Active Vibration-Based Condition Monitoring of a Transmission Line

Abstract

In the power system, the transmission tower is located in a variety of terrains. Sometimes there will be displacement, inclination, settlement and other phenomena, which eventually lead to the collapse of the tower. In this paper, a method for monitoring the settlement of a transmission tower based on active vibration response is proposed, which is based on the principle of modal identification. Firstly, a device was designed, which includes three parts: a monitoring host, wireless sensor and excitation device. It can tap the transmission tower independently and regularly, and collect the vibration response of the transmission tower. Then, vibration analysis experiments were used to validate the horizontal vibration responses of transmission towers which can be obtained by striking the transmission towers from either the X direction or Y direction. It can be seen from the frequency response function that the natural frequencies obtained from these two directions are identical. Finally, the transmission tower settlement experiment was carried out. The experimental results show that the third to fifth natural frequencies decreased most obviously, even up to 2.83 Hz. Further, it was found that under different conditions, as long as the tower legs adjacent to the excitation position settle, the natural frequency will decrease more significantly, which is very helpful for engineering application.