IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 11, No.

1, J anuary 1996 3
RATING OF CABLES ON RISER POLES, IN TRAYS, IN TUNNELS AND
SHAFTS - A REVIEW
George J . Anders, S.M.
Ontario Hydro Technologies, Toronto, Canada
Abstract. This paper reviews rating of cables installed in
air. The following cable installations are investigated: (1)
cables on riser poles, (2) cables in open and closed trays,
(3) cables wrapped in fire protection covers, (4) cables in
horizontal tunnels, and (5) cables in vertical shafts. The
rating of cables in these installations is computed by
solving energy balance equations for the unknown surface
temperature with a given conductor current, In ampacity
computations the conductor current is adjusted iteratively
until permissible cable conductor and surface
temperatures are achieved. It is shown in the paper how
the same energy balance equations can be used to compute
the ratings of all the above cable installations
1 INTRODUCTION
The majority of power cables are installed
underground or in free air and the rating of cables in such
installations is described in two major publications: (1)
paper by Neher and McGrath (1957), and (2) IEC
Publication 287 (1982). However, there exists a large
number of installations for which the rating techniques
described in these publications do not apply directly.
Examples of such installations are: (1) cables on riser
poles, (2) cables in open and covered trays, and (3) cables
in tunnels and shafts. All of these installations represent
cables in air and what they have in common is the heat
transfer mechanism from the cable surface to the outside
environment. The aim of this paper is to present a unified
approach for the rating of cables in the above installations.
95 WM 014-1 PWRD A paper recommended and approved
by the IEEE Insulated Conductors Committee of the
IEEE Power Engineering Society for presentation at
the 1995 IEEE/PES Winter Meeting, January 29, to
February 2, 1995, New York, NY. Manuscript submitted
July 13, 1994; made available for printing
November 23, 1994.
In general, we can divide cable installations considered in
this paper as either located within protective walls (e.g.,
protective riser, tray cover, tunnel walls) or located in trays
without cover.
For cables installed in air, the significant modes of
heat transfer are as follows:
(1) by natural or free convection when no longitudinal
induced flow is present;
(2) by forced convection by air flow along the cables;
and
(3) by ra&ation of the heat from the cable surface to the
ambient air, walls or covers.
The rating of cables in air is often based on the
assumption that only natural convection and radiation are
present. Forced convection, if present, will result in lower
cable temperature for the same current comparing to the
natural convection case only. A general equation for the
convective heat transfer rate between the outside surface of
a body with the average temperature of B,,"C and the
surrounding gas with the temperature B,,,"C is given by:
where:
h, = the natural convection coefficient at the surface
A, = the area of the body outside surface, (m2), for
Thermal radiation is another important heat transfer
mode in the air-filled cable-wall systems. The thermal
radiation transfers energy from the cable surface to the wall
inside surface. This is different from the convective heat
transfer. Thermal radiation from the cable surface
accounts for 40 to 60 percent of the total heat transfer.
Thus, with free convection and air flow at low velocities,
the proportion of heat removed by radiation is substantial
and must be account for in calculations. The Fount of
heat transferred by radiation depends upon a number of
factors including surface temperatures and emissivities.
For a body with the surface temperature 0: , K, (anasterisk
of the body, W/"C.m2;
unit length.
0885-8977/96/$05.00 Q 1995 IEEE
4
denotes the absolute temperature) exchanging radiative
energy with a gas or a body with the temperature @: , K,
the equation for heat transfer rate by radiation is given by:
62)
where.
o = Boltzmann constant, equal to 5.667x10-*
W/(m2 .K4);
F,, W = thermal radiation shape factor, its value depends
on the geometry of the system,
A,,
= the area of the body surface effective for heat
radiation, (m2); for unit length.
To compute the rating of cables in air considered in
this paper, the temperatures at various points of the thermal
circuit are required. To obtain the required temperatures, a
set of energy conservation equations has to be solved. In
all of the cases considered in the paper, the same system of
equations can be solved with the differences arising in the
selection of coefficients and constants. In the next section,
we will develop a general set of energy balance equations
for a cable system surrounded by a wall and the selection of
appropriate coefficients will be discussed in detail in the
sections discussing specific installations.
2 ENERGY CONSERVATION EQUATIONS
The following assumptions are introduced to
simplify the calculations:
1. the process is steady-state;
2.
