Transient nonlinear thermal stability analysis of metro cable under pulse power

The load of metro cable system varies a lot from morning rush hours to the evening closure time. With many trains hopping in the rush hours, the long term and economical short term thermal stability become a big issue as a result of the large difference between thermal time constant and the electrical time constant of cable. Based on a 10kV three-core XLPE metro power cable model, the theoretical thermal capacity was calculated according IEC standard. Then, a Finite Element Method (FEM) was employed to analyze the transient electro-thermal phenomena, taking into account various types of power loss in cable system and the non-linear electrical conductivity of the conductor. Finally, the thermal distribution inside the cable was presented as a function of time, and the maximum thermal capacity was predicted in metro cable.