Hybrid 2D/3D fully coupled electrothermal model for three-core submarine armored cables

Abstract

The computation of the power losses in submarine three-core lead sheathed armored cables is overestimated by the IEC 60287 standard, and hence its size and cost. 3D finite element simulations in COMSOL Multiphysics have proved to provide accurate results in losses computation thanks to recent advances that help in reducing the model length by applying rotated periodicity boundary conditions [1,2]. However, for obtaining the ampacity of a particular cable a fully coupled 3D electrothermal model would require a highly detailed 3D geometry, something that can be difficult due to the special operations required to create and mesh the geometry for applying such boundary conditions [3].