented. The proposed
algorithm minimizes the interaction between hard disk and central processing unit (CPU) and allows the PSEC program to calculate the frequency-dependent parameters of power cable arrangements in reasonable time.
This paper is organized as follows: Section II presents the
PSEC method, describing the derivation of the equations for
multiconductor systems. Section III explains the proposed partition methodology. Section IV studies a single-phase coaxial
cable and a three-phase sector-shaped cable and compares the
results obtained with the PSEC method with those obtained
from analytical solutions, the finite-element (FE) method, and
approximate formulae. Finally, Section V states some conclusions.
II. PSEC METHOD
A. Method Formulation
Let us suppose that an arbitrarily shaped cable geometry with
conductors is subdivided into subconductors or filaments
and that a fictitious, lossless, and circularly shaped ring encloses
the system under study (Fig. 1).
Let us also consider that the subconductors are sufficiently
small and that there is mutual coupling among subconductors.
Under these conditions, constant current density can be assumed
in each subconductor with different subconductors having different current densities.
For subconductors and , for example, with a ring-return
path , the self impedance in ohms per meter of the loop sub, and the mutual
conductor /ring return is
impedance in ohms per meter between the loops subconductor
/ring return and subconductor /ring return is
.
Resorting to the definition of geometric mean distance
) [12], the self and mutual inductances
and
in
(
H/m can be calculated as

0885-8977/02$17.00 2002 IEEE

(1)

1086

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 17, NO. 4, OCTOBER 2002

are short circuited. The impedance matrix will thus relate the
voltage drops along the conductors with the currents flowing
through them by
(7)
and
where is the direction of propagation;
are the voltage drops per unit length in volts per meter along
core and sheath, respectively; and are the currents flowing
is the self impedance
through core and sheath, respectively;
is the muin ohms per meter of the loop core/ring return;
tual impedance in ohms per meter between the loops core/ring
is the self impedance
return and sheath/ring return; and
in ohms per meter of the loop sheath/ring return.
Assuming, for example, that each conductor is arbitrarily sub), the system
divided into three parallel subconductors (
can be rewritten as follows:
Fig. 1. Subconductors enclosed by a ring.

(2)
(8)

where
..
.

(3)
and
are the areas of the subconductors and , reand
spectively, is the distance between an arbitrary point in subconductor and an arbitrary point in subconductor , and is
the permeability of the dielectric between subconductors (equal
H/m for nonmagnetic materials).
to
Assuming arbitrary shapes, distinct positions, and different
areas for subconductors and , it is possible to prove that
, where is the radius
of the ring. Therefore, (1) and (2) become
(4)
(5)
For instance, if subconductors and are identical squareand
will both be equal to
shaped filaments,
, where is the side of the subconductors. In such a
can be approximated as the distance between subcase,
conductors and , incurring a maximum error of 0.655% in the
calculations (when adjacent subconductors with the same - or
-coordinate touch one another [8]).
can
The resistance per unit length of each subconductor
be calculated from

..
.

..
.

..

,
, and
and
where
are the self and mutual impedances of the subconductors
and
.
with ring return
Since the subconductors of each conductor are in parallel, the
cable parameters can be obtained by bundling the subconductors
in a similar manner as it is done for overhead transmission lines
in [13].
B. Equations Modification
All voltage drops and current flows per subconductor, except
the ones of the first subconductor of each conductor in (8), need
to be moved to the bottom of the vectors of voltages and currents, as shown in (9). To do so, rows and columns are interchanged in (8) as follows: row 4 and column 4 are moved to
row 2 and column 2, row 2 and column 2 are moved to row 3
and column 3, and row 3 and column 3 are moved to row 4 and
column 4, respectively. The system then becomes

(9)
..
.

..
.

..
.

..

