TransUTion

As a result of the necessary replacement of fossil fuels by renewable energy, most of the energy distribution will become critically dependent upon the electricity network. This proposal aims at extending the modelling capabilities of how ultrasound guided waves propagate in, and then can probe the health state of Aluminium Conductor Steel-Reinforced (ACSR) cables, which are widely used to transfer electricity in overhead high power lines. Indeed, while the support of modelling is essential to properly design a non-destructive testing strategy, the state-of-the-art method for 7-wire strands – based on a Finite Elements representation of the cross-section – is too costly to be satisfactorily applied to the more complex geometry of an ACSR cable. Here we propose to develop a model reduction approach consisting in representing each wire as a beam, coupled to its neighbours with springs representing the contacts. We also propose to interrogate the validity of the model hypotheses with novel experimental data, by searching for tension-dependent wave phenomena which for 7-wire strands are known to inform about inter-wire contacts. The end goal is to serve the development of electricity network management based on structural integrity data.