Local System Modeling Method for Resilience

Assessment of Overhead Power Distribution

System under Strong Winds
Xiaolong Ma, S.M.ASCE 1; Wei Zhang, M.ASCE 2; A. Bagtzoglou, F.ASCE 3; and Jin Zhu, A.M.ASCE 4
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Abstract: During extreme weather events, such as hurricanes or major winter snowstorms, power distribution systems, such as the overhead
power distribution systems consisting of wood poles and power wires, would encounter failures that can bring massive power outages. Daily
lives for communities are significantly affected by the interruptions of the regular service of power distributions. Fragility assessments of
pole-wire systems under high wind loads have been carried out before, either using physics-based structural analysis methods or data-driven
methods. However, fragility analyses of the entire pole-wire system are still challenging due to the lack of detailed information for dimen-
sions, materials, soil conditions of pole-wire systems, the inconsistent wind loads applied on the systems at different geographic locations,
and high computational costs. In the present study, a new local system modeling method considering the effects of neighboring spans for the
resilience assessment of overhead power distribution systems under strong winds is proposed. The effects of neighboring spans are inves-
tigated to predict the failure probability of pole-wire systems with lower computational costs. Soil springs are applied to model the boundary
support of poles to provide a more reliable estimation of the structural behaviors under large wind loads. Various simple pole-wire systems
with different numbers of poles are studied to investigate the effects of neighboring spans. The number of neighboring spans that might affect
the structural behaviors of the studied poles is investigated. The effects of lateral lines on the structural behaviors of the studied poles are also
investigated. Based on the results, a case study is conducted to validate the accuracy of the proposed method. The reliability of a hypothetical
pole-wire system calculated by the structural analysis method and the proposed method is compared. The accuracy of the proposed method is
validated. Additionally, the effects of the degradation of neighboring spans on the structural behaviors of the studied poles are studied. For a
local region with complex geographic terrain, wind loads applied on a pole-wire system could vary at different locations. Fragility curves of
poles calculated with the proposed method under different wind directions are obtained to include the wind direction effects. The proposed
method could help consider interactions between individual pole nodes with acceptable computational costs. DOI: 10.1061/AJRUA6.0001103.
© 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
Author keywords: Resilience; Overhead power distribution; Finite-element analysis; Fragility analysis; Soil effects; Wind angle effects.

Introduction due to the breakage of poles or wires caused by fallen trees or ex-
cessive vibrations of wires or short-circuiting due to wet fallen tree
Pole-wire systems, used for power distribution, deliver electricity branches. Failure of poles or wires would further disturb commu-
from substations to customers. The pole-wire system with large nity residents’ daily lives and delay the community recovering pro-
area coverage over the country has high economic value and has cess after the extreme weather event. In the last several decades,
direct impacts on people’s quality of life (Yeates and Crews 2000; millions of customers lost power associated with billions of eco-
Mankowski et al. 2002; Ryan et al. 2014). A low level of reliability nomic losses due to hurricane-related events (Blake et al. 2013;
in many of the existing distribution systems makes them vulnerable Johnson 2005). Although power distribution systems play a signifi-
under extreme weather events, such as hurricanes with strong winds cant role in the resilience of power systems and communities, re-
and major winter snowstorms with combined wind and ice effects. search activities on pole-wire systems were still limited compared
During an extreme event, pole-wire systems could fail to function with power transmission systems (Yuan et al. 2018). Therefore, it is
necessary to carefully evaluate the resilience of pole-wire systems
1 to extreme weather scenarios.
Graduate Student, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
Resilience is defined by NRC (2012) as the preparation, the
Univ. of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269.
2
Associate Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, recovering, as well as the adaption to actual or potential events.
Univ. of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269 (corresponding author). ORCID: For the pole-wire system, the resilience is translated to the predis-
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8364-9953. Email: wzhang@uconn.edu aster maintenance, the resistance of the pole-wire system to disas-
3
Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Univ. of ters, and the postdisaster restoration (Ouyang and Duenas-Osorio
Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269. Email: amvrossios.bagtzoglou@uconn.edu 2014; Salman and Li 2016). Recently, researchers proposed many
4
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, maintenance strategies that can enhance the resilience of pole-wire
Univ. of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269. Email: jzhu@uconn.edu systems, such as chemical treatments (Ryan et al. 2014; Salman
Note. This manuscript was submitted on November 24, 2019; ap-
et al. 2017; Yuan et al. 2005), strengthening treatments (Salman
proved on August 19, 2020; published online on November 27, 2020.
Discussion period open until April 27, 2021; separate discussions must et al. 2015, 2017), and replacements (Yuan et al. 2005). The costs
be submitted for individual papers. This paper is part of the ASCE-ASME associated with different maintenance strategies, including mainte-
Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems, Part A: Civil nance costs, economic losses, as well as restoration costs, were es-
Engineering, © ASCE, ISSN 2376-7642. timated and compared to determine which one should be accepted.

