ENGR0135: Design Problem 2 “Design of a Truss Structure for a Transmission Line

Tower”

Ethan Rihn, Garrett Robinson, Rachel Ruark, Lukas Sarra

April 17th, 2022

 I. Introduction

An engineering firm is consulted for projects related to constructing transmission

towers responsible for supporting electrical lines and other associated electrical
equipment that must be attached. The firm approaches a group of its engineers to design a
truss system that may be used to support the transmission tower which has four arms, two
at the top of each side designed for force loads to be attached, and a central support tower
the arms are attached to. Each tower’s dimensions are constant for this particular firm,
however, the customer will use multiple towers and place different combinations of force
loads on each tower with different force load magnitudes. There are four total different
load combination scenarios that must be accounted for by the firm, so the group of
engineers are tasked to split up and individually analyze one of the scenarios and how the
forces are distributed throughout each member. The values of the dimensions of the truss
tower and its four arms, along with the magnitudes of each force load and the
combination of loads in each scenario, are all conveniently provided to the engineers by a
table, which may be found in the Appendix below. The group designed the following
trust system below to be used for each tower, which all have the same indicated
dimensions and labeling schemes.

Figure 1 - Transmission Tower Truss Geometry Diagram

 Using this truss system design for the transmission tower, the four possible
scenarios differ by the combination and configuration of forces applied to the tower, as
seen in Table 7 in the Appendix, which highlights what forces and angles are used in each
scenario. The values in Table 7 are further expressed in the figures below:

Figure 2 -Scenario A

Figure 3 - Scenario B
 Figure 4 - Scenario C

Figure 5 - Scenario D

With the truss system dimensions and force load configurations known, the
engineers chose to use American Standard Beams as the type of member to build the
transmission tower. However, the engineers must still consider a minimal factor of safety
when choosing the size of each member used in the construction of the transmission
tower. For this project, the chosen minimal factor of safety is 20 when facing yielding
stress – stress that causes excessive plastic, or permanent, deformation – in either
compression or tension in the member and is 10 for the moment of inertia – a body’s
resistance to rotational acceleration – when dealing with buckling under compression and
considering the Pcritical value that would cause the member to buckle. Using the known
formulas for stress (Equation 1) and Pcritical (Equation 2), then the factor of safety may be
used in an inequality to determine the minimal area(A) and minimal moment of inertia(I)
needed for the required yielding stress and elastic modulus as seen below (Equations 3
and 4). This is done by setting the Equation 2 greater than or equal to the found force in
the joint analysis multiplied by the factor of safety for the moment of inertia(I) and
solving for I, which gives the inequality needed to determine the minimum moment of
inertia(I) as shown in Equation 3. Similarly, to find the inequality for minimal area(A),
the required yielding strength (σ) is set greater than or equal to Equation 1 multiplied by
the factor of safety for yielding stress, and this inequality is solved for area(A) to given
Equation 4.

Equations:

1.

2.

3.

4.

As seen above, for this consideration to be carried out, the forces in each member
must be determined, so a joint analysis, where the forces on each joint are analyzed and
calculated, must be carried out. This analysis is completed by creating a free-body
diagram for each joint and assuming equilibrium conditions are present for each joint
where the sum of the forces in the x-direction are 0 and the sum of the forces in the
y-direction are 0. This joint analysis looks similar to Figure 6 below but will differ for
each scenario due to the added force configurations. The detailed hand calculations for
each scenario may be found in the Appendix. It may be noted as well that there are
non-member forces on joints K and L, which is due to the fact joint K has a smooth pin
attached to it, which prevents movement in the x- or y-direction, and joint L has a roller
attached to, which prevents movement in normal direction to the pin, which is the
y-direction in this design; thus these reaction forces must be considered in the free-body
diagrams.
 Figure 6 - Joint Analysis of Transmission Tower without Scenario’s loads present

Once all force calculations are completed and accompanied with associated factor
of safety analysis for each member, the appropriate member size may be chosen to
accommodate the force the member must bear and the required factor of safety features.
With this completed for every member in every scenario, then equivalent members may
be compared across scenarios and the largest member size may be chosen to make sure
the member will be stable in every possible scenario. Completing this process for every
member in the truss system will give the desired size of each member for the trust system
that the engineering group would recommend and use for the project so that regardless of
the chosen scenario for the force load configuration, this designed truss system will be
stable and able to handle all loads.
II. Force Summary