3.
the length of the wall and the cable are large, so the
heat transfer can be considered as one dimensional;
the wall is opaque and the cable jacket material is
radiatively gray and opaque; the air inside the
protective wall is radiatively transparent;
the physical properties of all materials in the cable
system are temperature dependent. The model takes
into account the variation of physical properties with
temperature.
2.1 Energy conservation equation for the cable
outside surface
Considering the outside surface of the jacket under
steady-state conditions, the conduction heat flux from its
inner surface is equal to the heat loss through free
convection and thermal radiation. The energy balance
equation is:
4.
where:
(3)
Wconv,,
is .the natural convection heat transfer rate
between the cable outside surface and the air
per unit length, Wlm
is the thermal radiation heat transfer rate
between the wall's inner surface and the cable
outside surface, per unit length, W/m.
is the total energy per unit length generated within the
Wrad,s-w
cable. Its value is given by:
where I is the conductor current and R is the
conductor ac resistance at operating temperature.
AI and 1, are the sheath and armour loss factors and Wd is
the &electric loss per unit length. Computation of all of
these quantities is discussed in detail in IEC 287 (1982)
and in NeherIMcGrath (1957).
2.2 Energy conservation equation for the wall inside
surface
For the wall's inside surface, the energy transferred
by conduction through the wall material is equal to the
energy transferred through convection and radiation on the
inner surface of the wall. Thus, the energy conservation
equation under steady-state conditions is:
where:
Wcod,,
is the heat conduction rate from the wall inner
surface to its outside surface per unit length,
W/m;
is the natural convection between the wall
inside surface and the air per unit length,
Wlm.
Wconv,,
The conduction part of the heat transfer is simply:
where:
8, = the average temperature at the wall outside
=the thermal resistance of the wall per unit length,
surface, "C;
K.m/W.
2.3 Energy conservation equation for the wall outside
surface
In this section we will consider cable installations
which have air as a medium outside the wall. At the
outside surface of the wall, the energy transferred through
the wall material by conduction and the energy gain due to
5
solar radiation are balanced by the convective and radiative
energy losses to the atmosphere. Thus, the energy
conservation equation is:
(7)
where:
Wconv,,
=the natural convection heat transfer between
the wall outside surface and atmosphere air,
per unit length, Wlm
Wrad,o-sur = the thermal radiation heat transfer rate
between wall surface and surrounding objects,
per unit length, W/m;
KO, = the solar radiation absorbed by the wall
surface, per unit length, W/m. This quantity
is only considered for installations exposed to
solar radiation.
If the solar flux incident on one square metre of the
surface is H, then the solar radiation absorbed by the wall
is:
K O 1 =A O P O H (8)
where,
a, = the wall surface absorptivity to solar radiation,
whch is generally different from the emissivity
of the wall.
= the equivalent area of the wall per unit length
perpendicular to sun rays, m2. The computation
of this area is described in Cress and Motlis
(1991).
A,,
2.4 Energy conservation equations
Equations 3 to 7 are the basic energy conservation
equations for the cable-wall system. There are three
unknown temperatures, Os, 8, and 8,. These temperatures
are thus computed from the following three equations.
+Ao,a, H =h, (8, - Bomb) A, +A,E,O( 8z4 - e&,)
T4
where,
Bad = the air temperature in atmosphere,"C;
6, = the emissivity of the wall outside surface.
The subscripts s, w and o denote cable outside surface, wall
inner surface and wall outside surface, respectively.
In the above equations, the equivalent conductor
electric resistance and the convection coefficients are
temperature dependent. Before the equations (9) can be
solved the values of the intensity of solar radiation and
convection coefficients have to be selected. Computation of
solar intensity is discussed in Cress and Motlis (1991) and
the selection of convection coefficients is reviewed in the
following sections.
3 CABLES ON RISER POLES
3.1 Introduction
Power delivery systems frequently consist of a
combination of overhead lines and underground cables. In
most cases, the underground cable system is connected to
the overhead line through a short section of cable located in
a protective riser. Considering the importance of
accurately rating power cable systems consisting of cables
on riser poles, Hartlein and Black (1983) introduced a
mathematical model to represent such systems.
The pioneering work by Hartlein and Black suffered
from gaps in knowledge (no formulae were given for
computation of heat transfer coefficients under certain
conditions) and, in several cases, required assumptions
which were incompatible with typical cable-riser geometry.
