Abstract. In this contribution, similarities and differences
between electrical and thermal effects on cables are investigated. In the
electrical transmission line theory, a wide variety of methods is known to
describe the voltage and current along cables. The potential for the
adaption of some of those methods to thermal problems is discussed.
Exemplarily, for an unshielded single cable, an analytical solution based on
the Laplace transform and an approach based on cascaded equivalent circuits
are compared with a numerical reference solution and measurement results.