A review of mechanical analysis of submarine power cables

Submarine power cables play a vital role in transporting electricity between energy-producing devices and consumers. As these devices head to deeper and more distant sea areas with stronger wind and tidal energy, power cables connecting with them would suffer harsher ocean environments, which could corner the cables into failure situations. Mechanical stresses and strains inside power cables are one of the major reasons that influence the overall life and ultimate failures of the structures. Thus the mechanical analysis of them becomes crucial and valuable. Study of mechanical responses of the power cable is complex because inside it there are many layers, which contain various material properties, geometries and surface topographies and, therefore, make the analysis challenging. This paper reviews the history and the recent advances on mechanical studies of power cables and highlights the gaps in existing methods, aiming to facilitate the current mechanical design and cross-section optimization.