560
2, APRIL 2005
Ampacity Derating Factors for Cables
Buried in Short Segments of Conduit
Pascal Vaucheret, R. A. Hartlein, Senior Member, IEEE, and W. Z. Black, Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—Buried cables are often routed through short seg-
ments of conduit, and when this situation occurs, the ampacity
must be reduced or the cable will overheat as a result of the
high thermal resistance created at the location of the conduit.
This problem is examined for extruded cables by using a finite
element heat transfer software program to determine the derating
in ampacity that cables in conduits must experience in order to
remain below a maximum conductor temperature. The derating
factors are provided as a function of conduit length, soil resistivity,
burial depth and number of cables in the conduit. The results
show that once the length of conduit exceeds about 20 times its
outer diameter, then the ampacity of the circuit must be reduced
to the value that it would have if the entire length were buried in
the conduit. Factors that result in lower cable ampacities, such
as high soil thermal resistivity and deeper burial depths lead to
larger derating factors.
Index Terms—Ampacity, cable in conduit, thermal ratings,
underground cables.
NOMENCLATURE
outer diameter of cable [m]
nominal diameter of conduit [m]
DF ampacity derating factor
burial depth below the surface [m]
current [A]
length of conduit [m]
heat generation per unit length of circuit [W/m]
radial distance from center of cable [m]
conduction shape factor
temperature [ C]
Greek Symbols
thermal resistivity [cm C/W]
Subscripts
ambient
air value that exists in the air layer inside the conduit
conductor
cond value that exists when a conduit is present
db value that exists when the cable is direct buried
equiv value for single cable that is thermally equivalent
to a triplexed cable
Manuscript received December 12, 2003; revised April 25, 2004. Paper no.
TPWRD-00629-2003.
P. Vaucheret is with ECL-Pechiney-Alcan, Ronchin, France.
R. A. Hartlein is with NEETRAC in the School of Electrical and Computer
Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332 USA.
W. Z. Black is with the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engi-
neering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332 USA (e-mail:
william.black@me.gatech.edu).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2005.844358
0885-8977/$20.00 © 2005 IEEE
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 20, NO.
equiv- conductor property of a single cable that is ther-
mally equivalent to the conductor property of a
triplexed cable
equiv-insul insulation property of a single cable that is ther-
mally equivalent to the insulation property of a
triplexed cable
insul value for cable insulation material
soil value for surrounding soil.
I. INTRODUCTION
S INCE the mid 1900’s the accepted calculation of under-
ground cable ampacities has been based on the model pro-
posed by Neher and McGrath [1]. Their thermal model is based
on a number of assumptions that greatly simplify the mathe-
matical formulation. Perhaps the most significant assumption
which simplifies the approach is one which considers no vari-
ation in any geometrical or thermal parameter along the length
of the entire cable route. This assumption reduces the formu-
lation from a three-dimensional analysis to one of two-dimen-
sions. The two-dimensional formulation is then further reduced
to a one-dimensional heat transfer problem by using the prin-
ciple of superposition, which utilizes a fictitious heat sink of
equal strength above the cable at a distance above the earth sur-
face equal to the burial depth. With the resulting one-dimen-
sional model, solving for the ampacity of the cable is reduced to
a straightforward solution of an algebraic equation. This math-
ematical approach is the one used to provide values in the am-
pacity tables [2] and those values are accepted as the standard
thermal ratings of most underground cable systems.
If any changes in the thermal environment exist along the
length of a cable installation, the ampacity tables are unable
to provide guidance for determining the ampacity of this more
complex situation. If the thermal conditions exist for a rela-
tively long segment of the route, it would be prudent, however,
to rate the entire circuit on the basis of the worst combination of
thermal environment. When the poor thermal conditions exist
for only a short length of the route, guidance as to the derating
the cable must endure is less clear. Unfortunately this situation
is often the case in the field where the cable will frequently be
required to share its underground space with other utilities or
the cable must be routed through a relatively short segment of
conduit or pipe. Any variation along the cable route that restricts
heat transfer to the earth will require a deviation from the am-
pacity values provided by the ampacity tables [2].
