PAMM Proc. Appl. Math. Mech. 4, 115 116 (2004) / DOI 10.1002/pamm.

200410039

On the Dynamics of Bundled Conductors in Overhead Transmission Lines

Himanshu Verma 1 , Ashish M. Dighe2 , and Peter Hagedorn1
1 2

Institut f ur Mechanik, Technische Universt at Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany. Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India.

The Energy Balance Principle (EBP) is well established for estimating the vibration levels of wind induced oscillations of single overhead transmission lines. The mathematical model, wherein a conductor is treated as a continuous system, results in a transcendental eigenvalue problem (EVP), which gives numerical difculties in the case of bundled conductors. In this paper, different approaches for solving transcendental EVP and their relative merits are discussed. A new method named continuous spectrum approach provides a good engineering solution. Results from different approaches are compared.
2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

Introduction

In the vibration analysis of a continuous system, one comes across the transcendental eigenvalue problem. For example, the vibration analysis of bundled conductors with attached spacer dampers leads to [1, 2] J(s)a = 0 (1)

where the elements of the system matrix J are transcendental functions of the complex eigenvalue s (= + i ). There is a non-trivial solution to Eqn.(1) iff det (J (s)) = 0. (2)

The characteristic equation (2), being transcendental, has an infinite number of roots. For energy balance [1, 2, 3] it is sometimes required to calculate the rst thousand eigenvalues or so (in the frequency range of interest) and the corresponding eigenvectors of the transmission line system.

Determinant search method

This is the most common approach for solving the transcendental eigenvalue problem in which the roots of the characteristic polynomial are searched in the complex domain, so as to satisfy Eqn.(2). The nonlinear optimization function fsolve of M ATLAB 6.5 is used to this end. For bigger problems the elements of system matrix J(s) have a large difference in the order of their magnitudes. The difculty with this approach is that for bigger problems the function does not converge to zero, rather it sticks to minima. Hence, it requires additional checks to confirm whether the obtained values are eigenvalues of the system or not. Moreover, it is difcult to obtain all of the eigenvalues (even if good initial guesses are given) of bundled conductors with a large number of spacer dampers, because of the optimization criterion being poor conditioned.

Alternate approach

In this approach the numerical behavior is improved by avoiding the direct solution of the homogeneous problem of Eqn.(1). The homogeneous set of the equations is transformed into a non-homogeneous one, which satises Eqn.(2) implicitly. The proposed algorithm is as follows : 1. Eqn.(1) is a system of P - homogeneous linear-simultaneous equations, which can also be written as
P

Jj,k (s)ak = 0,
k=1

j = 1, 2, 3, . . . , P.

(3)

2. Substitute ar = C ; (1 r P ) in any (P 1) equations and solve the resulting system of non-homogeneous linear simultaneous equations for ak (k = r). Here C is some constant, e.g. equal to 1.

Corresponding author: e-mail: himanshu@mechanik.tu-darmstadt.de, Phone: +49 6151 16 2486, Fax: +49 6151 16 4125

2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

Section 1

116

3. Use this solution and substitute in the remaining equation, say the lth equation, and dening the error as
P

Jl,k (s)ak = .
k=1

(4)

An optimization is now performed nding values for s, in complex domain, for which || equals (or tends to) zero. This approach leads to a procedure which has an improved numerical behavior, converging faster than the determinant search.

Continuous spectrum approach

In problems where the frequency spectrum is very dense, as is the case of the bundled conductors, one may substitute the continuous frequency spectrum by a discrete one [4]. This means that corresponding to each there exits an eigenvalue, satisfying Eqn.(2). For a given circular frequency it is still important to know the factor , representing the damping of the corresponding mode. Therefore, the problem now is to find the corresponding for a given . This simplication converts our 2-D optimization problem (in complex domain) to a 1-D (in real domain) one. It should be noted here that the corresponding eigenvectors are still needed for the energy balance.

Results

To compare the effectiveness of the described approaches, a representative example problem of a bundled conductor has been considered. A quad bundled transmission line of span length 140 m has been taken. It carries two quad spacer dampers, which are attached respectively at 40 m and 90 m, from the left end. Both the spacer dampers are taken of the same type. The diameter of the conductor is 17.5 mm and its mass per unit length is 0.981 kg/m. The tension in all four conductors is 50 kN. The transcendental EVP was solved with the above described approaches and the eigenvalues were searched in the frequency range of 20 to 30 Hz. Fig.1 compares the obtained eigenvalues from these three approaches. As the system eigenfrequencies are very closely spaced, for a better illustration only the eigenvalues in the frequency range of 24.5 to 26.5 Hz are shown in Fig.1. In the gure, the damping ratios are plotted over the frequency in Hz. Because of their small values, the damping ratios are plotted on a log-scale. It can be observed that there are many eigenvalues, which were either missed by the determinant search method or by the alternate approach. The continuous curve, which has been obtained by the continuous spectrum approach, passes through all the eigenvalues found from the other two approaches. It was later observed that all the peaks in the continuous curve represent the system eigenvalues, as can also be seen from Fig.1. On the basis of this fact, one can easily conclude that the continuous spectrum approach is a useful tool in nding the eigenvalues (and eigenvectors) in bundled conductors.
Determinant search method Alternate approach Continuous spectrum approach
10
3

Damping ratio =

2 + 2

10

24.5

25

25.5

26

26.5

Frequency in Hz =
Fig. 1

Eigenvalues obtained by different methods (24.5 to 26.5 Hz)

References
[1] Verma, H., and Hagedorn, P., 2004. Wind Induced Vibrations of Long Span Electrical Overhead Transmission Lines: A Modied Approach. Submitted to Wind and Structures. [2] Hagedorn, P., Mitra, N., and Hadulla, T., 2002. Vortex-Excited Vibrations in Bundled Conductors: A Mathematical Model. Journal of Fluids and Structures, 16(7) , pp. 843854. [3] Anderson, K., and Hagedorn, P., 1995. On the Energy Dissipation in Spacer-Dampers in Bundled Conductors of Overhead Transmission Lines. Journal of Sound and Vibration, 180(4) , pp. 539556. [4] Hagedorn, P., 1982. On the Computation of Damped Wind Excited Vibrations of Overhead Transmission Lines. Journal of Sound and Vibration, 83(2) , pp. 253271.
2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim