Methods of Determining Potential Distribution

©2019 Review Paper

 Muhammad Talha Waseem
Prof. Dr. Muhammad Kamran
DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore
University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore
Lahore, Pakistan
Lahore, Pakistan
talhabajwa15@gmail.com
Kamran.uet@gmail.com
 Abstract
An increasing sensibility to ecological problems is seen. In
the phase of planning high voltage lines, the magnetic and
electric field quantities have to be examined in order to avoid
EMC problems with the surroundings of the power line. This
request even gets more important with the trend towards higher
transmission line voltages. . In this paper we will discuss and
review six methods of determining of potential distribution. Each
method has its own accuracy and precision along with the degree
of error in the final answer.
I. INTRODUCTION
Electrical field analysis plays an important role in many
fields, including high voltage equipment installation design
and discharge phenomena research. Remarkable progress has
been made in recent years in digital electric field analysis.
High-voltage lines generate electric and magnetic fields
in their neighborhood. The source of the magnetic fields are
the currents in the phase conductors. The electric field is
caused by the high potential of the conductors. Due to the
geometry of electrical energy transmission lines a wide
expansion of the field is obvious.
The computation of equipment durability and efficiency
is much easily determined by the computation methods that
have evolved over time. From real time simulation to virtual
processing the computational methods are helpful to
determine various specifications of certain instruments and
phenomenon. In order to facilitate certain operations it
became appropriate to develop some software packages,
specialized for the study of some particular or more complex
aspects of these structures. In this context some programs for
the electromagnetic modeling of the equipment have been
developed, and for the simulation of the electrical and
electronic circuits or of the electrical networks, and so on,
programs that can operate independently or even correlated
each other (the so-called ‘coupled problems’).
II. METHODS
Numerical Method
Mathematical equations, including integrals and derivatives,
cannot be implemented on computers without
approximation. In some situations, integral equations can be
converted to differential equations and vice versa. There are
numerical methods for solving them both. Mathematical
techniques to calculate the electromagnetic field quantities
necessarily require a model of the technical device to reflect
the physical behaviour of the high-voltage transmission line.
The problem specifies a small diameter conducting
conductors above a large flat conducting ground plane. The
phase conductors are at a time depending specified electrical
potential and are carrying a time depending current as well.
Due to the slack of the phase conductors the field problem
turn out to be three dimensional. Over the time for the
electromagnetic field modeling several numerical
techniques for solving the problems were developed, which,
considering the approach, can be divided into:
● domain methods, that analyze the field in the entire
computational domain (which is discretized into cells or
finite elements) based on the imposed boundary conditions
and source terms
● boundary methods, that discretise completely the
boundary of the domain, using approximation functions
that satisfy the problem equations inside the domain.
The first category includes many wellknown methods
such as finite difference method (FDM), finite element
method (FEM), finite volume method (FVM), etc.
In the second category the boundary element method
(BEM) is included. To note that each of these methods
meets a series of versions to make them to be applied more
easily in specific problems. Also they might be coupled in
so-called hybrid methods
Electrolytic Tank Method
Therefore, in the electrolytic tank an electrical current
intensity, proportional to the inclination of the lifting surface
to the free stream, is applied to represent tangential flow
over the wing. Each area was a small conducting electrode
isolated on all sides by insulating bands. As a result a
stepwise variation of potential could be imposed on the wing
surface.
The sides of an electrolytic tank should be smooth,
watertight and good insulators. Wood is often used but must
be varnished or otherwise treated to prevent swelling. Slate
was chosen, therefore, on account of its insulation properties,
impermeability and machine ability. The tank when
constructed was eighty inches long, forty inches wide and
thirty-two inches deep. The sides of the tank were made up
of single slabs of slate one and a half inches thick. Grooves
were machined at the end of the slabs so that the sides could
be slotted and bolted together. All joints were sealed with a
bituminous plastic material. Finally the tank was carefully
sited on a leveled six inch bed of concrete on top of which
was laid a sheet of Perspex a quarter of an inch thick.
Charge Simulation Method
Charges are simulated on both sides of the dielectric
interfaces, in contrast to the simulation of charges inside the
electrodes. During computation within a specific dielectric
region, charges simulated inside that region are however
omitted.
Thus singularity situation is avoided in the region where
computation is done. Despite omission of charges inside the
region requiring computation, charges at the other side of
the interfaces will take care of the boundary conditions of
these interfaces.
CSM in general employs three different types of discrete
charges, namely, point charges, straight-line charges and
ring charges. A combination of different types of charges is
adopted, to reduce the matrix size as well as errors.
The calculation of electric fields requires the solution of
Laplace’s and Poissons’s equations with the boundary
conditions satisfied. This can be done by either analytical
or numerical methods. In many circumstances, the
situation is so complex that analytical solutions are
difficult or impossible, and hence numerical methods are
commonly used for engineering applications. The charge
simulation method is one of them. This method is simple
and accurate.
Φi is potential at contour i. Pij are the potential
coefficients. When boundary condition is applied, a similar
condition can be applied to contours on the surface of
electrode number 2. In these conditions i and j show the
contour number and charge number respectively.
When the boundary condition is applied for the junction of
two insulation: En1 and En2 are normal components of the
electric field to the insulation surface.
Equations are solved to determine unknown charges.
Surface Charge Simulation Method
An advanced time-harmonic quasistatic surface charge
simulation method for computation of scalar electric
potential and electric field intensity distribution uses sub-
parametric spatial 2D finite elements with an arbitrary
number of nodes for description of surface charge density
distribution.
The problem of singularity that occurs in the double 2D
integration over these elements can be solved using an
originally developed advanced numerical integration based
on 2D Gaussian quadrature.
Finite Difference Method
Finite-difference approximation is an approximate solution
of the differential problem, suitable for use on computers.
The finite difference techniques are base d upon
approximations which perm it replacing differential
equations by finite difference equations. These finite
difference approximations are algebraic in form; they relate
the value of the dependent variable region to the values at
some neighboring points. Thus a finite difference solution
basically involves three steps:
 Dividing the solution region into a grid of nodes.
 Approximating the given differential equation by
finite difference equivalent that relates the
dependent variable at a point in the solution region
to its values at the neighbouring points.
 Solving the difference equations subject to the
prescribed boundary conditions and/or initial
conditions.
Equation determines the potential in node in finite
difference form for homogeneous medium and obtained as
follows
φ
where, ij - the potential value at the node with coordinates
(i, j), α - ratio of the mesh xy. It is necessary to consider
several layers with different dielectric permittivity for the
micro strip transmission line simulation. Each layer
separately is a homogeneous region, therefore to solve the
problem in a uniform electrostatic field equation is used.
However, jump of permittivity of material at the boundaries
between two regions should be considered, so the equation
for determining the potential in node will be as follows
where ε12 arithmetic average of the dielectric
constants of two media.
Finite Element Method(FEM)
Because maximum values for the field quantities are
supplied, a cross-section of the transmission line is made at
the place where the wires are closest to the ground level. A
two dimensional finite element model lateral to the line at
this place is build. The region of the cross-section is
subdivided in triangular finite elements. The potential
distribution over each element is approximated by a
polynomial. Instead of solving the field equations directly,
the principle of minimum potential energy is used to obtain
the potential distribution over the whole model. The
calculation time of one transmission line on a PC-486
platform is about 30 minutes.
An easy way to evaluate the electric field distribution is to
calculate electric potential distribution initially and then
calculate field distribution by subtracting gradient of electric
potential distribution from it. This can be written as follows,
Units
From Maxwell’s equation,
where ρ is volume charge density, ε is permittivity of
dielectric material (ε = ε0εr), ε0 is air or space permittivity
(8.854×10^−12) and εr is relative permittivity of dielectric
material The Poisson’s equation can be obtained by
substituting
The Laplace’s equation can be obtained by making space
charge ρ = 0,
The two dimensional function F(v) in the Cartesian system
of coordinates can be written as follows,
 III. FIGURES AND TABLE
a) : Electrolytic Tank Method