One way to determine the ampacity of a cable route that
passes through a region of high thermal resistance would be to
rate the circuit on the basis that the entire route is surrounded
by the increased thermal resistance. This procedure is obviously
VAUCHERET et al.: AMPACITY DERATING FACTORS FOR CABLES BURIED IN SHORT SEGMENTS OF CONDUIT
overly conservative and it will result in a severe penalty of re-
duced ampacity. Another approach would be to ignore the re-
gion of poor heat transfer and assume that the region of in-
creased thermal resistance has a negligible effect on the cable
temperature. This method is a dangerous one, because even a
short length of poor soil or a short length of conduit can lead to
a hot section of cable and the cable could ultimately fail from
unexpectedly high temperatures. Obviously there is some room
for compromise between these two extreme approaches when
the impediment to heat transfer occurs for only a short distance
along the cable route.
When the cable passes through a short segment of poorly con-
ducting material, the calculation of the new, reduced ampacity
is not a simple matter and the thermal model must account for
the fact that the heat transfer into the surrounding soil is com-
plex and occurs in three dimensions. Therefore the analysis must
account for the increased complexity and the ampacity can no
longer be calculated from a simple algebraic expression that is
outlined in the Neher-McGrath model. The new approach now
requires the solution of a complex set of differential equations,
and in these cases it is prudent to use commercially available
thermal software to solve the complex three-dimensional heat
transfer problem.
One of the most common situations that involve a change in the
thermal environment along the cable route involves a cable that is
installed in a short segment of conduit. This situation frequently
occurs when a cable route passes under a road crossing or passes
close to other pipelines or cables. If the conduit is only a short por-
tion of the circuit length, the reduction in ampacity will be only
a fraction of that experienced when the conduit is long. The pur-
pose of this paper is to provide guidance on the amount of reduc-
tion in current that underground extruded cables must experience
when routed through a short segment of conduit. The results will
also quantify how the derating of the cable is influenced by sev-
eral variables that are known to affect the cable ampacity, such as
the length of conduit , the value for the soil resistivity and
the cable burial depth as shown in Fig. 1.
The determination of cable derating factors that result when
the cable route traverses a relative short section of unfavor-
able thermal resistance has been addressed previously in [3],
although the results reported here are more extensive than those
appearing in [3]. In this previous paper the influence of a varying
ambient soil temperature and presence of high resistivity block
of soil under a roadway are considered. The problem is ap-
proached by using a thermal network and it considers heat flow
in two dimensions. A network of thermal resistances is produced
by discretizing the domain in both the radial and longitudinal di-
rections and by replacing the continuous thermal regime with a
finite number of discrete thermal resistors. An ampacity derating
factor is defined which is identical to the one used here. The
derating factor is calculated for the situation where the length
of high resistance soil layer is varied and the temperature and
thermal resistivity of the soil layer is increased above the values
for the ambient soil layer. Derating factors as restrictive as about
50 percent are suggested when the slice of soil is not conducive
to the transfer of heat from the cable and the region of high re-
sistance extends more than about 4 m along the length of the
cable [3].
561
Fig. 1. Geometry of cable domain.
The approach to the calculation of derating factors in this
paper differs in a number of respects from the one used in [3].
The analysis presented here considers a single soil resistivity
and a single ambient soil temperature that exists far from the
cable. The factor that changes along the length of cable is the
presence of a short length of conduit that creates a region of ele-
vated cable temperature. The penalty to be paid for the presence
of a short span of conduit is less severe than a change in the soil
resistivity, because the presence of the conduit creates less of a
thermal burden than a change in thermal resistivity of the soil
next to the cable.
II. MATHEMATICAL MODEL
The calculation of the ampacity of a cable routed through
a short section of conduit is very complex. The presence of
the conduit compounds the mathematical analysis and creates
a three-dimensional heat transfer problem for which the tem-
perature distribution around the cable is a function of the axial
location, distance from the cable and depth below the surface of
the earth.
A. Assumptions
To transform the physical problem into one that is simple
enough to model mathematically, a number of simplifying as-
sumptions were employed. They include:
— Steady state conditions exist.
— Cable, soil and conduit properties are independent of tem-
perature and constant.
