[en] Lattice towers are extensively built in Europe and worldwide to serve telecommunication or power transmission purposes. Their members are usually made of equal leg angle profiles that are bolted at their extremities. Such types of towers are mainly designed to EN 1993-3-1 and EN 50341-1, based on a first-order linear elastic structural analysis of a truss structure. In this paper, an assessment of the current design approach is performed, where the tower has been simulated with a full non-linear finite element software, considering relevant imperfections as well as geometrical and material non-linearities. The importance of the second order effects in the analysis is underlined while the existence of an instability mode not properly covered directly by the norms, and usually therefore not checked, is highlighted. Two analytical models for the prediction of the critical load of this buckling mode are proposed and validated numerically. Both proposed models are rather easy to apply and may fill the gap in the existing design recommendations for lattice towers.
Disciplines :
Civil engineering
Author, co-author :
Bezas, Marios-Zois ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département ArGEnCo > Adéquat. struct. aux exig. de fonct.& perfor. techn.-écon.
Jaspart, Jean-Pierre ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département ArGEnCo > Adéquat. struct. aux exig. de fonct.& perfor. techn.-écon.
Design recommendations for the stability of transmission steel lattice towers
Publication date :
February 2022
Journal title :
Engineering Structures
ISSN :
0141-0296
eISSN :
1873-7323
Publisher :
Elsevier, United Kingdom
Volume :
252
Issue :
C
Pages :
113603
Peer reviewed :
Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi
Name of the research project :
ANGELHY: Innovative solutions for design and strengthening of telecommunications and transmission lattice towers using large angles from high strength steel and hybrid techniques of angles with FRP strips
Funders :
RFCS - European Commission. Research Fund for Coal and Steel [BE]
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