(6)
is the number of equal parallel subconductors into
where
is the dc resistance of
which a conductor is subdivided, and
the conductor.
To simplify the explanation, let us suppose that the number
of conductors is equal to two (e.g., core conductor and conducting sheath) and that the far-end terminals of the conductors

,
, and the other elements of
where
can be obtained from the row and column operations described
above.
with and
with in (9), errors equal to
Replacing
and
are introduced into the equations. However, they can be compensated for if column one is

RIVAS AND MART: CALCULATION OF FREQUENCY-DEPENDENT PARAMETERS

subtracted both from column three and column four, and column
two is subtracted both from column five and column six, respectively. To keep the symmetry, the same arithmetic operations applied to the columns are also applied to the rows, (i.e., row one
is subtracted both from row three and row four, and row two is
subtracted both from row five and row six, respectively). The
system thus becomes

(10)
..
.

..
.

..
.

..

where all of the equations at the bottom are equal to zero, and
subsets of equations have been defined for the step of equa,
, and
tions reduction. For example,
. Similarly, the other elements of
can be
determined with row and column operations.
C. Equations Reduction
Specifying subvectors of voltages and currents and submatrices of impedances for the subsets of equations indicated in
(10), the system can be rewritten in the following way:
(11)
Applying Krons reduction, (11) becomes
(12)
where
(13)
stores the frequency-dependent parameters of the
and
,
, and
in (7)].
cable system under study [
Using partial Gaussian triangularization [8], [14], the off-diand all of the elagonal upper elements of the submatrix
can be transformed into zeros.
ements of the submatrix
becomes equal to the submatrix matrix
Thus, the matrix
and the cable parameters with ring return can be calculated
.
without inverting the submatrix
Next, the fictitious ring-return path is eliminated, introducing
its zero-current condition into the equations. This is done in the
with
in (7). Hence, the
foregoing example, replacing
second column and the second row can be subtracted from the
first column and the first row, respectively, to convert (12) into
(14)
is the loop impedance bewhere
is the voltage across
tween core and sheath,
the loop core-sheath, and is the current flowing through core
conductor and returning through conducting sheath.

1087

Finally, the frequency-dependent parameters

the loop-core sheath are calculated from
.

and

of
and

D. Ground Corrections
An advantage of the PSEC method over, for example, the FE
method is that the earth return does not have to be explicitly
subdivided when the conductor parameters are calculated. After
assuming a fictitious return path of infinite conductivity (in our
case, a circle-shaped ring), the ground return can be incorporated into the analysis, employing the formulae for earth-return
representation proposed by Wedepohl and Wilcox [3]. For instance, De Arizn and Dommel [8] explain how to incorporate
earth-return path impedances into the impedance matrices of cables.
III. PARTITION METHODOLOGY
Given the symmetry of the impedance matrix, it is sufficient
to create its elements considering that the matrix is triangular
(i.e., it is sufficient to calculate, operate, and store a number of
equal to
).
elements
For example, if a given cable system is subdivided into 5000
), a computer requires, assuming
subconductors (
double precision per complex element (16 B), a physical
memory of 190.8 MB to construct the impedance matrix
without using virtual memory.
To allow the PSEC program to find a solution in reasonable time when large cases are studied, we propose to partition the system into smaller subsystems that can be temporarily
stored on a hard disk. The subsystems can be analyzed sequentially, thus avoiding the use of virtual memory when the physical memory of the computer is lower than that required by the
impedance matrix.
The proposed partition methodology proceeds in three stages:
1) partition for matrix construction;
2) partition for matrix modification;
3) partition for matrix reduction.
Additionally, each partition stage can be subdivided into subparis the phystitions for storage and retrieval of elements. If
ical memory of the computer minus the memory used by the
is the
operating system, auxiliary arrays, and variables, and
are both
memory needed by the impedance matrix ( and
in bytes), partition of the impedance matrix is required when
is greater than .
A. Partition for Matrix Construction
is equal to
The number of partitions for this stage
, where
, such as in MATLAB, is the function
to the nearest greater integer, and
rounding the ratio
is equal to
B. The maximum number of elements per
, is given by
, where
is the
partition,
to the nearest lower integer.
function rounding the ratio
is not an integer number, the number of
If the ratio
is lower than
. In this
elements of the last partition
is equal to
.
case,
Using the example of the foregoing section, where
subconductors and
B (21 elements, 16 B each), and

