How to Model the Electromagnetic Heating of Underground Cables

Walter Frei February 14, 2017

Overhead power cables can be seen almost everywhere in the United States, but there are also many
underground power cables that we can’t see. They have the advantage of protection from wind and snow
damage and, due to their shielding, have greatly reduced electromagnetic field emission. One disadvantage
of underground cables is that they heat up significantly, which leads to degradation of the insulation and
failure. Let’s see how to model electromagnetic heating in the COMSOL Multiphysics® software.

Properties of Underground Power Cables

A typical underground three-phase electrical cable is made up of a bundle of three conductive cables. Each
individual cable is stranded, meaning it is composed of many wires that are twisted together and
compressed so that the strands are in good electrical contact. The cable can also have shielding such as a
metal foil. A polymer material between the cable and shielding provides electrical insulation. Wound paper,
fluids, and even pressurized gases are also used as electric insulators. The entire insulated cable bundle is
then encapsulated within another dielectric and a metal sheath as well as an outer polymer coating, which
protects the cable from the environment.

Left: An underground three-phase electrical cable. Right: Cross-sectional schematic of a buried three-phase
cable.
The alternating current passing through the cable results in a time-varying magnetic field, which causes
induced currents in the cable as well as in the surrounding metal sheaths and foil. The currents lead to a
combination of Joule heating and induction heating. The cable bundle then begins to heat up, possibly
causing it to fail, hence our interest in building a predictive computational model.
The electrical analysis of the cable is fairly straightforward. We usually know all of the relevant material
properties (electric conductivity, permeability, and permittivity) in the cable bundle as well as exactly how
much current flows through the cable and at what frequency. However, we only have a rough understanding
of the electrical properties of the surrounding soil.
Thermally speaking, there are even more unknowns. The thermal properties of the surrounding soil vary
based on its composition and moisture content. Even within the cable, although we know the material
properties, there can be thin layers of material and small air gaps that significantly change the peak
temperature.
Let’s find out how we can model these types of cables using COMSOL Multiphysics.

Modeling Electromagnetic Fields in an Underground Cable

We can reasonably assume that underground cables are long and the surrounding environment is relatively
uniform. These assumptions allow us to simplify our model by considering a 2D cross-sectional slice, similar
to the one shown in the schematic above. We know that the three-phase current in the cables varies at a
fixed frequency. We also know the maximum current.
We assume that the stranded bundle of copper wires is compressed together with good electrical contact, so
we treat each of the three copper cables as one uniform domain across which the current can redistribute
itself. Thus, we use three different Coil features to excite the three copper cables, as shown in the
screenshot below. The applied excitation is of the form: 1[kA]*exp(-i*120[deg]).
That is, a 1kA peak current flows through the three cables, but the relative phases are shifted by 120°
between each.

The Coil feature sets up the current flowing through one of the cables. The other two cables carry the same
current, but with a 120° phase shift.
Next, we consider the thin layer of metal shielding. If the thickness of this layer is small compared to the
other dimensions, then we model this metal layer via the Transition boundary condition, as shown below.
This boundary condition allows us to enter a thickness and specify a set of material properties at an internal
boundary of the model. The advantage of this condition is that we don’t need to explicitly model the
geometry and thus don’t need to mesh this thin layer of material.

The Transition boundary condition in which the layer thickness and material properties can be entered.

The magnetic fields can extend some distance outside of the cable. Since we want to know how quickly the
fields drop off, we model a region of soil around the cable. We choose this region’s size by studying
progressively larger domains until the field solution shows minimal variation with an increasing domain size,
a procedure described in an earlier blog post on choosing boundary conditions for coil modeling. The results
of such an analysis, seen in the image below, show the magnetic field and cycle-averaged losses. It is these
losses that lead to a rise in temperature.
The losses in the cable bundle and shielding with arrows representing the magnetic field. The arrow lengths
are logarithmically scaled relative to the magnetic field strength.

Predicting the Temperature Rise in COMSOL Multiphysics®

Modeling the temperature rise of the cable seems relatively straightforward — we simply take the computed
losses and include them in a thermal model. We add the Heat Transfer in Solidsphysics interface to our
model and, within the Multiphysics branch, use the predefined features to set up a bidirectional coupling
between the electromagnetic and thermal problem. Either the Frequency-Stationary or Frequency-
Transient study type can be used to solve the electromagnetic problem in the frequency domain while
solving the thermal problem in the steady state or time domain.

The Frequency-Stationary solver and multiphysics settings for creating the bidirectionally coupled
electromagnetic heating model.
 Using the Thin Layer Boundary Condition
Now, even though the thermal model appears straightforward, there are a number of things that we need to
keep in mind as well as features of the software that we want to be aware of. For one, the cable bundle has
several thin layers of material, such as the shielding and coatings, that we might not want to model explicitly.
For these, we use the Thin Layer boundary condition, which has the option of modeling the thin layer as
a Thermally thin approximation, Thermally thick approximation, or General layer, as shown in the screenshot
below.
The Thermally thin approximation is appropriate when the material layers have a relatively much-higher
thermal conductance than their surroundings, whereas using the Thermally thick approximation is better for
material layers with a relatively much-lower conductance. The Generaltype should be used for any
intermediate cases, where there are significant thermal gradients both normal to and tangentially along the
layer of material. All of these options allow you to specify the layer thickness and properties, and
the General type additionally allows you to specify a composite of up to five different layers.

