An expert system for condition assessment of ACSR conductors

Energized ACSR conductors of overhead power transmission lines gradually degrade due to the thermal impact and environmental pollution over a long period of time. This paper introduces an expert system designed to diagnose the condition of overhead power conductors. The expert system is able to predict the deterioration level using a fuzzy inference paradigm based on important environmental phenomena including ambient weather conditions and atmospheric pollution. Weather parameters at each tower location of a transmission line were extracted from a weather database. The estimated amount of pollutants at each tower location were derived from the historical data sets of the National Pollutant Release Inventory. Output of the proposed expert system is the spatial distribution of conductor deterioration grades that can be used to predict the remaining life of the energized conductor. Moreover, the spatial nature of this nondestructive diagnostic tool allows its use for better scheduling of line inspections, maintenance, and refurbishment.