Cable Sizing Calculation
Cable Sizing Calculation
Cable Sizing Calculation
Introduction
This article examines the sizing of electrical cables (i.e. cross-sectional area) and its
implementation in various international standards. Cable sizing methods do differ across
international standards (e.g. IEC, NEC, BS, etc) and some standards emphasise certain things
over others. However the general principles underlying any cable sizing calculation do not
change. In this article, a general methodology for sizing cables is first presented and then the
specific international standards are introduced.
General Methodology
All cable sizing methods more or less follow the same basic six step process:
1) Gathering data about the cable, its installation conditions, the load that it will
carry, etc
2) Determine the minimum cable size based on continuous current carrying capacity
3) Determine the minimum cable size based on voltage drop considerations
4) Determine the minimum cable size based on short circuit temperature rise
5) Determine the minimum cable size based on earth fault loop impedance
6) Select the cable based on the highest of the sizes calculated in step 2, 3, 4 and 5
Current flowing through a cable generates heat through the resistive losses in the conductors,
dielectric losses through the insulation and resistive losses from current flowing through any
cable screens / shields and armouring.
The component parts that make up the cable (e.g. conductors, insulation, bedding, sheath,
armour, etc) must be capable of withstanding the temperature rise and heat emanating from
the cable. The current carrying capacity of a cable is the maximum current that can flow
continuously through a cable without damaging the cable's insulation and other components
(e.g. bedding, sheath, etc). It is sometimes also referred to as the continuous current rating
or ampacity of a cable.
Cables with larger conductor cross-sectional areas (i.e. more copper or aluminium) have
lower resistive losses and are able to dissipate the heat better than smaller cables. Therefore
a 16 mm2 cable will have a higher current carrying capacity than a 4 mm2 cable.
Base Current Ratings
International standards and manufacturers of cables will quote base current ratings of
different types of cables in tables such as the one shown on the right. Each of these tables
pertain to a specific type of cable construction (e.g. copper conductor, PVC insulated,
0.6/1kV voltage grade, etc) and a base set of installation conditions (e.g. ambient
temperature, installation method, etc). It is important to note that the current ratings are
only valid for the quoted types of cables and base installation conditions.
In the absence of any guidance, the following reference based current ratings may be used.
Installed Current Ratings
When the proposed installation conditions differ from the base conditions, derating (or
correction) factors can be applied to the base current ratings to obtain the actual installed
current ratings.
International standards and cable manufacturers will provide derating factors for a range of
installation conditions, for example ambient / soil temperature, grouping or bunching of
cables, soil thermal resistivity, etc. The installed current rating is calculated by multiplying
the base current rating with each of the derating factors, i.e.
where
For example, suppose a cable had an ambient temperature derating factor of kamb = 0.94 and
a grouping derating factor of kg = 0.85, then the overall derating factor kd = 0.94x0.85 =
0.799. For a cable with a base current rating of 42A, the installed current rating would be Ic =
0.799x42 = 33.6A.
In the absence of any guidance, the following reference derating factors may be used.
Cable Selection and Coordination with Protective Devices
Feeders
When sizing cables for non-motor loads, the upstream protective device (fuse or circuit
breaker) is typically selected to also protect the cable against damage from thermal overload.
The protective device must therefore be selected to exceed the full load current, but not
exceed the cable's installed current rating, i.e. this inequality must be met:
Where
Motors are normally protected by a separate thermal overload (TOL) relay and therefore the
upstream protective device (e.g. fuse or circuit breaker) is not required to protect the cable
against overloads. As a result, cables need only to be sized to cater for the full load current
of the motor, i.e.
Where
Of course, if there is no separate thermal overload protection on the motor, then the
protective device needs to be taken into account as per the case for feeders above.
Where
Where
For a DC system:
Where
Maximum voltage drops across a cable are specified because load consumers (e.g. appliances)
will have an input voltage tolerance range. This means that if the voltage at the appliance is
lower than its rated minimum voltage, then the appliance may not operate correctly.
In general, most electrical equipment will operate normally at a voltage as low as 80%
nominal voltage. For example, if the nominal voltage is 230VAC, then most appliances will run
at >184VAC. Cables are typically sized for a more conservative maximum voltage drop, in the
range of 5 10% at full load.
Calculating Maximum Cable Length due to Voltage Drop
It may be more convenient to calculate the maximum length of a cable for a particular
conductor size given a maximum permissible voltage drop (e.g. 5% of nominal voltage at full
load) rather than the voltage drop itself. For example, by doing this it is possible to construct
tables showing the maximum lengths corresponding to different cable sizes in order to speed
up the selection of similar type cables.