1088

assuming an arbitrary value of physical memory (e.g.,

B), the results are
partitions,
elements, and
elements.
When the counter of partitions, , is equal to one, the elements are calculated and stored in a working vector using the
,
,
,
,
,
, , up to
following order:
. Similarly, when
, the remaining elements (
,
, and
) are processed.
B. Partition for Matrix Modification
The first rows of the matrix (the ones associated with the first
subconductor of each conductor) have to be subtracted from all
of the other rows, so it is convenient to keep the first rows in
physical memory as the process is carried out.
Assuming partitions with an integer number of rows,
is equal to
the number of partitions for this stage
; the maximum number of rows per partition
is equal to
; and the memory
is equal to
used by the first rows of the impedance matrix
16 m n bytes (mn). The maximum number of elements per
is equal to
.
partition
is equal to 128, 256, or 512 MB, a
For example, when
case with 50 conductors and 100 000 partial subconductors can
be solved with 3029, 855, or 351 partitions, respectively. The
rows per partition are 33, 117, or 285, respectively.
subconductors is also used to exThe example with
plain the partition for matrix modification. Since the matrix is
is equal to 576 B (36 elprocessed by strips in this stage,
ements, 16 B each). Assuming the previous value of physical
B), the results are
partitions and
memory (
row.
At the beginning, the elements of the first two rows are retrieved. Second, when the counter of partitions is equal to one,
the elements of the row three are retrieved to perform the operation row three minus row one. Then, the available elements of
column three are updated using the elements of row three, (i.e.,
and
). Next, the diagonal element is
), and finally, the elements
updated, (i.e.,
of the row three are stored. Similar processes are carried out for
,
, and
using rows four, five, and six, respectively. At the end, the elements of the first two rows are stored.
C. Partition for Matrix Reduction
Since the idea is to transform the off-diagonal upper elements
) columns into zeros, it is convenient to keep
of the right (
their multiplication factors in physical memory and to retrieve
the remaining elements of the matrix from hard disk as they are
needed.
First, the elements of the th column (the last on the right)
are retrieved so that the multiplication factors associated with
rows can be calculated. Since the upper
the first
elements of the th column will become zeros,
additions
can be avoided. Then, the program proceeds with the retrieval of
elements of the matrix. As
, these elethe first
ments are divided into chunks of data using a maximum number
equal to
of elements per partition
and a number of partitions
equal to
. In the beginning, the first
elements are retrieved,

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 17, NO. 4, OCTOBER 2002

operated, and stored using the corresponding multiplication factors. Next, the second group with
elements is used, and so
partitions. The multiplication facforth until completing the
tors are different for each row and are modified while traversing
rows.
the first
th column are retrieved to
Second, the elements of the
obtain the new multiplication factors. Note that the th column
is filled with zeros, so it is only required to calculate
factors and to retrieve and operate the first
elements. As a result, the partitions can have one more element without exceeding the available physical memory, and the
number of partitions decreases to a value equal to
. For the
th column, two
th
more elements are supported in each partition, for the
column, three more elements are permitted, and so forth until
the sum of all the elements and multiplication factors fits in
memory. When that is the case, the Gaussian elimination continues without partitioning the matrix.
The partition process for matrix reduction can also be visuB). Asalized for the example of six subconductors (
is equal to 160 B, the results are
partisuming that
elements.
tions and
Initially, the elements of the sixth column are retrieved to
create the array of multiplication factors. Then, groups of
four elements are sequentially retrieved and operated. The
,
,
, and
first group consists of the elements
, the second group of the elements
,
,
, and
, and so forth until reaching the fourth group and the
,
, and
). For example,
remaining elements (
will become equal to
,
will become equal to
, and so forth until using up all of the partitions,
is the multiplication factor associated
where
is
with the elements of the first row and
the multiplication factor associated with the elements of the
,
, and
can be calculated.
second row. Likewise,
will store the ratio
, which is the value used to avoid
up to
more division operations when calculating the factors
. Once the calculations of each partition have been carried
out, the corresponding results are stored.
Later on, the elements of the fifth column are retrieved to
create a new array of multiplication factors. Similarly, groups
of five elements are sequentially retrieved and operated, but the
number of partitions is reduced to three. For example, the first
,
,
,
, and
.
group consists of the elements
Finally, when the fourth column is reached, the ten remaining
elements fit in memory and no more partitions are required to
continue the partial Gaussian elimination process.
D. Subpartition for Storage and Retrieval of Elements
As indicated, the methodology requires the storage and retrieval of the chunk of data associated with each partition if
. The ideal situation would be to store and retrieve the
partition at once so that only one hard disk access per partition is
needed. Using single access, however, the time values increase
noticeably as the amount of data to be written or retrieved grows.
Table I lists the timings obtained for different record sizes
using an AMD-K6, 433-MHz computer with 60 MB of physical
memory. As shown, it is generally faster to write a long record of

