Combined models for glaze ice accretion and de-icing of current-carrying electrical conductors

The ice storm of 1998 in northeastern North America caused much damage to the electrical installations of TransEnergie, the transmission provider in Quebec. Consequently, efforts to mitigate the effects of future ice storms have been deployed. A companion paper describes a project to deploy de-icing strategies over a region afflicted by an ice storm. It relies on a core computation that determines the current magnitudes and application times required to melt the ice off of energized conductors. This paper describes and compares the theory behind three de-icing models for transmission lines. The latter two models are new; they expand on a well-known de-icing computation by adding extra information about the ice buildup and the ice/water transition on the outer and inner surfaces of the ice sleeve, respectively.