Table 1 - Force Summary Table

Max Design
Force Constraining Force
Summary L (in) In Any Case *which case max originates
AB 120 5971.153 Grn = Case B
AF 162 -4227.8 Orng = Case C
BC 240 5,830.13 Ylw= Case A
BF 108 -2687.15 Blu= Case D
CD 180 -5830.13
CG 108 8249.393
DG 209.914 -5049.77
EF 120 -3,330.17
EI 161.4435 -3,609.78
FG 240 -10,388.90
FI 108 -8199.14
FJ 263.1805 7,740.48
GB 263.18 6547.63
GH 240 -8888.9
GJ 108 -8053.95
HJ 262.8 -11051
IJ 240 -6795.3
IK 204 -13302.23
IL 314.99 6880.98
JL 204 -5,370.70
KL 240 -5243.24
III. Member Costs and Selections

The overall goal of the design of the final truss system is to minimize raw material as to
optimize costs and meet required safety factors for all loading cases. This specific design
met all the requirements for the safety of the system regarding the maximum loading
cases and also was the most economical choice. The selected truss design cost table can
be found in Table 2. This table provides the members, the member length, selection, area,
volume, and overall cost.

Table 2 – Summary of Truss Final Design Cost Table

Safety

This member was ultimately selected because of the economic value but more
importantly, the safety. Safety is of the utmost concern in the product design which is
why considerations of different hazards such as tower failure were analyzed in the design
process. Failure of the tower would cause economic and health hazards. Economically,
the use of the tower would be completely stopped, causing downtime and either
maintenance or demolition depending on the severity of the failure. Additionally, tower
failure puts surrounding communities and people in close proximity in danger. This is
why the tower is designed with factors of safety greater than those required. Specifically,
the minimum yield is 36 ksi and the buckling factor of safety is 10.

Economics

The tower cost should be optimized for the design of the truss system. The cost for the
selected design is $13,610.12. This allows the design to meet all the requirements with
the lowest cost selection and with the maximum constraint loads. In fact, the design
meets and exceeds the requirements as it was designed with factors of safety greater than
those required due to the choice of standard sizes. This might influence the cost to be
greater than what it would be if the standards were just met. However, this allows for
additional safety measures to ensure that communities are kept out of harm's way and the
likelihood of failure is minimized. The standard size chosen was the American Standard
Beams in Table A-3. Figure 8 below displays an image of the selection.

Figure 8 – American Standard Beam Size Selection

As stated above, material cost may be greater due to the fact that requirements for factor
of safety are exceeded. It is estimated that the material cost is $13,610.12which is slightly
more expensive than the most expensive beam by approximately two thousand dollars.
This is a significant price difference, however it comes at the benefit of increased safety
and hence majorly decreasing the likelihood of hazards. It also accounts for all maximum
loads of all cases and is the most versatile design for the customer.

IV. Safety and Economic Considerations

The tower could impact public health due to a design failure. If a large enough
factor of safety was not obtained, unforeseen external conditions, or construction failure
could all lead to a collapse of the tower. If the tower was placed onto a road it could end
up collapsing onto the road blocking the road or perhaps smashing a transportation
vehicle. If the tower collapsed in an area with people it could end up falling, injuring (or
killing) them. The tower could also affect communication. Communication could
increase because of the addition of the transmission tower to facilitate communication
between two parties; however, if the tower were to fail communication of the people
relying on the tower would cease leading to a loss in money for the company that
constructed the tower as well as any profit that would have been made through that line
of communication.

The tower dimensions were rounded up and not exact to the calculated
dimensions. This would increase the cost of the tower due to the added area, which
requires more material. However, this could end up balancing out due to the tower's
universal design. Depending on the different location the tower will be placed/used, it
could end up having larger or smaller dimensions, which leads to more or less material.
Therefore, the universal cost could end up saving money by incorporating all the different
scenarios into one design.
V. Appendix

Table 3 - Member A Summary Table of Forces and Corresponding Axial Loading Values

Table 4 - Member B Summary Table of Forces and Corresponding Axial Loading Values
Table 5 - Member C Summary Table of Forces and Corresponding Axial Loading Values

Table 6 - Member D Summary Table of Forces and Corresponding Axial Loading Values
Table 7 - Calculated Member Force Scenario Comparison
Figure 9 - Member A Hand Calculations
Figure 10 - Member B Hand Calculations
Figure 11 - Member C Hand Calculations

Figure 12 - Member D Hand Calculations