Finite difference method and Pspice simulation

applied to the coaxial cable in a linear temperature

gradient
H. Mokhtari
A. Nyeck
C. Tosser-Roussey
A. Tosser-Roussey

Indexing terms. Simulation, Coaxial components

lies in a medium whose temperature increases linearly

Abstract: An application of the finite difference against the depth variable, say X . Thus, the leading equa-
method and a Pspice simulation for the calcu- tions can be written as follows:
lation of the attenuation and phase in a coaxial
cable submerged in a linear temperature gradient
is proposed. The two methods thus used are then
compared for various cable lengths. Also, both
accuracy and run time for various cable lengths
using the two described methods are compared to dx = -(C + j C o ) V ( x )
optimise the calculations and even choose which
of them would be handled easier for further It is assumed that the resistance can be written as
similar applications. R ( x ) = RO + Ax. However, the remaining distributed
parameters are assumed to be constant only because their
physical properties do not markedly vary with tem-
1 Introduction
perature.
Let us now replace eqns. 1 and 2 by their correspond-
The well known propagation equation of electromagnetic ing finite difference equations [4].
waves [l] in a coaxial cable for uniform temperature dis- Hence, the new equations are given by
tribution is quite easy to solve, but the depth-dependent
temperature is an open problem because the differential V,,, - V, = - Ax(R, + j L o ) I ,
equations are more complicated. I,,, - I , = - Ax(G + jCw)V,
A typical application medium is the natural earth
linear temperature gradient where the cable can be sub- Where,
merged for seismic activity studies or oil detection. R, = RO + AnAx
The solution proposed in this paper concerns the finite
difference method (FDM) applied to a coaxial cable in a V , = V(nAx)
linear temperature gradient. We have implemented a
Pspice simulation [ 2 ] to compare both precision and effi- and
ciency of the two calculation methods. The value of the I, = I(nAx)
characteristic impedance is quite difficult to define
because the analytical model requires numerical solution n E [0, N - I]
techniques taking into account the input and the output
According to Fig. 1, the boundary condition at the
boundary conditions [3].
output (i.e. at x = L , L : cable length) is required for com-
Since Pspice handles complicated matrix equations, we
puting the voltage attenuation at a given frequency.
have studied a simple and versatile method, namely
Thus, we write the inverse of the attenuation in the form
FDM, based on the subdivision of the cable into elemen-
given beow
tary quadripoles where, locally, the temperature is
assumed to be constant but increases proportionally with
the distance. (4)

2 Theory The load admittance is given by the boundary condition

Starting from the usual propagation equation applied to 1,

a coaxial cable [l], we try to generalise the equations by GL = v,
superimposing the fact that the whole of the studied cable
By substituting eqn. 5 in eqns. la and 2a, with
Paper 8439A (S8), first received 25th March and in revised form 8th n = N - 1, yields
July 1991
The authors are with Laboratoire de Mkcatronique Industrielle ENIM, VN
-=
1 + LCw2Ax2 - j R N - l C o A x 2
Ile de Saulcy, 57045 Metz, France VN-, 1+ R N - , G,Ax + j L o C L A x
IEE PROCEEDINGS-A, Vol. 139, N o . I ,J A N U A R Y 1992 39
bearing in mind that G, the transverse conductance of the studied case). A PC has been used for numerical evalu-
cable dielectric medium, is assumed to be negligible in ation of FDM equations; one megabyte is required for
most cases. the computation. The FDM and Pspice computed varia-
tions in the attenuations and phase with the frequency
are given in Fig. 2 for a series of cable lengths. From a
o

6or
V," - 'load 50
P

b % 40
630
0
20
c

"10
I I I I I l l 1 1

IO 100
frequency, kHz
, I I I
0 Ax 2Ax nAx (n+l)Ax (N-lIAx NAx 5 Fig. 2 Attenuation against frequency for L = 500,1000 and 1500 m
Fig. 1 Equivalent circuit for coaxial cable subdivision, definition 01 -@- 500mFDM
elementary subcircuits for Pspice simulations andfinite-difference method -0- 500 m Pspice
-A- IOOOmFDM
-A- loo0 m Pspice
According to eqn. 4 the phase delay between the input -=-
-0-
1500mFDM
I500 m Pspice
and the output of the voltage is given by the following
relation:
rough physical point of view, the extended modelising
a)= k1%
=l
(7) cell must be much smaller than the wavelength in the
range of frequencies of the experiment. The elementary
where the general term of this finite summation, ch, is cell length is 1 m and the shortest wavelength (i.e. for
derived from eqn. 6 f= 100 kHz) is lambda = 3 km, which effectively satisfies
the above condition. The FDM obtained results are in
+ R k - , G , A x ) R k - , CoAx'
~

]
(1 good agreement with the Pspice simulation. No marked
ch, = -tg-l
[ +(1 + L C W ~ A ~ ~ ) L C W G , A X
1 + L C O ~ A X+~R,- G , Ax
As attempted, a negative value of the phase delay
(8)
deviation is observed except for lower values of cable
lengths (i.e. for L = 500 m) where a more refined subdivi-
sion would be required especially for the highest fre-
quencies because the wavelength decreases and
between the input and the output signals is obtained. consequently the above mentioned approximation for the
The following mathematical identity [ 5 ] has been used discretised model slightly fails.
for a convenient calculation of eqn. 8: In Fig. 2, the agreement betwene the Pspice simulation
and the FDM results for L = lo00 m seem better than
tg-l(u) - tg-'(u) = t g - 1

where U and U are real variables.

