The impacts of electric harmonics on mining cables must be taken into account because of a large amount of non-linear industrial load in the power distribution system for a mine. An assessment method of impacts of harmonics on capacity and steady temperature of the mining high-voltage XLPE cable is established by analyzing the additional power loss caused by the harmonic current. Reduction factor of transmission capacity is defined to quantify the capacity reduction in the presence of harmonics

and to determine the activation value for triggering current protection. A formula of steady temperature rise involving the harmonics for three-core cable is put forward on the basis of the formula for single-core cable to predict steady temperature rise. Considering the positive dependence of the power loss on temperature

an electromagnetic-thermal coupling model of the XLPE cable is built with the finite element analysis software ANSYS. The model is adopted to validate the analytic procedures

and to simulate the temperature rise and capacity of the mining XLPE cable. Example shows that the proposed methods are efficient in design

type selection

monitoring

and protection of the mining XLPE cable under non-sinusoidal currents.