Electromagnetic dispersion modeling and analysis for HVDC power cables

Derivation of an electromagnetic model, regarding the wave propagation in a very long (10 km or more) High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) power cable, is the central part of this thesis. With an existing “perfect” electromagnetic model there are potentially a wide range of applications.The electromagnetic model is focused on frequencies between 0 and 100 kHz since higher frequencies essentially will be attenuated. An exact dispersion relation is formulated and the propagation constant is computed numerically. The dominating mode is the first Transversal Magnetic (TM) mode of order zero, denoted TM01, which is also referred to as the quasi-TEM mode. A comparison is made with the second propagating TM mode of order zero denoted TM02. The electromagnetic model is verified against real time data from Time Domain Reflection (TDR) measurements on a HVDC power cable. A mismatch calibration procedure is performed due to matching difficulties between the TDR measurement equipment and the power cable regarding the single-mode transmission line model.An example of power cable length measurements is addressed, which reveals that with a “perfect” model the length of an 80 km long power cable could be estimated to an accuracy of a few centimeters. With the present model the accuracy can be estimated to approximately 100 m.In order to understand the low-frequency wave propagation characteristics, an exact asymptotic analysis is performed. It is shown that the behavior of the propagation constant is governed by a square root of the complex frequency in the lowfrequency domain. This thesis also focuses on an analysis regarding the sensitivity of the propagation constant with respect to some of the electric parameters in the model. Variables of interest when performing the parameter sensitivity study are the real relative permittivityand the conductivity