Simulation Research on Cross-Sectional Stability of Expanded Diameter Conductors Based on ANSYS

The expanded diameter conductors are widely used for high voltage electricity power transmission due to its superior ability to prevent electronic corona phenomenon. However an undesired stability problem of wire distribution configuration within the cross-section of the conductor often occurs during the power line stringing processes, especially for the not-well-designed conductor structures. This phenomenon is typically characterized by the appearance of outer wire/wires jumping out of the layer; therefore it is also referred as wire jump-out problem. Finite element model which can predict the wire jump-out phenomenon has been successfully developed in this research project. Series of stimulations have been carried out to investigate the key factors to cause the wire jump-out problem. The reduction of radial distances between the adjacent aluminum wire layers due to the obvious indentation deformation at the trellis contact points were identified to be one of the most significant factors to lead to the wire jump-out problem. Numerical results show that keeping sufficient initial gap between the adjacent outer layer wires in the initial design can be a simple effective way to relieve/avoid the wire jump-out problem.