Energy and Power Engineering, 2013, 5, 1221-1225
doi:10.4236/epe.2013.54B231 Published Online July 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/epe)
Experimental Study on the Cyclic Ampacity and Its
Factor of 10 kV XLPE C able
Xiaoliang Zhuang, Haiqing Niu, Junfeng Wang, Yong You, Guanghui Sun
School of Electric Power, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China
Foshan Power Bureau of Guangdong Power Grid Company, Foshan, China
Received April, 2013
ABSTRACT
The load varies periodically, b ut the peak current of power cable is controlled by its continuous ampacity in China, re-
sulting in the highest condu ctor temperature is much lower than 90 ℃, the permitted long-term working temperature of
XLPE. If the cable load is controlled by its cyclic ampacit y, the cable transmission capacity could be used sufficiently.
To study the 10 kV XLPE cable cyclic ampacity and its factor, a three-core cable cyclic ampacity calculation software
is developed and the cyclic ampacity experiments of direct buried cable are undertaken in this paper. Experiments and
research shows that the software calculation is correct and the circuit numbers and daily load factor have an important
impact on the cyclic ampacity factor. The cyclic ampacity factor of 0.7 daily load factor is 1.20, which means the peak
current is the 1.2 times of continuous ampacity. If the con tinuous ampacity is instead by the cyclic ampacity to control
the cable load, the transmission capacity of the cable can be improved greatly without additional investment.
Keywords: XLPE Cable; Experiment; Cyclic Ampacity; Software
1. Introduction
Power cable has been widely used in urban power grids.
With the rapid economic development in China, the
transmission capacity of power cable needs to be im-
proved. However, it is extremely difficult to construct
new cables due to the high cost and the dense under-
ground pipeline in urban [1]. Therefore, it is very impor-
tant to take full advantage of the cable capacity.
In China, the cable load is ad justed based on its rating,
i.e. the continuou s ampacity. However, the actual current
in operation cable is not continuous but showing a peri-
odical variation. What’s more, the daily load curve shape
doesn’t change a lot within a relatively long period of
time (such as one month). Due to the existence of ther-
mal capacity of cable system (including the cable and its
surrounding soil), the cable conductor temperature (namely
insulation temperature) is delayed hours after the load
changes, the delay time depend on its thermal time con-
stant. In this situation, if the cable peak current is con-
trolled by its continuous ampacity, the highest cable
conductor temperature will be much lower than 90℃,
which is the permitted long-term working temperature of
XLPE, resulting in a waste of the current carrying capac-
ity. If using the cyclic ampacity to control the cable load ,
its transmission capacity can be improved greatly without
any additional investment [2].
IEC 60853 standards have given the calculation meth-
ods of the cable cyclic ampacity factor and the cyclic
ampacity [3,4], with condition that the conductor tem-
perature will up to but not exceeding the maximum al-
lowable cable insulation working temperature. In order to
bring the transmission capacity of 10kV distributed cable
lines into full apply, a three-core cable cyclic ampacity
calculation software is developed and the cyclic ampacity
experiments of direct buried cable are undertaken in this
paper, and also the software calculations are used to do
theoretical research. There are few articles about the cy-
clic in domestic now, but these experiments can provide
some experiences and references for future related re-
searches.
2. Experimental Study Content
2.1. Test Object and Ground
Experiments are undertaken in Foshan experiment field,
shown in Figure 1(a). Cables are located in the cement
tanks box filled with sand, which is buried in the soil,
shown in Figure 1(b). The depth of cable is 700 mm, the
length of cable is 20 m and the cable is YJV22-8.7/ 15-3
× 240.
2.2. Selection of Daily Load Curve
According to Foshan residential, industrial, commercial

X. L. ZHUANG ET AL.
1222
and hybrid four typical load, this project select 10 lines to
analyze the daily load factor, which is defined as formula
(1) [5]. Considering the daily load curves in one month
are almost the same, we select a typical load curve, the
maximum one, in one month. 33 daily load curves, im-
ported from Foshan Power Supply Bureau SCADA sys-
tem of 33 months (from January 2009 to September
2011), are used to calculate the daily load factor.
(a) The experimental base in Foshan
(b) The sectional view of laying of the experimental cables
Figure 1. Schematic diagram of cable laying method.
0 max
1()
t
LFI tdt
I




 (1)
For the load current is adjusted in every 15 minutes,
each daily load curve data will have 96 data per day.
Discretization of the formula (1) can be rewritten as:
96
1
max
(t)
96
I
LF I 