Much new experimental work has been reported during the
12-year period since the publication of their paper. This
paper updates the work of Hartlein and Black (1983) by
redefining the mathematical model and supplementing
information lacking in their work. Careful comparison of
both models was made and is reported in Anders (1995).
The new model has been tested against Hartlein's and
Black's experimental data, as well as the data for outdoor
tests reported by Cress and Motlis (1991) and the results
are summarized in the above mentioned reference. The
new model is implemented in the CEA's Cable Ampacity
Program (CAP), (Anders e't al., 1990)
3.2 Thermal model
The assumption used in developing the
mathematical model for the cable-riser systemis that the
cable and the riser are concentric bodies with their length
much greater than their diameters. Equations (9) can be
used to determine the required temperatures. The
parameters required in these equations are described in the
following sections.
3.2.1 Radiation shape factor
The radiation shape factor is obtained considering
two long concentric cylinders, In the case of a single cable
in the riser, we have:
6
where
cS =the reflectivity of the cable outside surface;
E, =the emissivity of the cable outside surface;
ow =the reflectivity of the wall inner surface;
6, =the emissivity of the wall inner surface;
A, =ll-De, A, =ll-Dd, A, =11-0,. De, Dd and Do,
(m) are the cable outside diameter and the riser inside and
outside diameters, respectively. The maximum area
exposed to solar radiation is Lo, . When several cables are
present, the mutual radian area between them must be
subtracted from the area radiating to the riser inner surface.
The most common installations have either one or three
cables inside the guard. The effective radiating area to the
guard walls for three cables in touching trefoil formation is
equal to (Weedy, 1988):
In this case, the radiation shape factor has the form:
where
3.2.2 Convection coefficients
The cable and the riser form a vertical annulus. If
the temperature of the cable or riser is dlfferent from the air
temperature in atmosphere, the natural convection occurs
in the annulus gap. This natural convection makes the heat
transfer processes in cable-riser systems very complicated.
Convection coefficients required in equations (9) are
summarized in Tables 1 to 3. In these tables: G= Ll 6 ;
K =Dd I De, 6 is the thickness of the air gap,
kair and Pr are the thermal conductivity and Prandtl
number for air, respectively. g is acceleration of gravity, v
is air kinematic viscosity, and p a coefficient of volumetric
expansion.
Constants g, v, p, kair and Pr can be found, for
example, in Holman (1990). The constants c, n, b and p
are given in Tables 4 and 5.
The basis for the selection of these coefficients and a
comparison with the model of Hartlein and Black is
discussed in Anders (1995).
Table 1 The convection correlations for the
cable outside surface
Case
I, Closed at
the top and
bottom
II, Open at
both ends
III, Open at
the top &
closed at
bottom
Table 2
Case
I, Closed at
the top and
bottom
II, Open at
both ends
JII, Open at
top and
closed at
bottom
Model Correlation
h, =NU * kair I 6
Nu =0.797Ra0 077G-0 052 K
for Ra <363K025G0 76
Nu =0,18&Ra0 322(370 238K0 442
for 363Ko2'Go 76 <Ra <2.3. lo6
Ra =Pr. gp(B, - 8w)63 I u2
h, =C, . NU . kair I 8, K <5
Nu =(Gr.Pr) 19.07 if Gr .Pr <10
Nu =0.62(Gr. Pr)' 25
C, =0.46K +0.54
h, =NU. kair / L
Nu =c(Gr . Pr))"
Gr =gp(6, - Bw)L3 I u2
The convection correlations for the
riser inside surface
Model Correlations
Same as the cable outside surface
hw=hs- De
Dd
hw=CvNu~kai r16; K<5
Nu =(Or.Pr)/9.07 if Gr.Pr <10
Nu= 0.62(Gr.Pr)02'
C, =0. 6/ K+0.4
h, =NU *k,,, I ( D, 12)
Nu =Gr.Pr/ 400 if Gr.Pr <200
Nu =0.35(Gr.Pr)02*
Gr =gp(Bga - Bw)(Dd / 2)4 I ( Lo2)
7
C
0.675
1.02
0.850
0.480
0.125
Table 3 The convection correlations for the
n Restrictions
0.058 lo- <Gr.Pr <lo-
0.148 lo- <Gr.Pr i 10
0.188 lo2 <Gr .Pr <lo4
0.250 lo4 <Gr.Pr<107
0.333 lo7 <GraPr <10
Natural
convection
0.4 - 4 0,989 0.330
0.911 0.385
40 - 4,000 0.683 0.466
4,000 - 40,000 0.193 0.618
r 40,000 - 400,000 0.0266 0.605
I
Forced
convection
riser outside surface
Model Correlations
ho,n =NU. kair I L
Nu =c(Gr .Pr)
Gr =gp(I9, - Ba,)L3 I u2
ho,f =NU * kair / (Do I 2)
Nu =b(Re)PPr3
Re =V,,D, I U, xir =air velocity
4. CABLES IN TRAYS
A typical cable tray installation which is found in
the electric power generation and distribution industry can
be visualized as a 3-inch deep, 24-inch wide metal trough
containing anywhere from to 20 to 400 randomly arranged
cables ranging in size from #12 AWG to 750 kcmil. In
many cases, especially in nuclear power plants, the trays
are covered with fire protection wrap around the raceway.
