Simulation of Electromagnetic Coupling on Pipelines close to Overhead Transmission Lines: A Parametric Study

Electromagnetic interference effects caused by electric power lines on neighboring metallic utilities such as water, gas or oil pipelines became a major concern due to significant increase in the load and short circuit current levels needed to satisfy the load requirements. Another reason for increased interference levels originates from the environmental concerns, which impose on various utilities the obligation to share common corridors. This paper presents three different scenarios of a pipeline in which all types of electromagnetic interferences (coupling) will be investigated and their effects on the pipeline will be predicted. The level of the calculated voltage, owing to each type of coupling, depends on different factors (voltage level, length of parallelism, separation distance, soil resistivity, load current magnitude and pipeline coating). The effects of these factors are discussed; some factors such as the fault current level, separation distance and soil resistivities are found to exhibit a large influence on the pipeline voltage. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the comprehensive analyses presented in this paper considering all types of interferences have not yet been published elsewhere.