Novel conductor design to increase the thermal rating of overhead lines

Abstract

In this paper the performance of existing and novel designs of overhead bare conductors with regard to their capacity to evacuate the heat generated by ohmic losses is compared. The effect of both the diameter of strands and the external shape of the conductor on the convective heat transfer capacity are evaluated with a finite element method commercial software for an ACSR conductor with different diameter strands, wind velocities and conductor current, resulting in a design that improves the customary design by around a 7 % of thermal rating.