Advanced Thermal Field Sensitivity Analysis of Power Cables

An advanced finite-element based technique is described in this paper for accurate sensitivity evaluation of power cables. The technique is applied to a practical three 132 kV XLPE underground cable system in the Saudi power system with multi-layer non-homogenous soil. The perturbed finite element sensitivity evaluation model accommodates most of the thermal parameters and the boundary conditions. In this work, the effect of multilayered thermal conductivities and boundary parameters variations on the actual cable system ampacity is investigated. Also, a comparison is held of the obtained results with the conventional finite element approach in order to show the applicability and usefulness of the developed methodology for the purpose of exploiting the operating parameter variations effects in straight sensitivity manner without repeating the thermal field analysis for such parameter changes.