RIVAS AND MART: CALCULATION OF FREQUENCY-DEPENDENT PARAMETERS

TABLE I
HARD-DISK TIME VERSUS RECORD LENGTH

binary data to a direct access file than to write it to a sequential

access file. Also, one can conclude that writing 50 MB of data
with five 10-MB records is faster (approximately 0.17 s 5
0.85 s) than writing 50 MB with only one record (160.49 s).
IV. CASE STUDIES
A. Coaxial Cable
Fig. 2 depicts the geometry of a coaxial cable. Its parameters,
which can be obtained analytically through Bessel functions, are
used to validate the PSEC algorithm. The sheath is considered
the return path and the ground is not included in the calculations.
Applying segmentation [11], the cable geometry can be divided into two imagesone for the core conductor and the other
for the conducting sheath. Using square-shaped subconductors,
subconductor densities (resolutions) of 42.9 and 29.9 subconductors/in yield area discretization errors of 1.51 and 2.20% for
core and sheath, respectively. With the resolutions from before,
the core is subdivided into 4337 subconductors, the sheath is
subdivided into 712 subconductors, and the cable geometry is
thus represented with a total of 5049 partial subconductors.
The subconductors must have sizes with the same order of
magnitude as the penetration depth ( ) to take skin effects into
consideration[14]. Given the existing circular symmetry, the hypotenuse of every square subconductor should be at least equal
, , and are
to , where can be obtained from
the conductivity and permeability of conductor, and is the frequency in Hertz.
From the chosen resolutions, the lengths of the hypotenuses
of the square subconductors of core and sheath are 0.84 and 1.2
mm, respectively, so the cutoff frequencies [6] associated with
the internal resistances should be close to 10.61 kHz for the core
and 36.56 kHz for the sheath.
Fig. 3 compares the loop parameters obtained with the two
along the abscissae.
methods using a scale proportional to
Four points per decade (e.g., 10, 40, 70, and 100 kHz) are considered up to a frequency of 100 kHz. As shown in the plots,
both models predict the right behavior of the frequency-dependent parameters described in [14].
The error in the loop resistance is positive (calculated resistance greater than actual resistance) at 10 kHz, and becomes
negative (smaller calculated resistance) at 40 kHz. The errors
are 0.12 and 1.92% at 10- and 40-kHz frequencies, respec-

