Modeling of icing and ice shedding on overhead power lines based on statistical analysis of meteorological data

Statistical analysis of meteorological data for icing and ice shedding on overhead power-line conductors was performed. The data studied were recorded during the 57 icing events (1659 h), which occurred in the period between February 1998 and January 2000 at the Mont Be´lair icing test site in Quebec, Canada. The analysis aims at establishing shape and statistical parameters of the transfer functions representing the correlations between hourly icing rate and the variations of the following meteorological variables: ambient temperature, hourly number of ice-rate meter signals, wind speed and direction, and freezing precipitation rate. Two different regimes of the ice formation process, in-cloud icing, and freezing precipitation icing, are considered for characterizing ice events. The set of fitting regression curves obtained is the statistical base for creating an empirical probabilistic icing, and ice shedding model for studying and forecasting atmospheric-icing loads on overhead power-line conductors.