Fourier Enhanced Charge Simulation Method for Electrostatic Analysis of Overhead Transmission Lines

A computationally efficient charge simulation method is developed for three-dimensional electrostatic calculations involving parallel high voltage transmission conductors near a cloud of point charges. The conductors are modeled using axial line charge density segments, each with linearly varying charge density. A typical problem involves solving for the line charge densities and point charge values given the system geometry and voltage boundary conditions. The method was developed to support ongoing research into high voltage transmission line optimization using the external electric field to link transmission capacity and switching impulse flashover. The method uses superposition and applies Fourier principles to reduce computational burden by moving portions of the problem to the spatial frequency domain. Computation time can be significantly reduced relative to an all-spatial charge simulation approach. Examples involving bundled transmission conductors show measured computation time improvement and compare space potential and electric field results to those obtained from finite element analysis.