— The cable shield is open-circuited.
— All nonmetallic layers in the cable construction are
lumped into a single, thermally equivalent layer.
— The conduit is thin and its thermal resistance is close to
that of the soil, so its thermal resistance is added to the
resistance of the adjacent soil layer.
— The thermal resistance of the air layer in the conduit is a
function of temperature and is calculated from (41) in [1].
The thermal resistance of the air layer is the only quantity
that varies with the temperature.
— The single, constant thermal resistance of the air layer is
evaluated at highest cable temperature that exists in the
center of the conduit length. This approximation is used
because (41) in [1] was developed for the two dimensional
case where the temperatures are constant along the cable
axis.
562
— The thermal resistivity of the soil is 90 cm C/W and the
ambient soil temperature is 25 C.
— The vertical plane through the cable centerline and the
vertical plane perpendicular to the cable axis at the center
of the conduct are adiabatic planes.
— Regions of the soil that are far from the cable are main-
tained at the ambient soil temperature.
— The cable is located concentrically within the conduit.
This assumption is consistent with the assumption used
to develop (41) in [1].
— The cable installation geometry is identical both inside
and outside the conduit. This assumption precludes con-
sideration of parallel-spaced cable geometry outside the
conduit with a triplexed geometry inside the conduit.
B. Finite Element Model
The finite element software package ANSYS [4] was used
to determine the derating factors. The fact that this program
has three-dimensional capabilities is important, because the
derating factors must include the heat that is conducted along
the axial direction of the cable. The axial conduction promotes
cooling of the cable segments inside the conduit and, if this
heat removal is ignored, the derating factors will be overly con-
servative. Therefore when simplified two-dimensional models
are used to calculate the derating factors, they would suggest
that the cable ampacity should be unnecessarily reduced.
Finite element software packages with thermal capabilities
are able to solve heat transfer problems that typically consist of
calculating the temperature field for given heat input rates. To
determine the ampacity of a cable system, the inverse problem
must be solved: that is, the heat input rate (ampacity) must be
determined for an assumed admissible temperature of the con-
ductor. Therefore, the temperature distribution in entire domain
must be iteratively computed for a range of electrical currents
until the maximum cable temperature reaches the assumed ad-
missible value. Between iterations, the temperature sensitive el-
ements, such as the thermal resistance of the air layer within the
conduit, must be continually corrected for the newly calculated
air temperature.
In order to model multiple cables in a conduit with the finite
element program, the triplexed geometry had to be replaced by
a single equivalent cable that has the same thermal resistance as
the three cables. In order for the single cable to have an equiva-
lent conductor cross-sectional area as the three triplexed cables,
the conductor must have a radius that is 1.732 times the radius of
the conductor of a single cable. The diameter of a circle which
circumscribes the three cables was used as the outside insula-
tion diameter of the equivalent single cable in the finite element
program [1]. Therefore the outer radius of the insulation layer
on the equivalent single cable is 2.16 times the outer radius of
one of the actual triplexed cables.
From [5] the thermal resistivity of the equivalent single insu-
lation layer is established as a function of the thermal resistivity
of the cable insulation. Two factors are involved. The first ac-
counts for the fact that a cable in a triplexed configuration cannot
dissipate heat around its entire circumference. The second is a
result of considering the heat transfer from the three cables to be
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 20, NO. 2, APRIL 2005
through an equivalent parallel thermal circuit. These two factors
provide an equivalent single layer of insulation that has 0.390
times the resistivity of a single triplexed cable. When this result
is combined with the expression for the thermal resistance of a
hollow layer of insulation, the result is
(1)
This equation along with the dimensions of the insulation layer
of a single equivalent cable in terms of the dimensions of the
triplexed cables permits calculation of the equivalent thermal
resistivity of the insulation layer in terms of the dimensions and
resistivity of a single cable. The equivalent thermal resistivity is
then used in the finite element program to simulate the heat that
is transferred through triplexed cable geometry.
