Study on the collision efficiency of water droplets approaching an energized conductor

The main objective of this paper is to calculate the collision efficiency of small water droplets collected by a smooth conductor using the water droplet motion equation. As the conductor is energized, the exerted force on the droplets is a combination of electrical, drag, buoyance, and gravity forces. To simplify the problem, laminar flow was chosen to model the air flow around the conductor and coaxial cylinders were used to generate the electric field on the surface of the conductor. When an electric field is present, water droplet is attracted to the conductor. According to the simulation results, when a conductor surface electric strength of 15 kV/cm is applied, the collision efficiency was increased from 0.519 to 0.728 and the maximum contact angle was increased from 68.2° to 78.7°. The numerical simulation method used in this paper may be applied to the study of ice accretion on transmission lines.