Heat Transfer from Underground Power Cables

Abstract The research summarized in this article was performed by “two generations” of Sol Penner's students. Professor Penner was the advisor of the first author (Olfe) for his 1960 PhD at Caltech, and Olfe was the advisor for Bernath's 1985 thesis at UCSD. 1 The work described below was performed under a research grant from the San Diego Gas & Electric Company, arranged by Professor Penner while he was director of the UCSD Energy Center. This is an example of one of the Energy Center research projects set up by Professor Penner to address applied problems that yield immediate benefits at local and national levels. The research provided power companies with a computer program that determines maximum permitted cable currents (ampacities) subject to temperature constraints. The accuracy of the computer program was verified by measurements at a test site.