Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) is trialling ‘Smart Hammer’, a tool that provides quick and accurate assessments of the health of critical network infrastructure.
The £498,200 trial will take a place across its north and south networks over a 20-month period to explore how this innovation could deliver a new cost-effective approach to network maintenance.
SSEN is responsible for operating and maintaining the electricity distribution networks supplying over 3.8 million homes and businesses across central southern England and the north of Scotland. As part of this network, SSEN engineers and linespersons are responsible for maintaining over 925,000 wooden overhead line poles and the thousands of kilometers of overhead lines they support.
There are over 64,000 kilometers of overhead power lines across SSEN’s central southern England patch alone, including 43,375 kilometers of lines in SSEN’s South East region, serving its 750,000 customers in areas such as Chichester, Portsmouth, Aldershot, Basingstoke and the Isle of Wight.
The current assessment procedure for overhead line poles involves a linesperson striking a pole with a standard hammer and using the sound created as an indication of the state of the pole. This long-standing process, however, does not provide a detailed assessment and relies on the tester’s discretion to provide an indication of the pole’s state.
With Smart Hammer, any overhead linesperson can quickly capture consistent and specific data, resulting in a more complete understanding of a pole’s health and a consistent testing process. Data captured by Smart Hammer is then added to an online internal database, which will alert crews when a replacement is necessary.
The advantage of Smart Hammer is that it provides consistent and low-cost assessments and drives efficiency in inspections. More timely secondary inspection methods are then only used when required, allowing for more efficient planning of capital programs. Data provided by Smart Hammer is made available to all overhead assessment teams through the internal database, enabling a more complete and accurate assessment of pole health throughout SSEN’s network.
Kevin Dennis, Project Manager for Smart Hammer said:
“Smart Hammer provides an innovative opportunity to improve on a process that every network operator experiences. More detailed, accessible and consistent data will allow overhead linesperson and line inspectors to better assess overhead line poles in a cost-effective manner.
“If the trial across our north and south distribution areas is successful, we hope it will lead to widespread adoption of Smart Hammer, allowing for more efficient testing procedures throughout overhead assessment teams.”
Smart Hammer is a 20-month project that secured £498,200 in Network Innovation Allowance funding from Ofgem. The trial will run until April 2021 with the goal of being fully operational across SSEN’s network areas by November 2021.
It’s an established engineering maxim that if it ain’t working, you need a better hammer.
almost, the Island version is ‘a bigger hammer’.
Indeed, but that wouldn’t have fitted the story.
One must be allowed a little artistic licence, even in the Comments section.
So the old adage when using too much force as in ” Using a sledge hammer to crack a Walnut” will then have to be changed to “Using a smart hammer…….”
I agree and think ‘artistic licence’ is most important and keeps a little fun and edge on otherwise very dull subjects.
So how does it work?
Force transducer behind the nylon tip ch1, microphone on the other side of the hammer ch2. Twin channel Fast Fourier Transform analyser calculating a frequency response function and then a damping estimate by circle fit on the Nyquist plot?
Homomorphic deconvolution?
Or is it something new?
Na, its a wind up. Someone gave them a plastic hammer with some tinfoil wrapped around it and some buttons superglued on!…… “Hey Cleatus, theys gives us a smart haymer”.
Handy stuff, tinfoil. Protects you against that nasty 5G, you know.
Spectral touch, however it works, imo, it is unlikely to replace human experience.
BUT, and importantly, that ‘human’ can then not be ‘blamed’ now, if the computer chip says it is safe, then their butt is covered should a line collapse.
Whereas even IF their skills were better, one mistake and they could be ‘sued’.
So just a cop out using hi tech rather than the eyes, ears, and almost a sixth sense which experience brings.
Jeeze this subject is dullsville, perhaps the floating bridge crew will buy a crate full.
The idea behind such a device is to replace years of humam experience by comparing the results of a quick test by one inexperienced human with a database of similar measurments made by many other experienced and knowledgeable humans who have defined the pass fail criteria. Rely on this technology for a few years and you will have nobody left who can tell if a power pole is sound or not just by by wacking it with a mallet.
This subject is not dullsville because every tiny fragment of our lives relies on a constant supply of mains electricity.
I would like to know if SSEN know what they have bought and how it works.
..
I hope it works better than the drones and iHawks they introduced a few weeks ago to ‘keep the power flowing’ (it didn’t). Perhaps they need a magic hammer rather than a smart one. Or some Unicorns.
Or someone who knows how to use equipment
Wonder what the oracle has to say about this. No need for this new hammer just stop flicking the switch that cuts the power off