© ASCE 04020053-1 ASCE-ASME J. Risk Uncertainty Eng. Syst., Part A: Civ. Eng.

ASCE-ASME J. Risk Uncertainty Eng. Syst., Part A: Civ. Eng., 2021, 7(1): 04020053
 The evaluation of the maintenance strategies can help design To investigate if the effects of adjacent spans should be considered
makers to propose an optimum strategy with the lowest total costs. Darestani et al. (2016) proposed an equivalent boundary model to
While calculating the costs of different strategies, the fragility calculate the structural behaviors of poles considering the boundary
analysis of pole-wire systems with different strategies is required. conditions due to the adjacent spans. The results showed that the
Therefore, fragility analyses play a significant role in the resilience effects of adjacent spans should be considered. Otherwise, the fail-
assessment of pole-wire systems. ure probability of poles could be underestimated. Considering
Various methods were employed by researchers to investigate poles as independent nodes could not provide a reliable prediction
the failure probability of pole-wire systems, most of which can for fragility analysis of the pole-wire system. However, several
be grouped into data-driven methods or numerical methods. With challenges still exist for the resilience studies of the entire pole-wire
many efforts on data-driven modeling, researchers used several re- system. First, resilience studies of the entire pole-wire system need
gression models to understand the relationships between different high computational costs. The resilience assessments require to
factors and power outages in power distribution systems (Han et al. simulate the entire system in the finite-element software. Second,
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2009a, b; Liu et al. 2005; Zhou et al. 2006). Data-driven methods it is challenging to obtain sufficient data that can reflect the con-
can provide a basic prediction for power outages of pole-wire sys- figuration of the entire pole-wire system. The dimensions and the
tems in specified regions. However, the regression models based on material properties of some poles in the system might not be con-
the recorded datasets derived from recent hurricanes might not be firmed. To consider the uncertainties of these poles, the probability
applicable to future predictions, because hurricane parameters, analysis of the entire pole-wire system needs to be conducted,
such as the wind speed and the wind direction, might be different which requires extremely high computational costs. Third, wind
(Liu et al. 2005). Besides, the accuracy of these models depends speeds and wind angles could be different in a wide region. How-
on the sufficiency of datasets, including the power outage data in ever, in many recent studies (Yuan et al. 2018), wind loads were
various loading scenarios. The sufficient datasets require enough usually applied with the same magnitude and the same direction
hurricane events and detailed statistics for pole-wire systems, which for the entire pole-wire system in one loading scenario. The con-
might not be available in underinvestigated regions. sideration of various loading scenarios also requires high computa-
Due to the limitations of data-driven methods, numerical meth- tional costs. Finally, poles might experience degradation during
ods were applied to investigate the resilience of pole-wire systems, service life or need to be replaced after hurricane events if they are
as well. The failure probability will be evaluated via analyzing broken. Once there are any changes in the material properties of
structural behaviors of poles under wind loads with different poles such as the stiffness, the failure probability of the entire sys-
magnitudes. Wood poles have been commonly used in pole-wire tem needs recalculation to provide an updated prediction.
systems with the advantages of lower costs and natural insulation Note that although current studies using either regression meth-
(Morrell 1996). However, as wood is a natural material, wood poles ods or structural methods can estimate power outages of the pole-
are sensitive to the ambient natural environment and vulnerable to wire system, it is still challenging to apply these methods for decision
