Revamped high ampacity low sag stranded carbon fiber composite core – aluminium conductor fiber reinforced conductor (ACFR)

Globally ACSR and AAAC conductors are commonly used as overhead conductors for energy delivery application. High density transmission corridors are the need of energy utilities to optimise the right of way. So the use of High Ampacity Low Sag conductors (HALS) has been increased to address the increasing congestions in the existing transmission network. There are several types of HALS conductor technology are tested and deployed by all major global power transmission utilities. The selection of suitable HALS technology considering the requirements with respect to increase in power transfer capacity, exiting ground clearance, existing tower loadings and cost of capital investment is not only the deciding factor but also the operational efficiency (ohmic losses) over a period of its life time and installation of those conductors in the existing terrain are the major parameters needs to be considered for the right technology adoption.

Now a day, the carbon fiber composite core conductor technology has been preferred by the utilities among the HALS conductor technology because of high strength to weight ratio, lower thermal expansion and no creep (almost zero creep). The popular composite core technology are mostly a single core or several number of single wires bunched together. But the challenges of this popular carbon fiber composite core conductor technology is flexibility, which needs careful handling and care needs to be taken during installation. After several years of research to address the challenges in the carbon fiber composite technology we developed a technology to strand the carbon fiber composite material to form a stranded carbon fiber composite core (just like stranded steel core used in ACSR conductors) to make it flexible and easy to handle during installation. This paper describes about the development, testing, deployment and applications of the revamped carbon fiber composite core conductor technology named as Aluminium Conductor Fiber Reinforced Conductor (ACFR)