III. MODEL VERIFICATION
The validity of the finite element program was verified by
comparing program results with simple cable installations that
have known heat transfer solutions. The first comparison in-
volved a single, infinitely long cylindrical heat source directly
buried at a constant depth below the isothermal surface of the
earth. For this situation, the relationship between the heat dis-
sipation per unit length and the temperature rise of the cable
surface above the ambient temperature is given by
(2)
where the conduction shape factor [6] is
(3)
For this example case, the finite element model assumed a di-
rect buried conductor without any insulation layers. The finite
element program was used to calculate the temperature rise for
several heat generation rates per unit length, soil resistivities and
ratios of burial depths to cable diameters. The calculated values
were identical to those given by (2) and (3).
The second check of the validity of the finite element formu-
lation involved comparing the program results with the software
program CYMCAP [7]. The ampacity values were calculated
for a 35 kV, 750 kcmil (380 mm ) aluminum conductor cable,
soil resistivity of 90 cm C/W, a burial depth of 0.917 m and
a conduit diameter of 152 mm. Several different installations
were used including a single, direct-buried cable and three, di-
rect-buried cables. The ampacities were also calculated for the
same cable geometries when they were routed through a long
conduit. The finite element values for the 90 C cable ampaci-
ties are compared with the CYMCAP values in Table I.
The values in Table I show the differences that can be ex-
pected to exist when comparing two programs, even though the
geometries are extremely complex and there are numerous input
variables that cannot be exactly duplicated in both programs.
Nevertheless, the two programs agree within 1.7 percent for the
ampacity values and within 4.1 percent for the heat generation
rates.
VAUCHERET et al.: AMPACITY DERATING FACTORS FOR CABLES BURIED IN SHORT SEGMENTS OF CONDUIT
TABLE I
COMPARISON OF FINITE ELEMENT AMPACITY CALCULATION
WITH THE CYMCAP SOFTWARE PACKAGE
IV. RESULTS
The best way to display the ampacity results of the program is
in the form of dimensionless groups. In this way the ampacity of
the cables in the conduit can easily be calculated in terms of the
ampacity of the same cable and same geometry except directly
buried in the earth. The dimensionless ampacity value will be re-
ferred to as a derating factor defined as the ratio of the ampacity
of a cable routed through the short segment of conduit divided
by the ampacity of the same cable with an identical installation
geometry, but direct buried in the soil. The cable derating factor
is then
(4)
This definition preserves the ampacity value that has been tra-
ditionally provided in tables or calculated by accepted software
packages. Defined in this way, the derating factor can be inter-
preted as a reduction in the cable ampacity due to the presence of
the conduit. Since the medium in a conduit is usually air with an
extremely high thermal resistivity ( – cm C/W),
the ampacity of the conduit segment of the circuit will be lower
than the ampacity value for the direct-buried portion of the cir-
cuit. In this situation the derating factor will always be less than
one. However, if the conduit is filled with a fluidized grout or
slurry that completely fills the conduit, remains in place and has
a thermal resistivity less than that of the ambient soil, the pres-
ence of the conduit will result in a region of relatively good heat
transfer. In this case the fluid-filled conduit could result in a der-
ating factor which exceeds one, and the presence of the conduit
does not represent a thermal bottleneck in the circuit. In this spe-
cialized case, the terminology of a derating factor is perhaps in-
appropriate and it would be more logical to refer to an ampacity
enhancement factor applied to the location of the conduit.
A. Effect of Conduit Length
An important application of the finite element software is the
determination of the effect of conduit length on the derating of
the buried cable. Fig. 2 shows the trend in the cable derating fac-
tors for a single cable and a triplexed cable geometry buried in a
563
Fig. 2. Cable derating factor as a function of dimensionless conduit length,
L/D, for single and triplexed cables.
conduit with a variable length. The derating factor is plotted as
a function of the dimensionless ratio of conduit length to mean
conduit diameter. The specific values shown are for a 35 kV
cable with a 750 kcmil (380 mm ) aluminum conductor buried
at a depth of 0.914 m in a soil with a thermal resistivity of
90 cm C/W and an ambient temperature of 25 C. The der-
ating factors in Fig. 2 show the steep decline in acceptable am-
pacity as the length of the conduit is increased. However once
the length of the conduit increases beyond about 20 times its
diameter, the cable no longer needs to be further derated. This
result shows that once the conduit is longer than about 20 times
its diameter, the cable is fully derated and its ampacity should
be calculated on the basis of the entire cable route being inside
a conduit.
