Reducing the impact of ELF electromagnetic fields of HV power cables on the environment by modeling the cable accessories

Abstract

Purpose

Underground cables can produce higher electromagnetic fields directly above them than an overhead line. The majority of cable failures on distribution system are caused by defects in the cable accessories. Nowadays, significant research has been carried out worldwide into examining whether electricity, and in particular, the presence of electric and magnetic fields have an adverse impact on health, especially the occurrence of cancer and childhood leukemia. The purpose of this paper is to optimize the electric field distribution in underground cable accessories. This reduces the impact of the harmful effects of the fields on living beings and humans.

Design/methodology/approach

Cable terminations and joints are designed to eliminate the stress concentration at the termination screen to avoid the breakdown of the cable and high values of electric field at these points. Any improvement in the cable termination and joints construction is of great interest. There are several methods for the solution of electric field distribution. These can be summarized as analytical, experimental, free-hand field mapping, analogue methods and numerical methods. In this paper cable accessories are modeled by using multilayer dielectric system and very thin deflector’s cones.

Findings

This model includes specific insulators design and smart choice of electrodes position. Stress-grading nonlinear materials in form of tapes and tubes were used with much success. In order to optimize the cable joint parameters, two criteria were monitored – total electric field magnitude and magnitude of the tangential component. More than 30 percent is reduced impact of cables on the environment.

Originality/value

In order to investigate the accuracy of the applied numerical model, various configurations of the cable accessories are studied. The first time is applied new Hybrid Boundary Elements Method on the protection of the environment.

Citation

Raicevic, N.B. and Raicevic, N. (2015), "Reducing the impact of ELF electromagnetic fields of HV power cables on the environment by modeling the cable accessories", COMPEL - The international journal for computation and mathematics in electrical and electronic engineering, Vol. 34 No. 4, pp. 1016-1028. https://doi.org/10.1108/COMPEL-10-2014-0251