 (2)
Typical daily load curves of LF 0.5, 0.7, 0.8, and 0.9
are selected to control the current applied in experiments.
The red curve in Figure 2 is the selected load with0.7
daily load factor.
2.3. The Direct Burial Experiment
Single-loop cyclic ampacity experiments of direct buried
cable are carried out with the daily load factor 0.5, 0.7,
0.8, 0.9 and 1 (i.e. the continuous load) and four-loop
cyclic ampacity experiments with 0.7 daily load factor.
During the experiment, cyclic current is loaded in the
cables according to the selected load curves while re-
cording the temperature of the cable conductor and skin
by thermocouple. Adjust the peak current every day but
keep the load curve shape till the conductor temperature
is about 90℃(the highest permitted temperature of XLPE
insulation) and get a named quasi static state, which is
defined as the difference of the conductor temperature
and peak current between the last two days are less than
2℃and 5% respectively. In this situ ation the peak cu rrent
of the last cyclic is defined as the cyclic ampacity [6-10].
Figure 2 shows the procedure of current, conductor
temperature, the skin temperature and the surrounding
soil temperature in the cyclic ampacity experiment. Ta-
ble 1 and Table 2 show the results of cyclic ampacity
experiments of the single-loop and four-loop.
01000 2000 30004000 5000 6000
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Time/min
Temperature/℃
01000 2000 30004000 5000 6000
0
100
200
300
400
500
Current/A
currentconductor temperature
shealth temperature
soil temperature
Figure 2. Graph of LF 0.7 single-loop direct buried cable
cyclic ampacity experiment.
Table 1. Results of cyclic ampacity experiment of the single-
loop cable.
LF 0.5 0.7 0.8 0.91
Cyclic ampacity /A 528.3 487.9 545.1531.1380
Maximum conductor temperature/℃ 92.0 90.7 89.7 89.591.1
Maximum skin temperature/℃ 73.7 73.5 72.4 72.481.7
Ambient temperature/℃ 18.3 18.3 19.9 18.723.1
Table 2. Results of cyclic ampacity experiment of the four-
loop cable.
LF 0.7 1
Cyclic ampacity /A 344.0 268.0
Maximum conductor temperature /℃ 88.4 89.77
Maximum skin temperature /℃ 80.4 84.3
Ambient temperature /℃ 24.3 22.5

X. L. ZHUANG ET AL.
1223
3. Comparison of the Experiment and
Calculation paper, as shown in Table 3 and Tabl e 4 respectively. As
comparison, the experiment results are also show in Ta-
ble 3 and Table 4.
3.1. The Calculation of Cable Cyclic Ampacity
According to IEC60853 standard, cyclic ampacity is
equal to cyclic ampacity factor M multiplied by the con-
tinuous ampacity [4].
1
5(1) ()(6)
1
() ()()
0
RR R
i
RR R
M
ii
Y
i
 

 



 





(3)
It can be seen from Table 3 and Table 4 the ma x imu m
error of the calculation and the experiment of the single-
loop and four-loop are -3.6% and -0.2% respectively,
showing the correctness of the calculation of the cable
cyclic ampacity.
3.3. Comparison of the Calculation and
Experiment of Cyclic Ampacity Factor M
where: The thermal resistance coefficients of surrounding media
and the ambient temperatures are different in experi-
ments. To get the cyclic ampacity factor M, the experi-
ments are corrected from experiment condition to the
standard condition, that is with 1.2 K•m/W thermal re-
sistance coefficients of surrounding media and 30℃
ambient temperature.
Yi is the function of cyclic load factor; ()
Ri

