Power quality impact on thermal behaviour and life expectancy of insulated cables

This paper deals with the thermal behaviour and life expectancy analysis of power insulated cables under nonideal supply conditions. The proposed methodology utilises classical IEC-287 electrical and thermal models and extends the approach to cope with mutual thermal interaction between phases as well as power quality degradation. This allows for independent three-phase representation and both thermal and electric equations are solved in a simultaneous way. This comprehensive manner of representing the phenomenon is then implemented into a time domain computer program. Computational studies are then performed to evaluate the cable temperature rise as well as the effect upon life reduction under nonideal supply conditions.