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HVDC cables start playing a more and more important role in interconnecting national grids. This paper deals with the calculation of electric fields in HVDC cables. The calculation of fields in an HVDC cable is far more complex than the equivalent case in HV ac cables. This is due to the fact that the conductivity of the cable insulation is temperature and field dependent and due to the fact that the electric fields under dc voltage may be time-dependent. The field distribution in an HVDC cable may be of a capacitive, intermediate (and time-dependent) or resistive nature. The kind of field depends on the stage the cable finds itself in: for instance, whether the voltage has just been applied, whether a polarity reversal has occurred or whether the field distribution has become stable. For each stage, the method of calculating, together with the computed results on a real HVDC cable are discussed. Usually, the effect of heating of the insulation by the leakage current may be disregarded. However, in certain cases, i.e. the cable temperature and applied voltage are high enough, the field distribution is influenced by these insulation losses. They even may lead to an instability that causes breakdown of the cable. A cable in service may be subjected to impulses superimposed on the dc voltage. The most severe case is that of an impulse superimposed on a dc voltage of opposite polarity. The calculation of the field distribution in this situation also is carried out.

HVDC cables play an important role in a growing number of HVDC links. For almost all of these cables, mass impregnated paper is used as electrical insulation. The electrical conductivity of this insulation is given by a commonly used empirical formula. This formula takes into account the temperature and stress dependency of the conductivity. This paper derives a physics-based equation describing ionic conduction. In good approximation this theoretical formula gives the same results as the empirical one. This makes it most likely that the conduction in paper mass impregnated cables is of the ionic kind. The derived formula uses some physical parameters like the inter-potential well distance, the potential well depth and the carrier concentration. Numerical values of these quantities for mass impregnated paper are given. According to the proposed model, the stress dependency results from the inter-potential well distance only. The temperature dependency results merely from the depth of the potential energy wells. In addition some possible underlying physical processes are described.