Collision characteristics of water droplets during conductor icing considering droplet size distribution

Existing conductor icing models primarily rely on four environmental parameters: median volume diameter (MVD) of water droplets, liquid water content, wind speed, and ambient temperature, while giving limited attention to droplet size distribution characteristics. This study adopts the Langmuir droplet size distribution spectrum as a basis to develop finite element and analytical models for simulating water droplet collision characteristics on conductors. It compares the water droplet collision coefficient α₁ calculated using the droplet size distribution spectrum with that obtained using MVD. Additionally, the concept of the characteristic median volume diameter d_x is introduced. Results show that, compared to the finite element method, the analytical method offers significant advantages in terms of simplicity and computational efficiency, with an average error of approximately 0.1. The error Δα₁ between α₁ calculated using MVD and that derived from the size distribution spectrum depends on the distance between MVD and d_x. The closer MVD is to d_x, the smaller the Δα₁ is, and vice versa.