Because of the very strong mutual heating effects, the
ampacity of cables in trays is usually lower than computed
with the formulae given in [IEC 287, 1982;
NeherMcGrath, 19571.
4. 1 Cables in single open-top cable tray
Since 1975, the accepted technique in North
America for calculating the ampacity of power cables in
trays has been the use of tables provided by I C E N M A
Standard P54-440 (ICEA, 1986). These tables are based
upon a thermal model originally proposed by Stolpe (197 1)
that assumes every cable in the cable tray carries the
maximum current producing the maximum cable bundle
temperature. The ICEA Standard also assumes that the
heat generated in the cables is uniformly distributed
throughout the cross-section of the cable mass.
In order to remove the conservatism in the thermal
model based on the above assumptions, Harshe and Black
(1994) proposed a simple thermal model which accounts
for load diversity within the tray by providing two different
loading options. The model is a subset of the model
presented above.
The energy balance for the bundle of N cables in the
cable tray is a combination of the first and last equation in
(9) with the cover removed, and can be expressed as:
where ni is the number of cables in the subgroup of
cables of the same size, total refers to the total value for
entire cable bundle and the subscript s denotes the surface
value. The temperature at the bottom surface of the bundle,
e, , , will, in general, be different from the temperature e,,
at the top of the cable mass because the free convection
coefficients are different. The convective heat transfer
coefficient for the bottom surface of the cable trays is given
by equations in Table 3 with c=O.27, n=0.25 and
L =w , where w is the width of the tray.
The convective coefficient for the top surface of the
cable tray is, again, given by equations in Table 3 with
values of n given by last two rows in Table 4 and the values
of c equal to 0.54 and 0.15 for n =0.25 and n =0.333,
respectively.
4.2 Cables in covered trays
Raceway systems in electric generating stations are
often enclosed. Engmann (1984) presented a method for
the calculation of ampacity of cables in a covered tray. He
later extended the model to trays with raised covers
(Engmann, 1986). In 1989 Save and Engmann further
extended the above techniques to fire-protection wrapped
cable trays.
The thermal model of the covered tray cable system
is a combination of the models describing cables in riser
poles and cables in open-top trays.
8
The energy balance equations (9) can be used to
describe the heat transfer process from the top of the
covered tray to the environment. The only moddication
required is the omission of the solar radiation term.
Subscripts s, w and o denote, in this case, the top surface of
the cable bundle, inside surface of the cover and the outside
surface of the cover, respectively. The heat transfer
coefficients h, and hw are defined as follows:
h, =hw =NU . kair I 6
Nu=l if Gr<1708
Nu=0.195Gr"25 if lo4 <GrPr<4.105 (14)
Nu =0.069(Gr. Pr)" 333
Gr =gp(8, - QW)6' / u2
1.5 .l os <Gr Pr <lo9
where 6 is the thickness of the i r gap in the tray.
Air thermal properties are evaluated at the average film
temperature
Coefficient h, for the outside surface of the tray
cover is the same as ho,n given in Table 3 withthe length L
replaced by w/2 and constant
Equation (13) can be applied for the bottom of the
tray. Subscript s pertains here to the bottom surface of the
tray and the convection coefficient is described in the
paragraph following equation (13).
4.3 Cables in fire-protection wrapped tray
Raceway systems in nuclear generating stations are
often enclosed with protective wrap to meet regulatory or
underwriter requirements. Fire-protective wrap systems are
designed to reduce the heat transfer from a fire source to
the raceway interior The fire wrap may also impede the
transfer of heat from the cables inside the raceway to the
environment.