The Thin Layer boundary condition.

The Thin Layer boundary condition is appropriate for well-defined layers of material, with known thicknesses
and properties. We also need to consider the thermal resistance that arises when two materials are in
contact. Heat transfer between rough surfaces in contact occurs when there is:

 Conductive heat transfer due to the solid materials being pushed together
 Conductive heat transfer through the thin layer of air
 Radiative heat transfer between the exposed surfaces

These effects can all be modeled via the Thermal Contact feature, seen in the following screenshot.
 The Thermal Contact feature and equations.

The conductive heat transfer through the solids is strongly affected by the contact pressure. This pressure
can be computed from (and coupled with) a structural analysis, as exemplified by these tutorial models:

 Thermal Contact Resistance Between an Electronic Package and a Heat Sink

 Contact Switch
 Modeling the Thermal Environment and Domain
Next, we need to consider the thermal environment, which has a great deal of variability that directly affects
the cable temperature. The surrounding soil, concrete, and rocks have thermal conductivities that range
from 0.1 to 5 W/m/K and densities that range from just over 1000 kg/m 3 for very loosely packed soil to over
3000 kg/m3 for solid rocks. Their material-specific temperatures also vary from ~500 to 1500 J/kg/K.
Furthermore, these values do not remain constant. For example, the thermal conductivity of dry and wet
sand can differ by over an order of magnitude: from ~0.2 to 4 W/m/K. It is also helpful to introduce

the thermal diffusivity, which is defined as and ranges from roughly for these
materials.

In addition to the huge variability of the soil’s thermal properties, the thermal boundary conditions at the
surface are rarely well defined. There is both convective cooling to the air and radiative cooling to the sky.
The magnitude of this cooling is greatly affected by the local and temporary features at the surface. For
example, dead leaves or loosely packed snow can act as a very good layer of thermal insulation that is
difficult to quantify with any precision.
Lucky for us, the cables are buried deep enough that these temporary variations at the surface can often be
neglected. Thus, it is reasonable to approximate the heat balance at the surface with a combination of three
boundary conditions:

1. A Heat Flux boundary condition representing the solar heat load based on the latitude and time of year
2. Another Heat Flux boundary condition representing the convective cooling to the ave rage ambient air
temperature
3. A Diffuse Surface boundary condition representing the radiative cooling to the effective sky temperature

The solar heat load and ambient air temperature can be entered approximately or from the American
Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers database of weather station data, as we
describe in a previous blog post. The effective sky temperature ranges from about 230 K to 285 K (-45°C to
10°C), depending on the air temperature and cloud cover, with a typical ground surface emissi vity of 0.8–
0.95.
We must also consider the width and depth of our thermal domain. We need to model a sufficiently large
domain of soil such that the boundary conditions don’t affect the results. For thermal loads that vary
sinusoidally in time with cycle period , the distance D from the boundary at which the temperature

oscillation is reduced by approximately 90% relative to the oscillation at the surface is given by: .
Assuming that the thermal boundary conditions vary sinusoidally over the year, and assuming a very high
thermal diffusivity, a good rule of thumb is to model a domain that extends at least eight meters beneath the
surface and is at least three times the burial depth on either side, with thermal insulation boundary
conditions on the vertical boundaries and a fixed temperature boundary condition at the bottom boundary. A
Temperature boundary condition is used to fix the temperature at the bottom to the average of the surface
temperature over an entire year. This is a good approximation of the large thermal mass of the ground.
We can also investigate a larger soil domain to see if peak temperatures are noticeably affected. Of course,
if there are known subsurface features, such as nearby water mains or building foundations, these shou ld be
included in the model.

Solving the Model

We can solve the model using either a Frequency-Stationary or Frequency-Transient study type. Both solve
for the frequency-domain form of Maxwell’s equations, but solve the thermal model as either a steady-state
or time-dependent problem. Solving for the steady-state temperature requires a bit of care in interpreting the
results. A steady-state analysis will assume that all thermal transients have died out, a rather severe
assumption. Such results must be interpreted with care. Solving the transient problem, on the other hand,
can consider all of the changing environmental conditions and loads and will give not just the peak
temperatures but also the duration at which different materials are at different temperatures.
The screenshot below shows a typical model setup and sample results.

The thermal model and representative results of the cable’s temperature. The magnetic fields are only
solved for the smaller circular domain around the cable, since the magnetic fields drop off rapidly in
intensity.

Closing Remarks on Modeling the Electromagnetic Heating of Underground Cables

Here, we have shown the appropriate COMSOL® software features and modeling approaches for computing
the temperature rise in underground power cables. When solving such problems, keep in mind the variability
in the solution that can be introduced due to the changing thermal environment, imprecisely known soil
properties, and even small air gaps or standoffs within the cable itself. Of course, COMSOL Multiphysics
(along with the AC/DC and Heat Transfer modules) is a great tool for modeling these situations and for
considering all of the variability in the model inputs.