Experimentation on ablation of polymer plastics by CW laser for high voltage transmission lines

High-voltage and ultra-high-voltage power grids are important physical transmission grids for long-distance and largescale electric power transmission in electric systems. Transmission lines exposed to natural environment are often entangled by non-metallic foreign bodies, which are liable to cause major power supply accidents, so foreign bodies must be removed. Because the high-voltage line is far from the ground and the environment is complex, it is difficult to remove foreign bodies. Traditionally, electricians or robots remove foreign bodies from high-voltage lines after power failure, foreign bodies in high-voltage lines are removed by equipotential method in live operation. These methods require more manpower and physical resources, and the operation procedures are complex and time-consuming, the work intensity is high, and the safety is low. Laser has many advantages, such as good directionality, fast speed, high energy density, flexibility and accuracy, it has a good application prospect in the field of removing foreign bodies from transmission grids. In order to remove foreign bodies from high voltage transmission lines safely and quickly, the ablative mechanism of polymer plastics by CW laser is analyzed and an experimental device for laser ablation of polymer plastics is set up. In this article, experiments were carried out to study the ablation of polymer plastics wound on high voltage transmission lines by CW lasers with different power at different distances. The experimental results show that the laser power for ablating polymer plastics will increase greatly with the increase of distance. When the laser power is 50W, the maximum distance of ablating polymer plastics is 35m.With a similar situation, when the power is 100W, the maximum distance is 80m. And when the power is 150W, the maximum distance is 100m. The maximum distance is 150 m when the power is 300W.