B. Effect of Soil Resistivity
For buried cables the soil resistivity is the single most influen-
tial factor that affects the cable ampacity, because the resistance
of the soil is the largest resistance in the thermal circuit. When a
cable is buried in a soil or thermal backfill that encourages heat
transfer (that is, a low thermal resistivity material), the penalty
that is suffered when it is routed through a short segment of con-
duit is more severe than when it is placed in a high resistivity
soil. In this situation the conduit replaces the good soil with a
layer of high thermal resistance air, which hinders the transfer
of heat to the surrounding soil. On the other hand, if the cable is
routed through a thermally poor high resistivity soil, the reduc-
tion in ampacity resulting from the presence of the conduit is
less. This trend occurs because the presence of the conduit and
air layer replaces a layer of soil that is already poorly conducting
and causes a diminishing rating penalty. This expected trend in
the derating factor is illustrated in Fig. 3. In this figure the de-
rating factor is plotted as a function of conduit length and soil
resistivity, and all quantities are nondimensionalized. The con-
duit length has been divided by the mean conduit diameter and
the dimensionless soil resistivity is determined by dividing the
soil resistivity by the equivalent thermal resistivity of the cable
insulation layers.
The curves in Fig. 3 assume a single 35 kV, 750 kcmil
(380 mm ) aluminum conductor cable buried in 25 C soil to a
depth of 0.914 m. The conduit is 152 mm in diameter and the
equivalent thermal resistivity of the cable insulation layers is
350 cm C/W. The trend in the derating factor is similar to the
564
Fig. 3. Cable derating factor as a function of dimensionless conduit length,
L/D, for several soil resistivities.
one shown in Fig. 2. The decrease in cable ampacity disappears
when the ratio of conduit length to mean diameter exceeds
about 20 and the derating value asymptotically approaches the
rating for a cable in an infinitely long section of conduit. The
ratings penalty paid by the cables in the lower resistivity soil
is more significant than the reduction required when the soil
resistivity is high. For example, the ampacity for a long length
of conduit is only about 95 percent of its direct-buried value
when the soil resistivity is 160 cm C/W and it is about 87 and
79 percent when the soil resistivity decreases to about 90 and
50 cm C/W, respectively.
C. Effect of Cable Depth
As the burial depth increases, the effective thermal resistance
of the soil layer surrounding the cable also increases. Therefore
the ampacity of a cable decreases as the cable is buried more
deeply in the soil. If the presence of a short length of conduit
is added to the thermal circuit, the ampacity of the cable must
be further derated to account for the region of added thermal
resistance that accompanies the presence of the air layer inside
the conduit. Cables that are buried at greater depths will be sub-
jected to larger derating factors (smaller ampacity penalty) than
ones buried at shallow depths. This trend in ampacity penalty is
due to the fact that any factor that reduces the thermal resistance
of the circuit (cables buried at shallow depths and cables buried
in low resistivity soil) will produce lower derating factors.
For reasonable cable depths, the computer results have shown
that the influence of the burial depth on the derating factor is
not significant. For example, decreasing the cable depth from
to 1.22 to 0.61 m creates a percentage decrease in the derating
factor of less than 1.5 percent for the example case considered in
the previous section. Therefore the ampacity penalty that must
be paid as the cable is buried shallower in the soil is relatively
small and it is not greatly influenced by moderate changes in the
burial depth of the cable.
D. Fluid-Filled Conduits
In practical installations buried conduits are often full of
water. The finite element program was used to determine
how the presence of water might affect the cable ampacity
derating factor for both a single and three cable fluid-filled
conduit. The thermal resistance of the air layer was replaced
with a liquid layer by changing the empirical constants used
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 20, NO. 2, APRIL 2005
in (41) of [1]. The empirical constants for air were replaced
by those for oil since no values were provided for water. Even
though the thermal properties for water and oil are different,
the computer results for the derating factor will give the correct
trend when water completely fills the void areas in the con-
duit. It should be noted, however, that the thermal resistivity
of oil ( – cm C/W) is higher than that of water
( – cm C/W) so that conduction of heat through
an oil layer in a conduit is less than conduction of heat through
an identical water-filled conduit. In addition, the convection of
heat through a water layer is greater than through an equivalent
oil layer, because the viscosity of water is less than that of oil.