lx}
{-
3 Results
Obviously, it is quite difficult to create a linear tem-
perature gradient having the same temperature coefficient
as the studied case (earth natural linear temperature
gradient) and the use of measured data is thus impossible.
The values of the coaxial cable parameters at room
temperature, usually defined as R , L, C , G, are RO =
468e - 4 Ohm/m, C = 12e - 11F/m, L = 5.6e - 6H/m,
G = 0 (Neglected in general but tan be added, for high-
loss transmission lines). These values are taken as an
example and can be changed for any other special cable
types.
The distance-dependent temperature coefficient is
taken to be 0.03"C/m. The value for this distance-
dependant temperature coefficient represents the varia-
tion coefficient for the earth natural temperature gradient
introduced as an example of typical application. Both
internal and external conductors are built from copper
and the resistance-dependant temperature coefficient then
takes the usual value of 1/240"C.
For the sake of comparison the load impedance is
(9) for L = 1500 m. It is an unexpected result but the differ-
ences between the two models are quite negligible. The
differences, for the attenuations, between Pspice and the
FDM results are for L = 1000 m, AAtt (Average) =
0.5 dB and 0.6 dB for L = 1500 m which are approx-
imately equal. Even for higher frequencies, these differ-
ences do not markedly vary except for the shortest cables.
As has been previously pointed out, the subdivision
must be established according to both freqency of the
propagated signal and the cable length. Where
L = 500 m, taking Ax = 0.5 m for example, should
provide a more representative attenuation and phase and
consequently less discrepancies, especially for higher fre-
quencies, with the Pspice simulation model. Furthermore,
it is important to note that attenuation derives from a
finite product eqn. 4 and the phase derives from a finite
summation (eqn. 7) which would affect the precision of
the computations especially for the longest cables for the
attenuation, and for the shortest cables for the phase as is
clearly seen in Figs. 2 and 3.
The well known formulation of the following charac-
teristic impedance:
+
z,= /[
R(t"C) jLw
G jCo + 1
cannot be conveniently applied for variations in tem-
(10)

taken to be equal to 50 Ohms (purely resistive in this perature. However, for a uniformly distributed tem-
40 IEE PROCEEDINGS-A, Vol. 139, N o . I , J A N U A R Y 1992
perature the variations in the characteristic impedance
for a series of temperature can be obtained (Fig. 4).
The run time computation ratio is given in Table 1.
The results are in good agreement when the cable is suffi-
the phase does not vary when the cx2 term is added to
the resistance function.
The run time computation ratio, in this quadratic
function case, is given in Table 2. This clearly shows that
the FDM procedure is faster than the general Pspice for
solving this propagation problem.

50r

10 100
frequency, k H z
201 I I 1 I I 1 1 1 1
Fig. 3 Phase againstfrequency for L = 500, 1000 and 1500 m 10 100

-.-
-0- SMmFDM frequency, kHz
-0- 5M m Pspice
-A- 1000mkDM Fig. 5 Aftenuation against frequency for L = IO00 m, R(x) =
--A- IMO m Pspice +
a bx + cx’
1500mFDM -0- loo0 m Pspice
-0- 1500 m Pspiu -0- 1OOOmFDM

110,

-500
10 100
60
10 100 frequency, k H z
frequency, k H z
Fig. 6 Phase againstfrequency for L = 1000 m, R(x) = a + bx + ex2
Fig. 4 Characteristic impedance against frequency for uniformly -0- l m m Pspice
varying temperature -H- IOOOmFDM

Table 2: Variations in the reduced calculation time with

cable lenath
Table 1 : Variations in the reduced calculation time with
Cable length f(Pspice)/f(FDM)
cable lenath
- ~

L=1000m 1.755
Cable length f(Pspice)/f(FDM)
L=500m 1322
L = 1000 m 1.541
L=1500m 1.659 4 Conclusion

The FDM procedure applied to the modelisation of the

ciently long to assume the discretising elementary cell
representative. Fortunately, the linear temperature gra-
dient increases the resistance slightly; the situation would
be quite difficult for strong variation cases because the
FDM model or the Pspice simulation program would
require more subdivisions and consequently more run
times.
As a second example, a quadratic variation for the
resistance with the distance (i.e. the resistance is assumed
to vary as R ( x ) = a + bx + cx’, where c = 2e - 7 Q/m2)
has been studied. The results are given in Figs. 5 and 6.
The coefficients a, b are retained from the previous linear
temperature variation case, however c is taken to be a
weak increasing coefficient.
As shown in Figs. 5 and 6, the new function
+
R ( x ) = a bx + cx2 affects the attenuation as expected.
However, the phase is not varying markedly from the
linear temperature gradient case. The likely reason for
this result is that the general expression term in eqn. 8 for
electromagnetic wave propagation is a fast alternative
procedure of the Pspice simulation for the calculation of
the attenuation and phase along the coaxial cable in
either the studied case of a linearly temperature depen-
dent resistance or quadratic function. This method could
be extended to other variations in the resistance against
the depth variable but the convergence must be re-
examined in this case. The FDM procedure can be easily
implemented with the aid of a PC and is faster than the
Pspice simulation.
5 References
1 KRAUS, J.D.:‘Electromagnetics’ (McGraw-Hill, 1973)
2 Pspice technical reference. MicroSim corporation, 1989
3
4
ANGOT, A.: ‘Compliments de mathematiques’ (Masson, 1982)
HAMMING, R.W.: ‘Numerical methods for scientists and engineers’
(McGraw-Hill, 1962)
5 GRADSHTEYN, I.S., and RYZHIK, I.M.: ’Table of integrals, series,
and products’ (Academic Press, 1980)

I E E PROCEEDINGS-A, Vol. 139, N o . I , J A N U A R Y 1992 41