Ice formation on different hydrophobic aluminum conductor surface

Ice accretion on high voltage power lines is a severe problem for power network and it can cause insulator flashover, wire breakage and tower falling down. In the present work, different hydrophobic surfaces were deposited on aluminum conductor and the ice accretion process on these hydrophobic aluminum surfaces were studied in an artificial climatic chamber. The superhydrophobic aluminum surface can largely prevent ice accretion on the surface except a few ice growth at the edge of the aluminum conductor when it was sprayed by supercooled water under low temperature. While the hydrophobic aluminum surface deposited with a coating of RTV did resist ice formation in a short time but was covered by a intact layer of ice after being sprayed for 30 min at the same condition. The common hydrophilic aluminum conductor has been covered by a intact layer of ice in no more than 1 min spraying time. This is resulted from the different hydrophobicity of the aluminum conductor. As the superhydrophobic conductor has an excellent hydrophobicity and water droplet can not adhere on the surface stablely, which result no ice crystal to be formed on the aluminum surface. However the hydrophobic RTV coated aluminum conductor has a water sliding angle larger than 90°, which result the formation of ice layer gradually. The hydrophilic aluminum can be wetted by water droplets easily, which result the layer of ice to be formed quickly when it was sprayed by supercooled water under low temperature.