1089

tively, which bound the 10.61- and 36.56-kHz values predicted

for the cutoff frequencies of core and sheath. The maximum and
minimum differences between the values of the PSEC method
and those of the analytical method are 6.49 and 0% on the resistance curve, occurring at 100 kHz and 0.1 Hz, and 1.11%
and 0.78% on the inductance curve, taking place at 10 kHz
and 0.1 Hz, respectively.
The average simulation time was 59.2 min/frequency using an
Intel Pentium III, 733-MHz computer with 256 MB of physical
memory, three partitions for matrix modification, and 10-MB
subpartitions (records). Setting limits of 192 MB for physical
memory and 1 MB for each subpartition, the simulation time
was 1 h 38 m 32 s/frequency, with two partitions for matrix construction, three partitions for matrix modification, and a total of
222 partitions for matrix reduction (74 for multiplication factors
and 148 for the rest of the elements).
As shown, the computation time is high, especially when the
memory resources are low. However, it should be mentioned that
these calculations need to be made only once for a given cable.
After obtaining the parameters, they can be stored in data bases
for future use.
Frequencies above 100 kHz could also be studied if the resolutions are increased. This would result in more subconductors
and longer computation times. However, frequencies up to 100
kHz are sufficient for power cable transient calculations.
In addition, there are many system studies where very high
frequencies are not needed (e.g., harmonic studies). In those
cases, one can use fewer but larger subconductors to reduce
the computation time per frequency. For example, for system
studies up to 1 kHz, resolutions of at least 13.3 and 17.7 subconductors/in should be used for core and sheath, respectively. In
that case, core and sheath are subdivided into 422 and 264 subconductors, respectively, and the cable geometry is represented
with a total of 686 subconductors. Under these circumstances,
the average simulation time using the computer described before was 10.16 s/frequency.
B. Sector-Shaped Cable
Fig. 4 shows the geometry of a sector-shaped cable studied
with the FE method in [15] and with approximate formulae
in [16]. Its parameters, which cannot be obtained through
closed-form formulae, are calculated with the PSEC algorithm
and compared with those obtained with the other two methods.
The area of each sector-shaped conductor of the core is 299.76
mm , the sheath is considered the return path, and the ground
is not included in the calculations. Also,
and
due to symmetry.
Using square-shaped subconductors, resolutions of 65.5 subconductors/in and 46 subconductors/in result in area discretization errors of 0.02% and 0.01% for the conductors and the conducting sheath, respectively. With the resolutions mentioned before, each sector-shaped conductor is subdivided into 1994 subconductors, the sheath is subdivided into 1055 subconductors,
and the cable geometry is thus represented with a total of 5043
partial subconductors.
Since the lengths of the hypotenuses of the square subconductors of core and sheath are 0.55 and 0.78 mm, respectively, resistance values that are smaller than the actual resistances should

1090

Fig. 2.

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 17, NO. 4, OCTOBER 2002

Geometry of coaxial cable.

Fig. 3. Resistance and inductance of coaxial cable.

start to appear after 14.44 and 416.34 kHz on the core and sheath
curves, respectively.
Fig. 5 depicts the results obtained for the loop parameters
along the abscissae and freusing a scale proportional to
quencies up to 600 kHz. The results of the PSEC method are
plotted with ten points per decade, whereas the results of the
approximate method and the FE method are only plotted for the
following six points: 6 Hz, 60 Hz, 600 Hz, 6 kHz, 60 kHz, and
600 kHz.
As shown, the PSEC method and the FE method display similar curves, and a cutoff effect is hardly noticed at approximately
490 kHz. This result can be explained by analyzing the conductivities of the conductors. The conductivity of the sheath is
much smaller than the conductivity of the core, so the internal
resistance of the sheath is always much greater than the internal

resistance of the core. As a result, the cutoff frequency of the

loop resistances is given by that of the internal resistance of the
sheath.
For the self parameters, substantial differences between the
results of the approximate method and those of the numerical
methods are only visible above 60 kHz, where the approximate
method yields much greater values of resistance, and below 60
Hz, where it produces much smaller values of inductance. For
the mutual parameters, the approximate method yields results
too different from those of the numerical methods.
For the self resistance, the maximum and minimum differences between the values of the PSEC method and those of the
FE method are 7.12 and 1.06%, occurring at 600 kHz and 600
Hz, respectively. Between the values of the PSEC method and
those of the approximate method, the maximum and minimum
differences are 27.03% and 1.55%, taking place at 600 kHz
and 6 Hz, respectively.
For the self inductance, the maximum and minimum differences between the results of the PSEC method and those of the
FE method are 12.48 and 0.52%, occurring at 6 kHz and 6 Hz,
respectively. Between the results of the PSEC and those of the
approximate method, the maximum and minimum differences
are 17.72 and 5.98%, taking place at 6 and 600 Hz, respectively.
For the mutual parameters, the maximum and minimum differences between the values of the PSEC method and those of
the FE method are 6.26 and 1.22% on the resistance curve, occurring at 60 kHz and 600 Hz, and 9.15 and 4.01% on the
inductance curve, taking place at 60 Hz and 600 kHz, respectively.
The average simulation time was 58.32 min/frequency with
three partitions for matrix modification.
As previously mentioned, for power cable transient studies,
a frequency of 100 kHz suffices. However, [15] reported results
up to a frequency of 600 kHz when using the FE method. To
compare all of the methods under the same conditions, the PSEC
program calculated the cable parameters up to 600 kHz as well.
For symmetrical geometries, the accuracy of the proposed
method was verified by analytical solutions (Fig. 3). For an arbitrarily shaped geometry, it would be desirable to compare with
measurements. The measured impedances provided in [16] for

