The LineSmarts overhead power line tension measurement function enables the use of android tablet or smartphone devices to safely and efficiently measure:

• Conductor blowout and sag clearances to structures
• Conductor blowout and sag clearances to vegetation
• Falling tree clearances

The following video provides a brief introduction to how the measurements are achieved in Linesmarts.

The blowout clearance assessment function finds the minimum clearance taking into consideration all the modelled conductors, their range of movement under various user defined load cases, and all the specified vegetation or structure points, as applicable, identified in the span. The assessment can also be used to investigate clearances for specific conductors, load cases and/or object in the environment. The blowout clearance assessment feature makes it practical to calculate clearances to objects in the line environment.

This can be used instead of maintaining fixed width vegetation corridors which can result in a lot of unnecessary works. The other advantage of this feature is that it can be provided to landowners as evidence that an issue exists, or as a way to explain the issue. For the vegetation clearances this feature provides a way to quantitatively monitoring encroachments.

The falling tree assessment calculates the minimum clearance from a falling tree, falling in the direction perpendicular to the line, to the line conductors. The calculation takes into consideration all the modelled conductors, and all the identified trees when finding the minimum clearance. The assessment can also be used to investigate clearances for specific conductors and/or trees.

The falling tree clearance assessment feature makes it easy to assess the risk posed by trees in the line environment and to determine the extent of pruning required to address the risk. The measurements can be provided to landowners as evidence that an issue exists, or as a way to explain the issue.