Therefore if a conduit can be filled with a fluid, water would
be a likely choice, because it would require a smaller derating
than an oil-filled conduit. Since water is superior to oil as a
heat transfer fluid, the computer results for oil will provide
derating factors that are larger than exist when the conduit if
filled with water. One caution should be noted if the derating
factors for fluid-filled conduits are to be applied. The entire
void space in the conduit must be filled with the fluid. If the
fluid drains or seeps from the conduit, the derating of the circuit
in the conduit must be increased to reflect the increase in local
thermal resistance.
For fluid-filled conduits the derating factor approached an
asymptotic value when the ratio of conduit length to mean con-
duit diameter exceeded about 20. The derating factor is approx-
imately one when a single cable was routed through an oil-filled
conduit, because the thermal resistivity of the oil approaches the
resistivity of the native soil that the conduit displaces. When the
conduit is filled with water, the derating factor slightly exceeds
one due to the superior heat transfer capabilities of water. These
results imply that the presence of the fluid-filled conduit does
not require lowering the ampacity of the cable and the ampacity
of the circuit is the same as the ampacity of a direct-buried cable,
regardless of conduit length. However, for the case of a triplexed
cable in a fluid-filled conduit, the ampacity should be reduced
by up to about 3 percent when the conduit length
ratio exceeds 20. These results clearly indicate that the factor
that accounts for the derating of cables in conduit is the trapped
air layer inside the conduit. Once the air layer is replaced by
a better conducting medium, such as water, the reason for der-
ating the cable is removed.
Even though the results presented here were calculated on
the basis of a single cable design buried in a soil with a single
value of thermal resistivity and ambient temperature, the use
of dimensionless quantities would suggest that the magnitude
and trend of the derating factors would apply to other cable de-
signs and other installations as well. In other words, the der-
ating factors presented here can be used for a broad range of
cable designs and a wide variety of cable installations. Further-
more, even though the analysis assumes the poor thermal envi-
ronment is caused by a short segment of conduit, the trends in
the derating factors should apply to installations for which the
thermal bottleneck is a result of a high resistivity slice of soil.
This observation is supported by a comparison of the trend in
derating factors presented here and the derating factors given in
[3]. Both studies suggest that when a cable route passes through
a segment of poor thermal conditions, the ampacity derating
VAUCHERET et al.: AMPACITY DERATING FACTORS FOR CABLES BURIED IN SHORT SEGMENTS OF CONDUIT
should be increased as the length of the thermal bottleneck is
increased. If the axial length of the poor region is more than
about 20 times the diameter of the conduit (or diameter of the
pipe in pipe-type installations), then the ampacity should be cal-
culated on the basis of the entire cable route being buried in the
poor environment. This conclusion is the same regardless if the
cable is in a short segment of conduit and the soil resistivity is
unchanged or if the cable is routed through a dry section of soil
that exists under a roadway. When the poor thermal conditions
are limited to a shorter section of the cable route, the reduction
in ampacity is less severe and it is a function of the axial length
of the high resistance region.
The derating factors presented here also corroborate the mag-
nitude of values presented in [3]. Since a change in soil resis-
tivity or ambient temperature is a much more severe thermal
bottleneck than experienced by a short span of conduit, their de-
rating factors are more severe than the ones indicated in Figs. 2
and 3. Their results indicate that a cable ampacity should be re-
duced by as much as 50 percent when it is routed through a re-
gion of higher resistivity soil with increased temperature. When
the installation includes a short segment of conduit, our results
would require a reduction of less than 20 percent
when the soil resistivity is low and the ambient temperature re-
mains unchanged.
