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EFFECT OF ELECTRIC AND MAGNETIC FIELDS OF TRANSMISSION LINES ON

METALLIC GAS PIPE LINES
1* 2
Prof. Osama E. Gouda and Assoc. Prof. Adel Z. El Dein
1
Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, Giza Egypt
2
Faculty of Energy Engineering, Aswan University, Aswan, Egypt

*Email: prof_ossama11@yahoo.com

Abstract: This paper presents electrostatic and magnetic effects of the overhead
transmission lines (OHTLs) on the well-insulated or aboveground metallic gas
pipelines. The induced voltages by capacitive and inductive couplings between the
overhead transmission line and aboveground or laid on a metallic gas pipelines,
under normal operation condition of the overhead transmission lines, and in case
of line to ground fault are calculated. The calculations take into account the effects
of various parameters, such as: separation distance between the OHTL and the
aboveground or laid on a foundation and the screening factor on the magnitude of
the capacitive induced voltage along the length of the pipelines. The induced
voltage between the OHTL and metallic gas pipelines, under normal operating
condition of the OHTL, is measured and compared with the calculated values.

1 INTRODUCTION voltage on the pipeline. These hazards can be

AC interference on aboveground gas pipelines
located in utility corridors is a serious problem
which can place both operator safety and pipeline
integrity at risk. Installing pipelines, in energy utility
corridors containing high-voltage AC transmission
lines, subjects to induced AC voltages. When a
long-term induced AC voltage exists on a gas steel
pipeline, it can be dangerous and potentially life-
threatening for operations personnel to touch the
gas steel pipelines or appurtenances. In addition,
pipeline gas steel corrosion can result from the AC
discharge. To address this problem, the gas steel
pipelines must be grounded with a system that
passes AC induced current, in the same time
blocks DC current that to mitigate the AC induced
current and maintain the cathodic protection
system on the gas steel pipeline.
Electric power is transmitted in three phases; each
sinusoidal AC power phase is 120° out of phase
with the other two phases. Under balanced
condition, the three phases have the same AC
current, hence the sum of the alternating currents
in the three phases and the sum of the calculated
magnetic fields, at relatively large distance from
the three phases, resulting from the alternating
current in each phase should add up to zero. In
this case the effects of inductive and conductive
coupling between metallic gas pipelines and the
overhead transmission lines at steady state
condition can be ignored. The only induced
affecting voltage is that created by capacitive
coupling between the aboveground or coated gas
steel pipelines and high voltage transmission lines.
But in case of line to ground fault both conductive
and inductive couplings, will affect the pipelines
.There are many hazards appear due to inducing
subject of workers to high potential, damage of the
pipeline coating and corrosion of the pipeline body.
An actual case study is presented in this paper and
actual measurements are carried out. The actual
case study is the Fayum metallic gas pipeline in
which three transmission lines are parallel or
crossing it. The gas pipeline-power line geometry
is given in Fig. 1.The leakage and stray currents on
the metallic pipelines created by the induced
voltages are calculated and measured. Also the
rate of corrosion of the metallic gas pipe lines that
happened by induced voltage is calculated. The
pipelines are installed according to the Egyptian
Holding Company specifications for the
transmission pipeline of nature gas code and the
international standards (IGEM) [1, 2]. Hence, there
is no effect of the inductive and conductive
couplings on these metallic pipelines at steady
state because the sum of the magnetic fields
resulting from the alternating current in each phase
should add up to zero.
Figure 1 Fayoum gas pipeline-power line
geometry

