Icing and Anti-Icing of Railway Contact Wires

Abstract

The icing of overhead electrical transmission lines, or railway contact wires, may cause a series of problems such as overloading, non-uniform icing, and wire galloping. In countries with cold climates such as the U.S.A., Canada, China, glaze and rime deposits on power transmission lines and electrical railway contact wires are crucial problems for engineers and scientists working in these fields. Power cables and towers have been damaged or destroyed on numerous occasions due to the added burden of the ice or an increase in aerodynamic interaction leading to unacceptable movement such as galloping. The research on the mechanisms of icing and anti-icing is both a basis of transmission line design and a new objective of the environmental thermophysics study.