Soil Dryout in the Vicinity of Cables With Cyclic Load Installed in a Backfill

The IEC Standard 60287-1-1 provides the procedure for modelling of soil dryout in the vicinity of current currying power cables. Two important assumptions limit the application of the formula to the cases with uniform burial conditions and a uniform current with 100% load factor. Another standard in this series, 60287-2-1, contains the formula for the calculations of the external thermal resistance of cables laid in thermal backfills. It is based on the pioneering work of Neher and McGrath published in 1957. The Neher/McGrath paper provides also a modification of the external thermal resistance of buried power cables with a non-unity load factor with an assumption of the uniform burial conditions. This paper develops new formulae for the calculation of cable current ratings taking into account all three factors; that is, consideration of the soil dryout for cables laid in a thermal backfill and loaded with a variable current with known load factor. The results obtained with the proposed approach are compared with detailed finite element studies.