3-D Finite-Element Analysis of Conductive Coupling Problems in Transmission Line Rights of Way

The 3-D finite-element method is applied to compute conductive couplings in a transmission line right of way. The domain under analysis is composed of several underground structures, such as ground wires of high-voltage towers, a coated pipeline section, and a steel-reinforced masonry enclosure. A nonhomogeneous Dirichlet boundary condition procedure is employed to overcome the modeling difficulties of this particular problem. A preliminary test problem to validate this procedure is also discussed.