Replacing steel members with composite members on transmission towers

摘要

Illegal removal of redundant elements in transmission towers leads to the collapse of transmission structures under moderate winds. Hence, the removal of structural elements in transmission structures promotes economic losses for power utilities. A possible solution that can reduce extraction of steel members, and decrease power outages, is the replacement of steel redundant members with composite material elements and their connection methods. Hence, evaluation of composite redundant members as structural elements is carried out by the finite-element method to analyse the performance in a 400 kV transmission tower. The performance of the composite and steel elements is analysed by tensile and compressive strength and percentage of use under load conditions in a transmission tower. A different connection method is considered and tested to verify the structural adhesive effectiveness according to the loads determined in simulations. The connection of composite redundant members was implemented in 400 kV transmission towers.