Increasing the Cost-Effectiveness of AC Interference Mitigation Designs with Integrated Electromagnetic Field Modeling

The electricity transmission, gas transmission, and railway industries have developed various methods for the calculation of voltages induced in infrastructure following power line corridors. These tools are typically based on simplified topologies and assumptions that make the implementation of the required algorithms more tractable and data entry screens more alluring. On the other hand, such an approach suffers from reduced accuracy, due to the required simplifying assumptions, and furthermore excludes the possibility of studying complex systems for which the designer is unable to determine what simplifying approximations are the most appropriate. In the absence of confidence in his or her calculations, the designer tends to be overly conservative, resulting in excessive mitigation. This situation arises in particular when the system includes buried components whose through-earth coupling interactions are significant. This paper illustrates this point with a case study and parametric analysis, showing how a calculation based on integrated electromagnetic field modeling results in a more accurate assessment of interference levels and therefore more suitable mitigation.