RIVAS AND MART: CALCULATION OF FREQUENCY-DEPENDENT PARAMETERS

1091

Fig. 4. Geometry of sector-shaped cable.

to estimate the parameters in reasonable time even in low

random-access-memory (RAM) computers.
The developed algorithm can be used to calculate the series
parameters of oval- and sector-shaped cables, cables with concentric neutral conductors, square busbars, power rails of transit
systems, and interconnections of integrated circuits.
Standard graphic formats, such as bitmap, are used to set up
subconductor coordinates of cable configurations, given either
their manufacturer drawings or their pictures of actual crosssections. The use of these graphic format files is a novel approach which overcomes the difficulties associated with arbitrarily shaped power cables.
REFERENCES

Fig. 5. Resistance and inductance of sector-shaped cable.

the cable depicted in Fig. 4 correspond to a case with magnetic

pipe, but our PSEC routines at this time can still not consider
cases with nonuniform permeabilities.
In general, the FE element method is a formulation whose
results compare well with those of field tests. Therefore, the FE
method was used in this case as an indication of the expected
values.
V. CONCLUSIONS
A methodology to calculate frequency-dependent parameters
of arbitrarily shaped power cable arrangements based on the automatic spatial discretization of their cross-sections and the partial subconductor equivalent circuit method has been presented.
The proposed methodology partitions the partial subconductor impedance matrices when their sizes exceed the
available physical memory, thus allowing the PSEC program

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[12] P. Oeding and K. Feser, Geometric mean distances of rectangular conductors (in German), ETZ-A, vol. 86, no. 16, pp. 525533, 1965.

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[13] M. H. Hesse, Electromagnetic and electrostatic transmission-line parameters by digital computer, IEEE Trans. Power App. Syst., vol. 82,
pp. 282291, June 1963.
[14] H. W. Dommel, Electromagnetic Transients ProgramsReference
Manual, 2nd ed. Vancouver, BC, Canada: Microtran Power Syst.
Anal. Corp., 1992.
[15] Y. Yin, Calculation of frequency-dependent parameters of underground
power cables with finite element method, Ph.D. dissertation, Univ.
British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, Sept. 1990.
[16] A. Ametani and K. Fuse, Approximate method for calculating the impedances of multiconductors with cross section of arbitrary shapes,
Elect. Eng. Japan, vol. 112, no. 2, pp. 117123, 1992.

Richard A. Rivas (M01) was born in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1965. He received

the electrical engineer degree and the M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering
from Universidad Simn Bolvar, Caracas, in 1988 and 1993, respectively, and
the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, in 2001.
Currently, he is an Associate Professor at the Department of Energy Conversion and Delivery of Universidad Simn Bolvar, where he has taught since
1991. From 1988 to 1991, he worked for La Electricidad de Caracas in the areas
of power systems protection and substation design. His areas of interest include
power systems analysis, electromagnetic (EM) transients, and power systems
protection.

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 17, NO. 4, OCTOBER 2002

Jos R. Mart (F02) was born in Spain in 1948. He received the electrical
engineer degree from Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, in 1971, the
M.E.E.P.E. degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, in 1974,
and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from The University of British
Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, BC, Canada, in 1981.
Currently, he is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering at UBC, where he has taught since 1988. In Venezuela, he worked
for Exxon in the design of protective relaying and taught power systems analysis
at Universidad Central de Venezuela. He has been involved for a number of years
in the development of models and solution techniques for EMTP-type real time
simulators.