The maximum cable length that will achieve this can be calculated by re-arranging the
voltage drop equations and substituting the maximum permissible voltage drop (e.g. 5% of
415V nominal voltage = 20.75V). For a three phase system:
Where
Where
Where
Where
The temperature rise constant is calculated based on the material properties of the conductor
and the initial and final conductor temperatures (see the derivation here). Different
international standards have different treatments of the temperature rise constant, but by
way of example, IEC 60364-5-54 calculates it as follows:
Material
Max
Operating
Temperature
o
C
Limiting
Temperature
o
C
PVC
75
160
EPR
90
250
XLPE
90
250
Ideally the circuit will have earth fault protection, in which case the protection will be fast
acting and well within the maximum disconnection time. The maximum disconnection time is
chosen so that a dangerous touch voltage does not persist for long enough to cause injury or
death. For most circuits, a maximum disconnection time of 5s is sufficient, though for
portable equipment and socket outlets, a faster disconnection time is desirable (i.e. <1s and
will definitely require earth fault protection).
However for circuits that do not have earth fault protection, the upstream protective device
(i.e. fuse or circuit breaker) must trip within the maximum disconnection time. In order for
the protective device to trip, the fault current due to a bolted short circuit must exceed the
value that will cause the protective device to act within the maximum disconnection time.
For example, suppose a circuit is protected by a fuse and the maximum disconnection time is
5s, then the fault current must exceed the fuse melting current at 5s (which can be found by
cross-referencing the fuse time-current curves).
By simple application of Ohm's law:
Where
is the earth fault current required to trip the protective device within the
minimum disconnection time (A)
is the phase to earth voltage at the protective device (V)
is the impedance of the earth fault loop ()
It can be seen from the equation above that the impedance of the earth fault loop must be
sufficiently low to ensure that the earth fault current can trip the upstream protection.
The Earth Fault Loop
The earth fault loop can consist of various return paths other than the earth conductor,
including the cable armour and the static earthing connection of the facility. However for
practical reasons, the earth fault loop in this calculation consists only of the active conductor
and the earth conductor.
The earth fault loop impedance can be found by:
Where
Assuming that the active and earth conductors have identical lengths, the earth fault loop
impedance can be calculated as follows:
Where
and
(/km)
Where
Where
and
(/km)
Note that the voltage V0 at the protective device is not necessarily the nominal phase to earth
voltage, but usually a lower value as it can be downstream of the main busbars. This voltage
is commonly represented by applying some factor to the nominal voltage. A conservative
value of = 0.8 can be used so that:
Worked Example
In this example, we will size a cable for a 415V, 30kW three-phase motor from the MCC to the
field.
A 35 mm2 cable has an ac resistance of 0.638 /km and a reactance of 0.0826 /km. The
voltage drop across the cable is:
The cable run is 90m and the maximum length allowed is 117m, therefore our cable is
suitable based on earth fault loop impedance. In fact, our 35 mm2 cable has passed all the
tests and is the size that should be selected.
Waterfall Charts
International Standards
IEC
IEC 60364-5-52 (2009) "Electrical installations in buildings - Part 5-52: Selection and erection
of electrical equipment - Wiring systems" is the IEC standard governing cable sizing.
NEC
NFPA 70 (2011) "National Electricity Code" is the equivalent standard for IEC 60364 in North
America and includes a section covering cable sizing in Article 300.
BS
BS 7671 (2008) "Requirements for Electrical Installations - IEE Wiring Regulations" is the
equivalent standard for IEC 60364 in the United Kingdom.
AS/NZS
AS/NZS 3008.1 (2009) "Electrical installations - Selection of cables - Cables for alternating
voltages up to and including 0.6/1 kV" is the standard governing low voltage cable sizing in
Australia and New Zealand. AS/NZS 3008.1.1 is for Australian conditions and AS/NZS 3008.1.2
is for New Zealand conditions.
Computer Software
Cablesizer is a free online application for sizing cables to IEC standards.
Most of the major electrical analysis packages (e.g. ETAP, PTW, etc) have a cable sizing
module. There also exists other (offline) software packages that include cable sizing (for
example from Solutions Electrical UK).
What next?
Having sized the power / load-bearing cables, the cable schedule can now be developed and
then the cable material take-offs (MTO).
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