decay, with deteriorations that are mainly caused by fungi (Salman making. Power outrage estimation provided by data-driven methods
et al. 2017). Because the strength of poles reduces with their might not be accurate if parameters of hurricane events are not sim-
deterioration over time, pole-wire systems would experience more ilar to recorded data. The recorded data might not be sufficient to
unexpected failures during extreme weather events with strong generate an accurate regression model. Taking poles as independent
winds or heavy snows. Recently, pole-wire systems were simulated nodes by numerical methods, the interactions between nodes were
using a single pole to investigate the failure probability of the sys- ignored, which might bring errors to the prediction of power outages.
tems considering pole decay. To evaluate the effects of climate High computational costs, as well as complicated datasets, make it
change on pole decay, Bjarnadottir et al. (2013) and Ryan et al. inapplicable to analyze the entire system. In the present study, a new
(2016) performed parametric studies for the failure probability local system modeling method is proposed to deal with the short-
of distribution poles under different wind speeds with different de- comings listed previously. The method considers the effects of neigh-
graded conditions. Poles usually have various top configurations boring spans on the structural behaviors of poles under extreme wind
and various devices, such as phase/neutral conductors, communi- loads. The effects of soil conditions on the failure probability of a
cation cables, transformers, and cross arms, to meet the require- simple system are evaluated by using soil springs to define the boun-
ments of power distributions to customers, such as community dary conditions of poles. Several simple pole-wire systems are mod-
residents, hospitals, and commercial customers. Efforts from utility eled to investigate the effects of neighboring spans. The bending
companies are needed to continuously track operating and mainte- stress and failure probability of each pole in the pole-wire systems
nance histories in order to establish operational datasets that in- are calculated to investigate the effects. A hypothetical pole-wire sys-
clude sufficient configuration parameters for pole-wire systems. tem is simulated, and the failure probability of the system is calcu-
Due to the challenges of establishing such datasets, resilience stud- lated using the typical numerical method. The results are compared
ies discussed previously only employed a single pole to represent with the failure probability calculated by the proposed method to
all the poles in pole-wire systems for the structural analysis without validate the accuracy of the method. The effects of change stiffness
considering different parameters of poles, such as material types, of the adjacent poles on the structural behaviors of the studied pole
geometry definitions, and boundary conditions. are also investigated to determine if it is necessary to recalculate the
Another limitation of existing studies is that the majority of responses of the pole. Finally, some conclusions are drawn based on
them considered only the effects of different parameters of wind the results of the fragility analysis.
loads on the failure of a single pole, with the assumption that the
failure of the pole would not be affected by neighboring spans.
However, in real-life scenarios, this assumption might lead to a Resilience Assessment
wrong estimation of the failure probability of the entire system.
With wires linking adjacent poles, structural responses of the pole Pole-wire systems could experience failures that lead to power out-
can be affected by tension forces from the wires. The forces can be ages during extreme weather events, such as hurricanes or winter
further influenced by the properties of adjacent poles (such as stiff- storms. To improve the performance of pole-wire systems during
ness) and wind loads acted on neighboring poles as well as wires. extreme weather events, it is necessary to evaluate the resilience of

© ASCE 04020053-2 ASCE-ASME J. Risk Uncertainty Eng. Syst., Part A: Civ. Eng.

