Kinematics of cable creepage

Power cables laid in underground ducts may experience movement in the direction of dominant traffic flow. This phenomenon, so-called cable creepage, has been known for a long time but its mechanism has not been clearly understood yet. In this paper, an exact mechanism of creepage phenomenon is proposed in which cable creepage is interpreted as an accumulation of relative frictional slip developed in the process of kinematic interaction between the flexible cable and the duct which experiences deformation propagating into the vehicle traffic direction. This kinematic interaction is formulated as frictional contact problem and an appropriate analysis method is developed. It is confirmed from the calculated results that creepage can occur according to the proposed mechanism.