Measuring and Modeling the Skin Effect for Harmonic Power Flow Studies

Abstract

This research aims to quantify the skin effect and estimate expressions that well represent the phenomenon for harmonic power flow studies. The primary focus is to validate the behavior of the skin effect at harmonic frequencies ranging from 60 Hz to 960 Hz, while considering various amplitudes of electric current. The investigation not only examines the measurement of the skin effect, but also considers the temperature of the tested conductors, aiming to analyze the increase in resistance resulting from temperature rise and resistivity changes. The measurement outcomes demonstrate notable increments in electrical resistance, with resistivity increases of up to 1.9% observed throughout the measurement process. Finally, based on the results obtained through laboratory measurements, mathematical expressions were estimated as a function of frequency. In order to evaluate the simulation time reduction by the proposed expressions, OpenDSS (version: 9.4.1.2; Electric Power Research Institute, Knoxville, TN, USA) software was used, which aims at quantifying the impact of the skin effect on the technical losses. The results from these simulations demonstrate that the proposed expressions to account for the skin effect in conductors reduce the simulation time by around 17% for harmonic power flow.