Study on Factors Affecting Snow Shaking off with Mechanical Vibration from Trees Intruding Distribution Line Corridors

Space for power line corridors of distribution lines could be confined especially in agricultural or mountainous areas, where poorly maintained corridors are faced with challenge of the constant intrusion of neighbouring vegetation. With crowns covered with heavy layers of snow in winter, some of the trees eventually fall down or lean against adjacent distribution lines, inducing short-circuit faults or even breaking wires, threatening the safe delivery of electricity. Common maintenance methods for distribution line corridors, such as felling and removing trees intruding, may be limited by labor, economics factors or policies. Excusively designed vibrating motors are capable of shaking off snow covering trees adjacent to distribution line corridors without damaging them, and is listed as one of the feasible solutions to eliminate the threat. However, considering the staggering number of trees to handle, as well as the varied species and growth state of the trees, an unmatched vibration solution may cause damage to the roots of the trees, or fail to meet the demand for rapid and efficient removal of the covering snow. Through mathematical modeling, the influence of key vibration factors - such as clamping height and vibration frequency during the snow-removal process were studied in this paper. The dynamic effect of vibration on the both ends of the trees is abstracted and analyzed. The results show that appropriate selection of clamping height and vibration frequency improves the efficiency in snow-removal on trees near line corridors without damaging them, effectively preventing distribution line failures induced by trees leaning.