Abstract
Power transmission covering long-distances has shifted from overhead high voltage cables to underground power cable systems due to numerous failures under severe weather conditions and electromagnetic pollution. The underground power cable systems are limited by the melting point of the insulator around the conductor, which depends on the surrounding soils’ heat transfer capacity or the thermal conductivity. In the past, numerical and theoretical studies have been conducted based on the mechanistic heat and mass transfer model. However, limited experimental evidence has been provided. Therefore, in this study, we performed a series of experiments for static and cyclic thermal loads with a cylindrical heater embedded in the sand. The results suggest thermal charging of the surrounding dry sand and natural convection within the wet sand. A comparison of heat transfer for dry, unsaturated and fully saturated sand is presented with graphs and colour maps which provide valuable information and insight of heat and mass transfer around an underground power cable. Furthermore, the measurements of thermal conductivity against density, moisture and temperature are presented showing positive nonlinear dependence.
Highlights
Modern society’s industrial growth and development are closely linked with its mastery of energy generation, transportation, and distribution effectively and efficiently.The past century saw a massive stride in this endeavour and a monumental shift towards energy generation from green sources [1]
The underground power cables in previous studies are modelled with a heated cylinder with defined heat flux, or temperature [17,45]
The diurnal and seasonal fluctuations result in cyclic thermal loading of the cables
Summary
Modern society’s industrial growth and development are closely linked with its mastery of energy generation, transportation, and distribution effectively and efficiently. The past century saw a massive stride in this endeavour and a monumental shift towards energy generation from green sources [1]. The green sources are confined to favourable locations and require an efficient and reliable network to transport the generated power to industrial consumption centres [2]. The conventional power transmission network uses high tension transmission lines, which are prone to high winds, snow and ice storms, earthquakes, electromagnetic pollution, and metal wire theft [3,4,5]. The overhead lines render a vast area underneath unusable. The limiting factor with the underground power cable system (UPGS) is the melting temperature of cross-linkable polyethene (XLPE)
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