Structural analysis software for high intensity wind effects on transmission line structures

电在我们的日常生活中起着至关重要的作用。输电线路负责将电力从生产源头输送到最终用户。输电线路的故障会带来毁灭性的社会和经济后果，因此了解故障是如何发生的以及如何预防是非常必要的。输电线路由杆塔、导线、地线和绝缘子组成。这些塔是细长而灵活的结构，这使得它们容易受到强风的影响。以龙卷风和下击暴流形式出现的局部强风事件被称为“高强度风”（HIW）事件。HIW事件占全球所有与天气相关的输电线路故障的80%以上。在HIW事件期间，加拿大的许多输电塔都发生故障，包括位于温尼伯附近的马尼托巴水电公司和位于安大略的一号水电公司。尽管如此，输电线路结构的实践规范和设计指南仍然基于与大规模事件相关的风荷载。此外，目前市场上有一种用于分析和设计输电线路的主要软件，称为“塔”。该软件不考虑HIW事件导致的载荷。本研究的目的是开发和验证流体/结构分析数值代码，能够预测的临界载荷作用在输电线路结构，由于龙卷风和下击暴流。该代码将被命名为“HIW”，并将使用一个新的测试设施进行验证，该设施目前正在西部建造，2013年将成为世界上第一个可以在模拟下击暴流和龙卷风事件下测试结构完整模型的设施。由于软件“TOWER”不考虑HIW负载，软件“HIW”将通过使其与行业标准“TOWER”程序生成的输入文件兼容来对其进行补充。这种兼容性将导致开发出其他地方没有的独特软件。该项目的成功不仅将通过节省HIW事件期间因故障造成的损失而产生重大经济效益，而且还将减轻因电力中断而对房主和行业造成的负面社会影响。

Electricity plays a vital and essential role in our daily life. Transmission lines are responsible for carrying electricity from the source of production to the end users. Failure of transmission lines has devastating social and economical consequences, so it is imperative to understand how failure occurs, and how to prevent it. A transmission line consists of towers, conductors, ground-wires, and insulators. The towers are slender and flexible structures, which makes them vulnerable to strong winds. Localized severe wind events in the form of tornados and downbursts are referred to as "High Intensity Wind" (HIW) events. HIW events are responsible for more than 80% of all weather-related transmission line failures worldwide. Many transmission towers have failed in Canada during HIW events, including Manitoba Hydro's near Winnipeg and Hydro One's in Ontario. Despite this fact, codes of practice and design guidelines for transmission line structures remain based on wind loads associated with large scale events. In addition, there is currently one main software in the market for analyzing and designing transmission lines, called "Tower". This software does not account for loads resulting from HIW events. The objective of this research is to develop and validate a fluid/structure analysis numerical code that is capable of predicting the critical loads acting on transmission line structures due to tornadoes and downbursts. This code will be named "HIW" and will be validated using a new test facility, the WindEEE dome, currently under construction at Western, which in 2013 will be the world's first facility where full models of structures can be tested under simulated downburst and tornado events. Since software "TOWER" does not account for HIW loads, the software "HIW" will compliment it by making it compatible with the input file generated by the industry-standard "TOWER" program. This compatibility will lead to the development of unique software that is not available elsewhere. The success of this project will not only have a significant economical benefit by saving losses due to failures during HIW events, but also will mitigate the negative social impact on homeowners and industry due to the interruption of power.