Development of reduced-scale tests for HTLS substation connectors
Power distribution networks face the upcoming challenge of managing the increase of power demand predicted worldwide. Power grid capacity is limited by the number of lines deployed and their characteristics, including conductor section, spacing, or number of phases, among others. Building new lines...
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| Formato: | tesis doctoral |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2018 |
| País: | España |
| Recursos: | CBUC, CESCA |
| Repositorio: | TDR. Tesis Doctorales en Red |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:www.tdx.cat:10803/663151 |
| Acesso em linha: | http://hdl.handle.net/10803/663151 https://dx.doi.org/10.5821/dissertation-2117-122694 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palavra-chave: | Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Enginyeria elèctrica 537 |
| Resumo: | Power distribution networks face the upcoming challenge of managing the increase of power demand predicted worldwide. Power grid capacity is limited by the number of lines deployed and their characteristics, including conductor section, spacing, or number of phases, among others. Building new lines is costly and faces population opposition in many places. Therefore, a new conductor technology designed to upgrade the existing power lines has arisen. This technology, known as High Temperature Low-Sag (HTLS), permits the rise of capacity of existing power lines without modifying the supporting structures. Nowadays, the conductor technology is mature and under commercialization. But, there is the need to design and assess the behaviour of some auxiliary accessories needed to operate power lines equipped with HTLS conductors. Specifically, the substation connector industry is still developing HTLS substation connectors. From all the design process, the validation of the performance of these products is still a milestone. Currently, the tests performed to hardware for power lines are costly in terms of required infrastructures, testing time, power requirements, monetary cost and environmental affectation. Moreover, many of these tests can only be performed in few facilities all around the world. Furthermore, from an industrial scope, there is a growing interest to obtain the data of such tests in onsite industrial laboratories. Thus, this thesis develops a set of reduced-scale tests equivalent to the ones performed on full-scale connectors to validate the performance of the new designs. This thesis also performs a critical review of some of the methodologies that currently are being applied to assess products lifetime, and proposes the use of modern approaches. Concluding, this document aims to develop a series of test procedures that provide data about the validity of the newly required substation connectors designs in a cheaper, faster, and environmentally-friendlier way, whilst allowing to test the connectors in industrial laboratories, which have much less requirements than those of the full-scale test, since the later often require to be carried out in singular and scarce facilities. |
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