Author(s)

Bin Sun, Elham Makram

Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Clemson University, Clemson, USA.

Electrical power companies are using more underground cables rather than overhead lines to distribute power to their customers. In practice, cables are generally installed in some compact ductbanks. Since the cost of underground cables is very expensive, using the entire space of a ductbank is extremely important. But such usage is limited due to the overheating of cables. Overheating is generally caused by overload, which means the carrying current exceeds the ampacity of a cable. The ampacity of a cable depends on not only the material and design of a cable but also the distance between different cables. Thus the configuration of cables determines the total ampacity value and the potential use of a ductbank. In this paper, the best configuration based on ampacity is achieved for a three-row, five-column ductbank that is buried at a depth of one meter below the earth’s surface. Both balanced and unbalanced scenarios are considered, and all cables have two available types to be selected.

Configuration Optimization, Underground Cables, Ampacity, Balanced, Unbalanced

Sun, B. and Makram, E. (2018) Configuration Optimization of Cables in Ductbank Based on Their Ampacity. Journal of Power and Energy Engineering, 6, 1-15. doi: 10.4236/jpee.2018.64001.