is the
temperature rise of i-th hour; ()
R

 is the steady-state
temperature rise of continuous curr ent conduc tor; μ is the
cyclic load-loss factor.
If the cyclic ampacity is used to control the cable load,
the highest conductor temperature of cable will reach but
not exceed 90℃, which is the allowed long-term working
temperature of XLPE. Three-core cable cyclic ampacity
calculation software has been developed according to
IEC60853 standards.
By the 10kV cable ampacity calculation guide, the
experimental are corrected to standard condition, and the
results are shown in Table 5 and Table 6. According to
the results, calculated values and experimental values are
about the same. The experiment value of cyclic ampacity
factor is the ratio of experiment result of cyclic ampacity
to continuous one. The cyclic ampacity factor could be
calculated by the software. Table 5 and Table 6 shows
cyclic ampacity factor of experiment and calculation.
3.2. Comparison of the Calculation and the
Experiments of Cyclic Ampacity
The cyclic ampacity experiments of the single-loop and
four-loop are calculated by the software developed in this
Table 3. Cyclic ampacity experiments and the calculation of the single-loop cable.
0.5 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
LF experimental values /
calculated values experimental values / calculated values experimental val ues / calculated values experimental values / calculated values experimental values / calculated values
Cyclic ampacity /A 528/535 488/487 545/563 531/512 380/371
Error 1.3% -0.2% 3.3% -3.6% -2.4%
Table 4. Cyclic ampacity experiment and calculation of the four-loop cable.
LF0.7 single loop four loops
experimental values / calculated values Test values / calculated values
Cyclic ampacity /A 488/487 344/343.5
Error -0.2% -0.1%
Table 5. Comparison results of the single-loop direct buried cable cyclic ampacity experiment under the standard condition.
0.5 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
LF experimental values /
calculated values experimental values / calculated values experimental values / calculated values experimental val ues / calculated values experimental values / calculated values
Cyclic ampacity /A 612/621 536/554 517/528 506/495 439/462
M 1.39/1.34 1.22/1.20 1.18/1.14 1.15/1.07 1/1

X. L. ZHUANG ET AL.
1224
Table 6. Comparison results of the four-loop direct buried
cable cyclic ampacity experiment under the standard condi-
tion.
LF0.7 single loop four l oops
test values 536 417.4
Cyclic ampacity /A calculated values 554 405
test values 1.22 1.35
M calculated values 1.20 1.26
From Table 5, the M with 0.5, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9 daily load
factors are 1.34, 1.20, 1.14, 1.07 respectively. That
means, if a current with 0.7 daily load factor is applied to
the single circuit cable, the peak value of the current can
be up to 1.2 times continuous ampacity, and the highest
conductor temperature is no more than 90℃, which
means a lot for summer peak load period.
4. Study on the Influence Factors of Cyclic
Ampacity
4.1. The Influence of the Daily Load Factor
It is shown in Table 5 and Tabl e 6 th at with the increase
of the daily load factor, the cyclic ampacity is reducing
but it is still bigger than the con tinuous ampacity. What’s
more, the cyclic ampacity factor M (>1) is reducing as
well. That is to say if the cyclic ampacity is used to con-
trol the cable load, the transmissio n capacity of the cable
can be improved greatly. And the smaller the daily load
factor is, the greater the cable transmission capacity can
be improved
4.2. The Influence of the Circuit Numbers
For limitation of the experiment co ndition, cyclic ampac-
ity factors of multi circuits with different daily load fac-
tors are calculated by the verified software under the
standard condition. The results are in Figure 3.
As is shown in Figure 3, when the daily load factors
(LF) are the same, the cyclic ampacity factor M increase
with the increase of circuit number. However, the incre-
ment of the cyclic ampacity factor has saturability. Cir-
cuit number has a significant influence on M when it
changes from 1 to 6, and it has a small impact on M
when circuit number changes from 6 to 12.
4.3. The Influence of Load Peak and its Shape
LF 0.5 and 0.8 load curves with diferrent shapes are
shown in Figure 4. Curve a and b have the same shape,
while their peak values are different. Curve c and b have
different shapes, while their peak values are the same.
The calculation of M is presented in Table 7.
Figure 3. Relationship between cyclic ampacity factor M
and circuit numbers.
(a) Different load curves of LF 0.5
(b) Different load curves of LF 0.8
Figure 4. Different load curves.
Table 7. The m of different load curves.
LF 0.5 0.8
Curve type a/b/c a/b/c
M 1.34 1.14
The calculation of M explains that M does not vary
with the change of load curve shape with the same daily
load factor. The result illustrates that M is related with
LF, but not load curve shape and load.

X. L. ZHUANG ET AL. 1225
5. Conclusions
The article approved the correctio n of this software b ased
on the single-loop and four-loop cyclic ampacity experi-
ments at different LF. The relationship between three-
core power cable cyclic ampacity and LF is discussed by
using the software. Conclusions are as followed:
1) The cable maximum current under cyclic load is
larger than sustained load. Namely, cyclic ampactiy can
increase the transmission capacity.
2) The cyclic ampacity factor is always no less than 1.
The daily load factor lower, the cyclic ampacity factor
larger.
3) Under the same daily load factor, the cyclic ampac-
ity factor increase with the circuit number, but the im-
provement is not obvious when circuit number exceeds 6.
4) At the same LF, M does not vary with the change of
load peak and its curve shape. The result illustrates M is
related with LF, instead of load curve shape and load .
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