A Finite-Element Approach for Electric Field Computation at the Surface of Overhead Transmission Line Conductors

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a modified approach for the electric field computation at the surface of overhead transmission line (TL) conductors through the finite-element method (FEM). The proposed strategy is based on a spatial transformation, well-known as Kelvin transformation, resulting in a special way to treat the unbounded domain. Unlike other applications of the FEM in TLs, the suggested procedure aims to reduce the computational domain and the solution time, allowing an efficient numerical evaluation of the electric potential gradients, without the need of geometric simplifications of the conductors. Comparative results show that a more realistic treatment offers a better understanding of how electric fields operate near real conductors and, in addition, that the proposed approach can be used to provide an accurate design for conductor systems in TLs.