Experimental Study and Signal Analysis of Acoustic Emission from Typical Damages of Strain Clamps for Transmission Lines

Strain clamps (dead-end clamps) are critical components of transmission lines, whose operation status affects the safety and stability of the entire power system. It is essential to realize the detection of the crimping quality of strain clamps and achieve effective identification of damages in strain clamps. In this study, a test rig for strain clamp damage monitoring based on acoustic emission (AE) was designed and built to acquire AE signals generated by strain clamps which are respectively under-crimping, over-crimping and with cracks under different experimental conditions. It is found that the power spectrum of the AE signals generated by strain clamps with different crimping states is mainly concentrated in the range of 40 kHz to 100 kHz. However, additional power spectrum peaks are…