Effects Of Superplasticizer And Nanoparticles In The Backfill Materials Formulations For Underground Cables
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Date
2019-05
Authors
Nik Mohd Harith Bin Nik Hassan
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Abstract
The highly usage of underground cables is a typical feature of a modern method to distribute power network. The installation of backfill materials or filling medium in ducts is important to ensure the cable installation system is not premature failure when the power cable exceeds the operating temperature. This research project is aimed to identify backfill formulation in ducts with thermal resistivity less than 0.5 m.W-1 .˚C, low shrinkage, flowability and low compressive strength. Effect of superplasticizer loading and nanoparticles (graphene and carbon nanotube) was investigated to enhance the performance of backfill materials. Properties of backfill materials such as flowability, thermal resistivity, volumetric shrinkage, compressive strength and water immersion test were measured. CYMCAP software was used to analyse the influential factor on the underground cable ampacity. The result demonstrated that the backfill grout properties increased with additional of superplasticizer where it reduced water solid/ratio from 70 % to 45 %. Furthermore, addition of superplasticizer reduced the shrinkage problem and reduced the thermal resistivity and achieved the target value which is less than 0.5 m.W-1 .˚C. However, addition of graphene and carbon nanotube nanoparticles in the mixture was insignificant to reduce the thermal resistivity value of the backfill materials. Simulation using CYMCAP software shows that the ampacity of the cable increased from 249 A to 273 A with the installation of backfill grouts in ducts. From this work, backfill grouts formulations SB-3 was suggested to use in ducts as the filling medium to enhance heat dissipation on the underground cable application.