EVALUATION OF THE EFFECT OF VERTICAL FAULTS ON THE VOLTAGE DISTRIBUTION AROUND HVDC ELECTRODES USING A SUPERCOMPUTER

This paper presents an effective method to evaluate the electric field, the voltage distribution and the current density in the earth near geological faults. In order to quantify the effect of HVDC electrodes, it is necessary to determine the voltage distribution and current flow in the ground. Electrostatic theory is used to generate a voltage solution which must satisfy the Laplace equation and boundary conditions along vertical faults. The voltage distribution around a HVDC toroidal electrode is shown for an actual case. The image theory is used to take into account the effect of vertical faults and horizontal soil layers. A supercomputer is utilised to generate a sufficient amount of images in order to insure that the boundary conditions are met within a desired accuracy. © 1990 IEEE