146

The Natural gas is supplied to Fayum area,
through 72 km steel buried pipeline of diameter
equals 16 inch. It is coated by three layers of High
Density Polyethylene (HDPE), which has a
resistance of , relative permittivity of 5, and
its thickness is 4 mm. The pipeline is buried at
depth of 1.5 m in soil. The soil resistivity varies
from 2500 to 100 . Pipeline pathway, is in
parallel to three high voltage overhead
transmission lines with different separation
distances. These distances vary from 35m to more
than 6 km, as shown in Figure 1.
2 PIPELINE INDUCED VOLTAGE
2.1 Inductive coupling between pipelines
and OHTLs
Pipeline induced voltage, by the inductive coupling
mechanism, depends on the currents of the
overhead transmission lines, the separation
distance between the overhead transmission lines
and the pipeline, and the soil resistivity [5]. The
total driving electric induced voltage, Ez, is the
superposition of the contribution of each phase
current. Hence, Ez can be positive or negative, and
it can be expressed as follows: [6, 7]
(1)
Where, is the phase current, in
ampere; and is the mutual impedance
between the phases of the power line and the
underground pipeline including the effect of ground
wires. This mutual impedance can be calculated as
follows:
= (2)
(3)
Where;
( are the coordinates of the phase
conductor; ( are the coordinates of the
buried pipeline; [8] ; is the soil
resistivity, depends on the ratio of ,
hence it may be positive or negative; and is the
screening factor which can be calculated from the
following relation [9]:
(4)
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Where; M12 is the mutual inductance between the
earth wires and each phase of the power line and
L2 is the earth wire inductance.
2.2 Conductive coupling between pipe
lines and OHTLs
The ground potential will be very high under line-
to-ground fault conditions of the overhead
transmission lines, where heavy currents will flow
through the ground in these cases. So, ground
potential domain will be increased under fault
conditions. Pipeline induced voltage may exceed
the coating strength of the pipeline. So, the
pipeline coating may be damaged [5]. In this paper
ATP software is used to simulate the overhead
transmission lines in case of line-to-ground fault
condition [10]. In this paper, it is assumed that the
line-to-ground fault is occurred at each kilometer
along the overhead transmission, which is parallel
to the pipeline. Hence, the fault current is obtained
at each kilometer along the overhead transmission.
From these fault currents the induced voltage
along the length of the pipeline is calculated. The
magnitude of ground potential rise can be
calculated as follows [11]:
(5)
Where, is the magnitude of ground potential rise
in and is a part of the fault current, which can be
calculated from the following relation:
(6)
Where, is the total fault current in amp, and
is the resistance of grounding system of power
lines tower in ohm. Assuming each tower has four
legs; each leg is grounded with a vertical rod, and
then can be calculated as an equivalent
resistance of these four vertical rods as follow:
(7)
Where and are the grounding rod length and
radius, respectively. The zero sequence
impedance of the overhead transmission line can
be calculated using the following relation [5]:
(8)
Where; is the zero sequence impedance of the
overhead transmission line, and the pipeline
induced voltage can be calculated as follows:
(9)

Where; is the equivalent hemispherical ground
electrode radius in m, can be obtained by the
following relation: (10)
(10)
2.3 Capacitive coupling between
pipelines and OHTLs
Capacitive coupling describes the pipeline
induced voltage due to the power lines
electrostatic field. Charge simulation method
is used to calculate the pipeline induced
voltage due to the power lines electrostatic
field, where the power lines phases, ground
wires, pipeline body, and pipeline coating is
represented by line charges [1-3]. The
elements of the coefficient matrix are
obtained as follows:
(11)
(12)
Where:
is the distance between the conductor x and
the ground surface , is the distance from the
conductor x to the conductor y , is the distance
from the conductor y to the image of conductor x
and GMR is the geometric mean radius of the
conductor at the present of the sub-conductors .
Where: is the sub-conductor radius, is
sub-conductor separation distance and is
number of sub-conductors. After obtaining
coefficient matrix, the sub-conductors charges
be obtained as follows:
(13)
Where: is the charge matrix, is the
conductor voltage. In the two dimensional region,
the electrostatic field has two components. These
two components may be described as follows
Horizontal component
(14)
And Vertical component
(15)
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Where:
is the distance from the conductor to a point ,
is the distance from the point to the image of
the conductor .Equations (14) and (15) are used to
calculate the resultant electric field, which could be
described by the following equation.
(16)
Where:
is the summation of all electric field components
in X axis direction and is the summation of all
electric field components in Y axis direction.
Charge simulation method is used to calculate the
pipeline induced voltage by the capacitive
coupling, where the following procedure is
followed: Each conductor of each phase of power
lines is simulated by one line charge. Each ground
wire is simulated by one line charge. Neighbouring
air layer is simulated by line charges. Pipeline
coating layer is simulated by line charges.
Pipeline body is simulated by line charges.
3 CACULATIONS AND RESULTS
MATLAB program is used to calculate power lines
electrostatic field above the ground pipeline. The
data of electrical power lines are given in appendix
A. Figure 2 shows the pipeline capacitive induced
voltage at average conductors' height by using the
actual separation distances between the power
lines and the pipeline, as shown in Figure 1.
4 EXPERIMENTAL MEASUREMENTS
the Pipeline induced voltage is measured by using
the digital voltmeter, and copper/copper sulphate
the ( ) reference electrode [12]. One
will common type of half-cell contains a copper
electrode immersed in an electrolyte of dissolved
copper sulfate, which is shown in Figure 3. The
measurement method is illustrated in Figure 4.
50
Pipeline line induced voltage (V)
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
0 10 20 30 40
Pipeline length in (km)
50 60 70
Figure 2 Pipeline induced voltage due to the
capacitive coupling of the three power lines
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Pipeline induced voltage is measured during

different seasons because the power line current
differs from season to season. Also the seasonal
change in the soil resistivity leads to change in the
induced voltage. From Figure 8 it is seen that the
differences between the calculated induced
capacitive voltages and measured values, at
different seasons, along the length of the gas
pipeline, are very small under the steady state
Figure 3 the reference electrode
condition.

