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The 2016 Award Recipient
Ghyslaine McClure, Ph.D.

For contributions to computational modelling of ice shedding effects on overhead power lines

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Professor Ghyslaine McClure joined McGill University’s Department of Civil engineering and Applied Mechanics in 1991. She was born in Saint-Germain-de-Grantham, Québec, Canada. She studied civil engineering at École Polytechnique de Montréal (B.Eng. 1980). After some professional practice, she completed her master’s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (SM 1984) and her PhD at École Polytechnique de Montréal in 1989. Her doctoral thesis set out a novel computational-mechanics model for the transient effects of conductor failures on overhead transmission lines.

Professor McClure returned to Hydro Québec in 1988 and initially managed a research project on conductor ice shedding at their research institute (IREQ). This was the starting point of more than 25 years of collaborative work on this rich topic, involving training of approximately 20 graduate students.  Several of these highly qualified personnel benefitted further from co-supervision by Professor Masoud Farzaneh of UQAC.

With numerous collaborators, students and seasoned researchers, Professor McClure has led and participated in several experimental studies that form a physical basis for ice shedding models amenable to finite element analysis. Her most recent work, advising Dr Kunpeng from China, has closed the loop by modelling ice fragment detachment from conductors. This model takes into account both adhesive and cohesive forces on ice fragments in detailed simulations of the transient mechanical response of line sections subjected to various shock loads that cause ice shedding. The practical industrial applications include development of safe field protocols for novel ice shedding methods and design of reinforced towers that withstand the expected dynamic loads.