Kinematics of cable creepage

Cables laid in underground ducts may experience movement in the direction o f dominant traffic flow. This phenomenon, so called cable creepage, has bee n known for a long time but its mechanism has not been clearly understood y et. In this paper, an exact mechanism of creepage phenomenon is proposed in which cable creepage is interpreted as accumulation of relative frictional slip developed in the process of kinematic interaction between the flexibl e cable and the duct which experiences deformation propagating into the veh icle traffic direction. This kinematic interaction is formulated as frictio nal contact problem and an appropriate analysis method is developed. It is confirmed from the calculated results that creepage can occur according to the proposed mechanism.