Influence of Metal Pipes in the Environment on Designing the Underground Electrical Installations

Underground installations are networks of metal pipes and cables in space at a certain distance from the ground surface. Insulating layers of metal pipes of underground installations (gas, plumbing, electrical...) do not provide their full protection against corrosion and breakdowns. In urban areas, wandering currents (electric rail or earthing of power plants) repeatedly increase failures in underground installations in the environment. That is why a certain kind of protection is foreseen for the protection of metal pipes of underground installations against corrosion and destruction from wandering currents. However, until today there is no universal method for calculating the parameters of stationary and quasi-stationary electric fields of wandering currents and a general solution for arbitrary configuration, but it is possible to form a model algorithm for controlling the state and failures of insulation of underground electrical installations. Solutions for wandering currents could be determined by the criterion of similarity to transient currents on power lines. In the paper, in program MATLAB Simulink a simulation for the correction of wandering currents using foreign grounding has been performed on certain parts of underground installations. It has been shown that the solution of the task is possible with help of the model-algorythm which allows a determinaitn of the power on isolation layer of the cable sheat, and with simulation of the different versions of schedule of protective equipment, their optimal schedule could be determined.