V. CONCLUSION
The ampacity of direct-buried cables must be reduced when
they enter a segment of conduit, and the amount of derating de-
pends on the cable geometry, cable construction, burial depth
and thermal conditions of the soil. A derating factor is defined on
the basis of the rated ampacity of a direct-buried cable and this
factor can be used to determine the reduction in ampacity that
must be applied if the cable is to remain below acceptable tem-
peratures inside the conduit. A finite element package is used to
determine derating factors for typical cable constructions and
common installations. The results provided by the computer
model clarify the issue of how the length of conduit will in-
fluence the ampacity of a buried cable system. The conduit is
considered “short” if its length is less than 20 times its diam-
eter. In this case the derating that must be applied to a cable
ampacity ranges between about 0.80 and 0.95 depending on the
specific installation. A length of conduit is said to be “long”
from a thermal standpoint if its length is over 20 times its diam-
eter. In this case the ampacity of the cable must be determined
on the basis of an infinitely long length of conduit. Conditions
which result in lower ampacity (greater burial depths, higher soil
resistivity) result in less derating of the ampacity or higher der-
ating factors. Conduits filled with either water, oil or a material
that has a resistivity similar to that of the ambient soil create a
condition for which the derating factor approaches one.
565
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work originated as Georgia Tech NEETRAC Baseline
Project 02-202. This support is gratefully acknowledged. The
authors would also like to thank Dr. Ronald G. Harley of
Georgia Institute of Technology School of Electrical and Com-
puter Engineering and Mr. Thomas C. Champion of NEETRAC
for their support of this work.
REFERENCES
[1] J. H. Neher and M. H. McGrath, “The calculation of the temperature rise
and load capability of cable systems,” AIEE Trans. Power App. Syst., vol.
76, pp. 752–772, Oct. 1957.
[2] IEEE Standard Power Cable Ampacity Tables, 1994. IEEE Std. 835-
1994, NY.
[3] H. Brakelmann and G. Anders, “Ampacity reduction factors for cables
crossing thermally unfavorable regions,” IEEE Trans. Power Delivery,
vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 444–448, Oct. 2001.
[4] ANSYS Finite Element Simulation Software, ANSYS Inc., Canonsburg,
PA.
[5] R. A. Hartlein, “Heat Transfer from Electric Power Cables Enclosed in
Vertical Protective Shields,” M.S. Thesis, School of Mechanical Engi-
neering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Mar. 1982.
[6] F. Kreith and W. Z. Black, “Basic Heat Transfer,” , N.Y.: Harper and
Row, Publishers, 1980, p. 91.
[7] CYMCAP Power Cable Ampacity Program, CYME International, Inc.,
St. Bruno, Quebec, Canada.
Pascal Vaucheret graduated in mechanical engineering from Ecole des Mines
de Douai, France and Lille University of Science and Technology (DEA),
France and in electrical and computer engineering from Supélec, France and
the Georgia Institute of Technology (MSECE).
His professional interests are applied R&D and project management for heavy
industry. He has worked in the energy field (EDF, NEETRAC) and for material
manufacturers (Usinor, ECL-Pechiney-Alcan) in PR China, the USA, Europe,
and Australia.
R. A. Hartlein (SM’02) is a mechanical engineering graduate of the Georgia
Institute of Technology.
He spent the first years of his career at the Georgia Power Research Center in
Atlanta, Georgia. During that time he conducted research and test programs to
evaluate the wide variety of materials used on electric utility transmission and
distribution systems. He came to Georgia Tech. in 1996 as the Underground Sys-
tems Program Manager, where he develops and manages research and testing
projects related to electric utility underground cable systems. He actively par-
ticipates in the development of industry standards and specifications for under-
ground cable systems and has served as Chair of the IEEE Insulated Conduc-
tors Committee. He has also authored a number of publications on the subject
of cable aging and operation.
W. Z. Black (M’77–S’94–F’96) received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in mechan-
ical engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL and the
Ph.D. from Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.
His research area is heat transfer from electrical systems. He is currently Re-
gents’ Professor Emeritus and he was previously a Georgia Power Distinguished
Professor of ME at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. Dr. Black
is active in IEEE ampacity committees and has published a number of IEEE
TRANSACTIONS papers in the ampacity area.