Quantitative Analysis of the Impact of Harmonics on Ampacity of ACSR Using Finite Element Simulation

This paper proposes a novel approach to evaluate the impact on ampacity of the aluminum conductor steel reinforced (ACSR) induced by the harmonics. This approach is conceived from the following ideas. First, the Bessel function is used to solve the Maxwell equations of the ACSR, so as to derive the expression of distribution of current density for the ACSR. Based on it, considering the harmonic heating, the analytical expression of the ampacity of the transmission line is modeled by using the heat balance equation. Finally, a two-position finite element model of the ACSR is established in COMSOL to verify the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed approach by injecting different harmonic distortion. The results demonstrate that harmonics can definitely reduce the maximum ampacity of ACSR, especially in the case of poor heat dissipation conditions, i.e. (1) low wind speed and (2) high temperature.