Numerical modelling on cyclic behaviour of retrofitted steel transmission towers
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Date
2021
Authors
Lu, C.
Ma, X.
Mills, J.E.
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Conference paper
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ACAM10: 10th Australasian Congress on Applied Mechanics 2021, ACAM 2021, 2021, pp.477-490
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10th Australasian Congress on Applied Mechanics, ACAM 2021 (1 Dec 2021 - 3 Dec 2021 : Virtual)
Abstract
Transmission towers are important infrastructure components in modern society. In Australia, thousands of aging steel transmission towers need upgrades in order to meet the demands of additional communication devices being attached to them and the increased design wind loads according to newly revised design standards. One effective retrofitting approach is to attach reinforcing members to the original tower leg members through using a bolted cruciform connector. Existing research has verified the effectiveness of the bolted connector under static loads. To understand the structural performance of retrofitted tower structures after long-term dynamic loading, a case study was conducted in this paper through a series of numerical simulation in ANSYS. The tower members were modelled through beam elements. Nonlinear spring element was adopted to simulate the load-transferring mechanism of the bolted cruciform connection. In addition, the load eccentricity and potential deformation compatibility between the original and reinforcing members were addressed in ANSYS models by the use of fixed joints. The numerical results confirmed that the long-term dynamic loading history resulted in continuing reduction of the post-dynamic strength of the retrofitted tower structure due to the degrading of load-transferring effectiveness between the original member and the reinforcing member.
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Copyright 2021 Engineers Australia
Access Condition Notes: Accepted manuscript is available open access