Underground Cables

Lectures prepared by
Prof. S. Shahnawaz Ahmed

For subsequent materials assistance taken mainly from :

1. Ashfaq Husain, Electrical Power Systems, CBS Publishers, Delhi, 1997.
Chapter 4 (selected pages).
2. S. Sivanagaraju and S. Satyanarayana, Electric Power Transmission and
Distribution, Pearson, New Delhi, 2009.
Chapter 9 (selected pages).
3. Yoshihide Hase, Handbook of Power System Engineering, John Wiley and sons,
UK, 2007.
Chapter 23 (selected pages).

Cu or Al

Lead or aluminium

Fibrous material
like jute or Hessian tape
Paper, varnished cambric,
vulcanized bitumen,
Poly vinyl chloride, Crosslinked poly-ethylene (XLPE)

One or two layers of

galvanized steel or steel
tape

or XLPE cable

XLPE cables can be used now in the range 60-500 kV.

OF cables are used in 100-400 kV range and in Japan submarine

OF cable has been used for 500 kV HVDC line

Gas filled cables or Gas Insulated cables

Besides OF cables dry gas (SF6 or Nitrogen) is also used at high pressure (1400
kN/m2) to fill in the space between layers of dielectric paper. This fills in voids and
prevents ionization of dielectric materials. Compared to normal solid dielectric
cables it enables 1.4 to 1.6 times load current, double the voltage and
transmission of 2.4 to 3.2 times the power.
However, these are used for a short length (maximum 5 km ) and in river or
highway crossings.

i.e. high insulation resistance

Insulation resistance of cable:

he

2xl

C/m2

Charging current per meter is = V(jC) A/m

when V implies to be line to neutral volt

Loss in insulation
resistance due to
radial leakage
current through
sheath

Molecular bipolar frictional loss in dielectric

capacitance
due
to
alternate
charging/discharging by an AC voltage or just
loss of charges in the capacitance when DC is
applied.

The R1 in fact represents the equivalent of three losses

cos (90-) = sin

Ri computed this way represents in fact three losses in the dielectric.

However, insulation resistance loss is the major among those.

Notes on selection of cable :

For 400 Volts or LT (less than 1 kV) cables the size depends upon mainly on the load
current. The size needed would actually be higher if other factors such as
underground temperature effect, grouping factor (multiple cables in same tray/duct)
etc. are considered.

For 11 kV or above the cable size is decided by the larger one of the two sizes
calculated considering respectively the load current and the withstand capacity of a
three phase short circuit at the interfacing bus for 1 second.
In any case the circuit breaker to be selected must have a normal current rating less
than that for the selected cable size. This is because the purpose of the circuit breaker
is to protect mainly the cable when the loads may have their own individual circuit
breakers or fuses.