Effect of DC electric field on water droplets' movement and icing process on insulator

Abstract

Icing has a great effect on insulation of power networks. In order to know the insulator icing properties under electric field and help simulating the icing process precisely, the effects caused by electric field are investigated in this research. Taking glass insulator LXY-120 as samples, the electric field were calculated, based on which, the movement of charged water droplets was analysed. The simulation results show that, the electric forces can change the trajectory of water droplets by different degree which is affected by the collided position, relative distance, wind velocity and the size of water droplet, and the biggest track shift happens under the insulator shed with a rate larger than 120%. As a result, the collision efficiency β1 can increase up to 23% while MVD and wind velocity are both small. Through a series of icing contrast experiments in an artificial climate chamber, it is proved that the electric field can promote the dry-growth icing process with more ice growing directions and a higher icing rate, meanwhile, it affects the wet-growth icing showing as bending icicles and a lower icicle growing rate.