Real-Time Determination of Depth of Burial Profiles for Submarine Power Cables

The safe operation of submarine power cables at high load is of highest relevance for an economic and reliable operation of offshore wind farms and submarine interconnection systems. Burial of power cables at a certain minimum depth is often required for mechanical protection of the cable and to avo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on power delivery 2019-06, Vol.34 (3), p.1079-1086
Main Authors: Lux, Jonathan, Olschewski, Martin, Schafer, Peter, Hill, Wieland
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Conductors
depth of burial
distributed temperature sensing
Heating systems
Ocean temperature
Offshore energy sources
Power cables
Sea beds
Stress concentration
Submarine cables
Submarine power cables
Temperature measurement
Temperature sensors
Thermal analysis
Undersea cables
Underwater vehicles
Wind power
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Summary:The safe operation of submarine power cables at high load is of highest relevance for an economic and reliable operation of offshore wind farms and submarine interconnection systems. Burial of power cables at a certain minimum depth is often required for mechanical protection of the cable and to avoid too strong heating of the seafloor surface. The depth of burial (DoB) of those cables may vary over time by movements of sand and the cables themselves. Monitoring such changes so far requires, costly yearly surveys using submarine robots. In this study, we present a method to permanently analyze the DoB of submarine power cable formations by using distributed temperature sensing, electric load data, and thermal models of the submarine cable installation. An analysis of field data shows that our method has the capability to detect comparatively fast variations of DoB and also cable exposure events in real installations.
ISSN:0885-8977
1937-4208
DOI:10.1109/TPWRD.2018.2881770