The computations proceed in the same way as
described in Section 4.2 with the exception of the thermal
resistance of the tray cover which is now given by:
where:
pc = thermal resistivity of the cover material, K.m/W
pw = thermal resistivity of the wrap material, K.m/W
zT
= thickness of the fire barrier material at the top of
the tray, m
zc = thickness of the tray cover material, m
w = width of the tray, m.
The model is applicable to cables in ladders,
troughs, or solid bottom trays. The cables may be installed
randomly, without maintained spacing and no maintained
segregation of power and control cables.
The model is applicable to a fire wrap system that is
made of a single, relatively homogeneous wrap material.
The wrap material support configuration (if any) need not
be considered, if the support is relatively thin or has
relatively hgh thermal conductivity
5. CABLES XNTUNNELS AM) SHAFTS
5.1 Horizontaltunnels '
Cables are sometimes installed in tunnels provided
for other purposes. In generating stations short tunnels are
often used to convey a large number of cable circuits. Long
tunnels are built or existing tunnels adapted solely for ,the
purpose of carrying major EHV transmission circuits which
for various reasons cannot be carried overhead. Rwer
crossings are obvious cases where tunnels would be used
either for techcal or environmental reasons. The cost of
such installations is very considerable and it is desirable to
optimize as far as possible the current carrying capacity,
groupings, and number of circuits to be installed to meet a
given transmission capacity.
Weedy and El Zayyat (1973) performed
measurements to determine suitable convection
coefficients. Their results were later adopted by CIGRE
and published in Electra (CIGRE 1992a, 1992b). Only the
steady-state ratings with natural cooling are considered
here. Transient analysis using numerical methods and
forced cooling computations are described in the cited
Electra papers.
5.1.1 Thermal model
It may be desirable to rate cable circuits in
horizontal tunnels on the basis of free convection only in
view of the difficulty in assessing air velocities along the
sides and flow of a tunnel, as distinct from the bulk
velocity. In h s case, since the equivalent diameter of the
tunnel is assumed to be much greater than the diameter of
the cable, the heat transfer to the outside wall of the tunnel
can be described by the first two energy balance equations
(9). The heat transfer for the tunnel outside surface is
described by computing the thermal resistance of the soil
surrounding the tunnel structure. Thus, the last energy
balance equation in (9) takes the form:
where 6 andc are the thermal resistances of the
For tunnel wall and the surrounding soil, respectively.
deep tunnels, adiabatic conditions are sometimes assumed,
which means that So =Bad (CIGRE, 1992a).
The thermal resistance of the soil for circular
tunnels is computed from standard equations given in IEC
287 (1982), or NeherMcGrath, (1957). For a square
tunnel, the expression derived by Goldenberg for a buried
square trough and reported by Symm (1969) can be used.
This expression is:
<' =&111(3.388%) 2?r
where:
ps = thermal resistivity of the soil, K .dW
L, = depth of tunnel centreline, m
a = height and width of square cable tunnel, m.
The radiation shape factor is given by:
&,, =(1 +cFs / E, +r;4slTw / 4&,)-'
where N is the number of cables. The mutual
radiation area for two cables is:
where s is the spacing between cables. For three
cables in trefoil the mutual radiation area is: A, =0.6180,
and for three cables spaced horizontally it is twice the value
given by equation (IS).
The heat transfer coefficient for groups of cables in
horizontal tunnels is obtained from the correlations given
in Table 3:
where vc, vw,, and vwv are the correction factors for
multicable, horizontal wall and vertical wall effects,
respectively. These correction factors are obtained from
IEC Publications 287 (1982) and 1042 (1991).
The values of coefficients c and n obtained from
experimental results by Weedy and El Zayyat (1973) are
summarized in Table 6.
