Electromagnetic interference between high voltage lines and pipelines: an advanced FEM calculation approach

Andrea Serra, Giovanni Falcitelli, Emiliano D'Alessandro - EnginSoft

The accurate analysis of electromagnetic interference of complex systems is a fundamental requirement when two or more structures share the same working environment. The analytical and the empirical approaches are not suitable to this aim; in particular, in the former case the advantages of a rigorous method are compensated by the limited availability of known solutions for few simple cases. In the latter case a post factum mitigation actions is completely based on the operator experience, not sufficient to solve problem due to the complexity of the modern systems. The main drawback of the wide variety of empirical-numerical methodologies consists in formulating simplified hypothesis on the electromagnetic material properties. Moreover an extensive experience needs to define the applicability field of the involved mathematical relationships. In recent years the improvement of the computational capability and the memory availability of the computing resources, allow to efficiently solve problems characterized by several unknowns. In this work a calculation approach to the study of electromagnetic interference generated by high voltage lines and metallic pipelines, is presented. The calculation of the equivalent generators of induced electromotive force has been performed by means of a Finite Element model. This approach produces a generalization and an extension of the methods available in literature. In order to obtain fast and accurate results, the equivalent circuit has been analyzed by means of parametric software; Ansys APDL and Ansys Maxwell have been used to solve the finite element problem.