5 AC CORROSION OF GAS PIPELINES

Always natural gas coated pipelines are

cathodically protected against corrosion threats.
Corrosive factors affecting the pipelines are soil
resistivity, water content, pH value, soluble salts
content, redox potential and isolated gas pipe line
Figure 4 Illustration of the induced voltage to earth potential [16].Usually pipelines coating has
measurement small defects after lowering process [16]. Fig. 7
shows AC corrosion of the same gas pipeline.
Pipelines corrosion is occurred by the AC current,
50
if that corrosion current exceeds the DC current
that is supplied by cathodic protection system [17-
Calculated
45
Pipeline induced voltage (V)

Measured (summer)
40 Measured (spring)
Measured (autumn)
20].
35
Measured (winter)
30

25

20

15

10

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Pipeline length (km)
Figure 5 Pipeline calculated and measured
induced voltages in normal operating condition of
the transmission lines
Figure 7 Pipeline AC corrosion on Fayum gas
Figure 5 gives the Pipeline calculated and pipeline
measured induced voltages in normal operating
condition of the transmission lines .Figure 6 shows The current density in metallic pipelines is
a comparison between the measured induced calculated by the following relation:
voltage at different seasons and the calculated
induced voltage in case of normal operation of
overhead transmission lines, along the length of (21)
the pipeline.
Where, is the current density in , is
10000 the AC induced voltage in volt, is the soil
El-Kurimate-Cairo
resistivity in , and is the diameter of coating
Pipeline induced voltage (V)

Samaloute-Cairo

(defect) in m. Fig. 8 shows the empirical

8000
Dimo-6th of October

6000
relationship between the corrosion rate and the AC
current density. This relation shows that if the AC
4000 current density is 20 , AC corrosion occurred
by rate of 0.2 gram per year [18]. The AC
2000
discharging current density in due to the
resultant pipeline induced voltages under normal
operating condition is given in Fig. 9. It can be
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Pipeline length (km)
noticed that, there are some points, which are
closed to OHTL, that have current densities
Figure 6 Total pipeline inductive and conductive
exceed 20 . So, the pitting corrosion is usually
voltages in case of single line-to-ground fault of the
occurs at lengths starting from 44 km to 46 km and
three power lines, individually
starting from 55 km to 62 km. See Fig. 9

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1.4
Delivery, Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 2466-2472,
October 2007.
1.2
[5] Australian/New Zealand
Corrosion rate (g/cm2 yr)

1 Standard™., "Electric Hazards on Metallic

0.8
Pipelines" Standards Australia AS/NZS
4853:2000.
[6] Taflove, A., and J. Dabkowski, “Prediction
0.6

0.4 Method for Buried Pipeline Voltages Due To

0.2
60 Hz AC Inductive Coupling. Part I:
Analysis.” IEEE Transactions on Power
Apparatus and Systems. Vol. PAS-98. pp.
0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500

AC current density (A/m2) 780-787. May/June 1979.

[7] Taflove, A., and J. Dabkowski, “Prediction
Figure 8 corrosion rates according to the current Method for Buried Pipeline Voltages Due To
density 60 Hz AC Inductive Coupling. Part II: Field
Test Verification.” IEEE Transactions on
Power Apparatus and Systems. Vol. PAS-98.
pp. 788-794. May/June 1979.
120

[8] A. M. Qabazard and M. A. Elhirbawy,”

Pipeline current density (A/m2)

100

Corrosion and Electromagnetic Field

Coupling in the State of Kuwait”, ESMO
80

th
60 2006, IEEE 11 . International conference on
transmission and distribution construction,
operation and live-line maintenance.
40