9
Table 6
Parameters for convection formulae for cables in
tunnels (Weedy, 1988)
Grouping
0
0.0
0.0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0 0
Spacing
not
touching
sl De>2
touching
touching
not
touching
s/D, >2
touching
Cable of
group
middle
outer
middle
outer
middle
upper
lower
middle
upper
lower
upper
lower
C
0.725
0.785
0.815
0.55
0.69
0.40
0.54
0.715
0.60
0.70
0.78
0.48
0.68
n
0.24
0.21
0.21
0.20
0.20
0.215
0.215
0.215
0.225
0.225
0.225
0.20
0.20
The heat convection coefficient for the tunnel wall
h, can be taken from the correlations describing a small
heat source near a vertical wall:
h, =NU . kaiP I L
Nu =0.59(Gr Pr)' 25
Gr =gj (og, -
(21)
/ u2
where L is the height of the tunnel. For circular
tunnels, L can be replaced by the tunnel inside diameter. If
the cables are located on one side of the tunnel only, then
the surface area A, in equations (9) should be equal to the
area of the wall close to the cables. In the case of circular
tunnels, half of the area of the tunnel should be used.
5.2 Vertical shafts
Wewill, again, consider installations with natural
convection only. There is very little experimental evidence
available to determine heat transfer coefficients for this
type of installation. As a first approximation, cables in
vertical shafts can be studied as the cables on riser poles
with the open top and closed bottom and adiabatic
conltions at the shaft external surface. Hence, the energy
balance equations will take the form:
10
The heat convection coefficient is obtained from
correlations given at the bottom of Table 1.
An alternative equation is given by Endacott et al.
(1970). Assuming an effective emissivity of 0.9 and
natural convection, the heat dissipated from the cable/pipe
in a shaft is given by the following empirical formula
(Weedy, 1988):
1 25
=3.23. lo-' ' m"-( - 8:) +1. 213( S, - Qga)
(23)
2 2
where m is the proportion of the cablelpipe surface
available for radiation (affected by obstructions and
proximity of other cables).
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Dr. Bing Gu of
Ontario Hydro Technologies for performing the literature
search and many helpful discussions leading to the
developments presented in this paper. This work was
partially funded by the Canadian Electrical Association,
Distribution R&D Division's project to update Cable
Ampacity Program (CAP), Mr. J ohn Vitagliano, project
manager. The monitors on this project were Mr. J . Motlis
from Ontario Hydro, Mr. Gin0 Vali from British Colombia
Hydro and Mr. Perry Mason from Nova Scotia Power.
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Stolpe, J., (1971) "Ampacities of Cables in Randomly
Filled Trays", IEEE Trans. on Power Apparatus and
Systems, Vol. PAS-90, pp. 967-973.
Symm, G.T., (1 969) "External Thermal Resistance of
Buried Cables and Troughs", Proc. IEE, Vol. 166,
Weedy, B.M., E1 Zayyat, H.M., (1973) "The Current
Capacity of Power Cables in Tunnels': IEEE Trans. on
Power Apparatus and Systems, Vol. PAS-92, pp.298-
307.
(1988) "Thermal Design of Underground
Systems", John Wiley and Sons, Chichester, U.K.
pp. 1 13 - 1 19.
119 - 139.
1957, pp. 752-772.
NO. 10, pp. 1696-1698.
Weedy, B.M.,
Biography
Dr. George Anders holds a M.Sc degree in
Electrical Engineering and a Ph.D. degree in Power System
Reliability from the University of Toronto. For the last 20
years he has been employed by Ontario Hydro, first as a
transmission Line Design Engineer and more recently as a
Principal Engineer in Ontario Hydro Technologies. He is
an author of a book "Probability Concepts in Electric Power
Systems", published by J . Wiley, New York, in 1990 and a
co-author of a forthcoming book on Rating of Power
Cables
11
George J. Anders (Ontario Hydro, Toronto, Canada). The
author would like to thank Dr. Morgan for his comments and
explanations. Dr. Morgan is recognized as one of the world's
leading experts in the area of heat transfer for conductors in
air and his work in this field is well known to the author.
The author accepts Dr. Morgan's suggestion that the diffuse
radiation should be included in the representation of the solar
heating. Appropriate formulae are given in Morgan (1991)
referred in the discussion. The omission of the diffuse
radiation came from the observation that the effect of solar
radiation is the greatest when the sky is clear. in this case,
Discussion
Vincent Morgan (CSIRO I fision of AppliedPhysics, Sydney. Australia): Theauthor isto he
commended for auqeful review of methods for rating cahles insituations whichwerenot
addressed hy Neher and McOrath and IEC Publication 287(19x2). Heat transfer correlations
arecritical inthesecalculations. henceit isgratiatifyingto seethat theauthor hastriedto include
thebentmodemdata. However, thecomplexities of practical installations sometimes makes it
difficult to find a correlation whichisappropiatefor a particular configuration. Moreover, if
wouldhavebeen helpful to thereader to havereferences givenfor thecorrelations inthis
paper, rather thaninanother paper, as yet unpublished.