Fig. 4. Charge Simulation Method experimental setup

Fig. 1. Experimental setup

b)Surface Charge Simulation Method e)Finite Element Method

Fig. 2. Surface Charge Simulation Method

Fig. 5. Finite element Method experimental results graph
c)Finite Difference Method

Fig. 3. Finite Difference Method experimental results graph

d)Charge Simulation Method

 IV. CONCLUSION
Efficient methods to compute the electric and magnetic field
below high-voltage lines have been demonstrated. In the
semi numerical model the slack of the transmission line is
approximated by infinitesimally-thin segmented filaments of
constant charge or current to solve the electrostatic and
magnetic fields, respectively. With reasonable accuracy a
three dimensional field distribution can be computed.

REFERENCES
[1] Koichi Tsukuta, “Calculation of Potential Distribution and
Capacitance of Coaxial System”
[2] Rauno Gordon, Tuukka Arola, Katrina Wendel, Outi Ryynanen and
Jari Hyttinen, “Accuracy of numerical methods by calculating static
and quasistatic electric fields” . Proc. Estonian Acad. Sci. Eng., 2006,
12, 3-2, 262–283
[3] Kay Hameyer, Ronny Mertens and Ronnie Belmans,” NUMERICAL
METHODS TO EVALUATE THE ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS
BELOW OVERHEAD TRANSMISSION LINES AND THEIR
MEASUREMENT”.
[4] H. S. WARD, B.Sc., “The Use of a Deep Electrolytic Tank as a
Lifting-Surface Calculator”. R. & M. No. 330I
[5] Slavko Vujevic, “Computation of the electric field in the vicinity of
overhead power line towers”. Article Mar 2016
Fig. 6. Finite element Method experimental results graph with changing the angle