20 [9] “Power line induced AC potential on natural

gas pipelines for complex rights of way
configuration”, Vol. 2, EPRI EL-3106, project
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Pipeline length (km)
742-2 final report, May 1983.
Figure 9 pipeline AC current density in [10] http://www.ece.mtu.edu/atp/
[11] IEEE Recommended Practice for
CONCLUSIONS Determining the Electric Power
Station Ground Potential Rise and Induced
Voltage from a Power Fault, IEEE Std 367-
In this paper, the induced voltage along the length
2012 (Revision of IEEE Std 367-1996).
of the pipeline, due to capacitive coupling between
[12] M. Vakilian, K. Valadkhani, A. A. Shaigan, A.
the pipeline and OHTL, is calculated under normal
H. Nasiri and H. Gharagozlo, “A Method for
operating conditions. The inductive and conductive
Evauation and Mitigation of AC Induced
voltages are calculated in case of line to ground
Voltage on Buried Gas pipelines”, Scientia
fault. Also, the induced voltage along the length of
Iranica, Vol. 9, N0o. 4, pp. 311-320, October
the pipeline, under normal operating conditions, is
2002.
measured at different seasons and is compared
[13] K. Murakawa, H. Yamane, “Earthing
with the calculated values. Under normal operating
resistance measurement technique without
conditions, it is seen that there are some points,
using auxiliary electrodes”, IEEE
which are close to OHTL, have current densities
International Symposium on Electromagnetic
exceed 20 . So, the pitting corrosion is usually Compatibility, 2003. EMC 03. Pp. 213-216,
occurs at these points. 2003.
[14] C. Korasli, “Ground Resistance
REFERENCES Measurement with Fall-of-Potential Method
Using Capacitive Test Probes”, IEEE 11th
[1] Egyptian holding company volumes, vol.2, page International Conference on Transmission &
14. Distribution Construction, Operation and
[2] Institution of Gas Engineers and Managers Staff, Live-Line Maintenance, 15-19 Oct. ESMO
“Steel Pipeline and associated installations for 2006.
high pressure gas transmission” IGEM/TD/1 [15] A. Gupta, "A Study on High Voltage AC
Edition 5.2008. Power Transmission Line”. Indian Institute of
[3] Mohamed M. Saied, “The Capacitive Coupling Science. M.SC. Thesis. 2006
between EHV Lines and Nearby Pipelines”, IEEE [16] E. Sawma, B. Zeitoun, N. Harmouche, S.
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pp. 1225-1231, July 2004. “Electromagnetic Induction in Pipelines Due
[4] Hanafy M. Ismail, ” Effect of Oil Pipelines to Overhead High Voltage Power Lines”, 20
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Field Distribution”, IEEE Transactions on Power Technology

150
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[17] CP 3–Cathodic Protection Technologist Table 1: El-Kuorimate-Cairo power line

course manual NACE International, 2005.
[18] A. Q. Fu, and Y. F. Cheng , "Effects of Item Value
alternating current on corrosion of a coated MVA 575
pipeline steel in a chloride-containing Line voltage (r.m.s) in kV 500
carbonate/bicarbonate solution", Corrosion Length in km 124
Science, 52 (2010) 612–619. Positive & negative sequence
[19] M. A. Salam and A. Al-Shehri, “Induced 3.307+ j 14.053
impedance per phase in ohm
Voltages on Fence Wires and pipelines by Zero sequence impedance per 10.75+j45.67
AC Power Transmission Lines", IEEE phase in ohm
Transactions on Industry Applications, No of circuit per tower 1
Vol.30, No.2, pp. 341-349, 1994. No of conductors per phase 3
[20] K. J. Satsios, D. P. Labridis, and P. S. No of ground wires 2
Dokopoulos, " Finite Element Computation of
Diameter of a single conductor 30.6
Field and Eddy Currents of a System
in mm
Consisting of a Power Transmission Line
spacing between conductor in 47
above Conductors Buried in No Homogenous
the bundle in cm
Earth", IEEE Transactions on Power
Span in meter 400
Delivery, Vol. 13, No. 3, pp 876-882, 1998.
Table 2: Samaloute-Cairo power line
APPENDIX A
The following figures and tables give the Item Value
configurations and data of the El-Kuorimate- Cairo MVA 1000
power line, Samaloute- Cairo power line and Six Line voltage (r.m.s) in kV 500
October power line, respectively. Length in km 209
Positive & negative sequence 5.573 + j
impedance per phase in ohm 23.687
Zero sequence impedance per 18.22+j77.46
phase in ohm
No of circuit per tower 1
No of conductors per phase 3
No of ground wires 2
Diameter of a single conductor 30.6
in mm
Spacing between 47
conductor in the bundle in cm
Span in meter 400
Table 2: Six October power line

Item value
MVA 158/circuit
Line voltage (r.m.s) in kV 220
Length in km 90
Positive & negative sequence
Figure A1 Power line tower dimensions of 500kV 3.6+ j 15.3
impedance per phase in ohm
Zero sequence impedance per 12.2+j50.95
phase in ohm
No of circuit per tower 2
No of conductors per phase 2
No of ground wires 1
Diameter of a single conductor 27
in mm

Spacing between 30

conductor in the bundle in cm

Span in meter 360

Figure A2 Power line tower dimensions of 220 kV

151