It ispmposed in(8) that thesolar radiation absorhd by theouter surfaceof thewall can he
calculated fromthesolar flux A and theequivalent areaof thewall. Cress and Motlis (1991 )
suggcstcd that thc paper by Magan (1967) showed that diffuseradiation could heneglected.
However, theintensity of diffuseradiation of about 10 Oh of thebeamradiation only appbes to
aclear sky..With M overcast sky, theintensity of diffuseradiation on a horizontal durfscecan
exceed 400 w/m2.
Thecorrelation mTableI, for theconvectiveheat transfer froma cableinsidea vertical riser
whichin open at thetop and closed at thebottom, refers to anisolated vertical cylinder. There
do not appear to beany publihed data for a vertical annulus.
In Tahle2, for theinsidesurfaceof a riser open at thetop and closed at thebottom. Seki ef al.
(1980) gavethefollowing correlation for water:
Nu =0.204 (Gr.Pr)"'
intherange4x104 s Ras4x106, wheretheNusseltandRayleighnumhersarebasedon
(D, -D,)/ZD,.
InTahle3, thecorrelation for forced convectiveheat transfer fromtheoutsidesurfaceof the
r i s u should he bscd on thediametcr Do of thesurface, rather than theradius. InTahle4, the
valuesof the coefficients for thecorrelation for natural wnvectinn, which aretakenfiom
Morgan (1 982), weretirst proposed by Morgan (1975). and werelater ctghtly modifiedin
Morgan (1991). Thecoefficients h and p for thecorrelation for forced convection (Tahle5 )
weregiven by Nilpert (1933), and werebased on his extensiveexperimental work. Thevalue
for D in thefinal row should read 0305. It should henoted that thevalues givenhv Hilpert
the solar radiation of 1000 W/m2 is usually assumed for North
American installations and the diffuse radiation is a small
portion of the beamradiation.
The author has tested the suggested correlation given by Seki
and has concluded that in the great majority of cases,
4 x lo4 <Ra . Only for large guard diameters combined with
small cable diameters (large air gap inside the riser), the
Rayleigh number will bein the range in which the correlation
suggested by Seki could be used. The numerical examples
performed by the author have shown that application of the
Seki's correlation results in the ampacity difference not
exdi ng 2 Amps in comparison with the correlation
suggested in Table 2 of the paper.
InTable6, it should hemadeclear whether thespacing, s, betweencables i s thewidthof the
gap or thecentre-to-centrespacing. 'fie second (convection) temi in(23) should bedividedhy
form of equation (23) given in the paper came from weedy
IOOO. (1988). However, Endacott et al. (1970) have indeed the
REFERENCES
second term divided by 1OOO. The spacing s in Table 6 of the
paper refers to the axial separation of the conductors.
The comments of Dr. Morgan have helped to present a more
discussed in the paper and are greatly appreciated by the
Fan4 R.M. and Keswani, K.K. (1973), "Recalculation of Ailpert'sConstants", J . Heat
Transfer, p ~ , 224-226.
mpefi, R. (1933), "Warmeahgahevongeheiaen Drahten und Rohren im1 .uftstrom", Forsch. i3CCIlfak S u " V Of the S-Of-the art Of the subject
GebieteIngenieunv., Vol. 4, pp. 215-224.
Morgan, V.T. (1%7), "Rating of BareConductors for Cnntinuous Currents", Proc. ILL. Vol.
Morgan, V.T. (1975). "TheOverall ConvectiveIleat l'ransfer fromSmooth I'ircular
Cylinden", AdvancesinHeat Transfer, Vol. 11, pp. 199-264.
Morgan, V.T. (1991). l'he Thermal Behmimr of EIecfrlcol Conrirctorr, Research Studies
Press, Taunton, U.K. (J ohn Wiley and Sons, New York), p. 123.
Seki, N., Fukusako, S. and Koguchi, K.( 1980), "Single-PhaseHeat Transfer ('hnractehlics of
Concentric-TubeThermosyphon", Wanneund Stoffuhertragung. Vnl.4, pp. 189-199.
114, pp. 1473-1482 author.
Manuscript nX4?iVed April 11, 1995.
Manuscript received March 2, 1995.