ASCE-ASME J. Risk Uncertainty Eng. Syst., Part A: Civ. Eng., 2021, 7(1): 04020053
 the systems under various possible loading scenarios associated behaviors of selected poles. The selected poles and all the spans
with extreme events. In the present study, the resilience of the sys- in the entire system that can affect the structural behaviors of
tems is quantified by the fragility of power distributions. For utility the selected poles are extracted to generate a local system model.
companies, it is necessary to identify vulnerable regions to prepare As shown in Fig. 1, the configuration of a simple pole-wire system
and perform effective maintenance schemes, such as tree trimming. and how the configuration of a local system belongs to the entire
It is also important to prepare material stocks for postdisaster re- system are plotted to demonstrate. The effects of Span #5–#6 on the
covery. Therefore, a resilience assessment is necessary to help util- structural behaviors of Pole #6 can be represented as Eð5∼6Þ;6 .
ity companies better manage predisaster preparation and planning. Therefore, the structural behaviors of Pole #6 in the entire system
The results of the assessment could provide a basis for the decisions with 11 poles and the local system with seven poles can be ex-
in predisaster maintenance and postdisaster restoration. Current pressed as
resilience studies mainly focused on regression methods based
on recorded historical data. However, these regression methods X
10
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cannot predict well the structural behaviors of the systems under B6;entire ¼ B6;single þ Eði∼iþ1Þ;6 ð1Þ
i¼1
high wind loads due to the lack of sufficient data. Meanwhile, resil-
ience assessments based on finite-element analyses can provide a
more reliable estimation of structural behaviors, which can be fur- X
8
ther used to predict possible outages in the systems. B6;local ¼ B6;single þ Eði∼iþ1Þ;6 ð2Þ
In order to perform resilience analysis using refined finite- i¼3

element models, an automated modeling process is conducted to

include multiple parameters that are extracted from GIS databases, where Bi;entire = structural behaviors of pole #i in the entire system;
such as coordinates, heights, top configurations of poles, and diam- Bi;local = structural behaviors of pole #i in the local system; Bi;single =
eters and geometry of wires that link poles in the system. The data- structural behaviors of single pole #i; and Eði∼iþ1Þ;j is the effect of
base for the pole-wire system is established to build finite-element neighboring span #i ∼ #i þ 1 on the structural behaviors of pole #j.
models of the system so that structural responses can be obtained. If B6;entire is similar to B6;local , it means that the structural behaviors of
After defining the limit state functions, the failure probability of the Pole #6 in the local system can be used to represent that of Pole #6 in
system is obtained. The failure probability can be further trans- the entire system. If the structural behaviors of Pole #6 are investi-
ferred to the database to help decision makers select proper main- gated, it is not necessary to simulate the entire system. The simula-
tenance methods in different regions. tion of the local system can help to reduce computational costs, while
the results are still accurate.
The effects of different neighboring spans might not be the
Local System Modeling Method same. The further neighboring spans transfer tension forces to the
closest neighboring spans and further affect the structural behaviors
Single poles are connected by wires to function together as a whole of the selected poles. The effects of the further neighboring spans
system for power distribution. The real status of the entire system might decrease for the poles because the tension forces generated in
might not be reflected if the interactions between poles are ignored. the further neighboring spans are not directly applied to the poles.
The neighboring spans are found to affect the structural behaviors The effects of the closer neighboring spans might be significant,
of poles due to the wire linkage based on the work of Darestani while the effects of the further neighboring might be slight and
et al. (2016). However, how the structural behaviors of poles might can be neglected. Therefore, it might be feasible to use the middle
be affected was not investigated. Different neighboring spans might pole in a local system with fewer poles to represent the inner poles
have different effects on the structural behaviors of poles. The in an entire system with more poles. The primary idea of the local
closer spans might have more significant effects while the further system modeling method is to model a pole and all the neighboring
spans have slighter effects. Currently, the numerical analyses with a spans that have remarkable effects on the pole. In the local system,
single pole (Bjarnadottir et al. 2013; Ryan et al. 2016) can only give the structural behaviors of the pole can represent the structural
a basic idea about the responses of an individual node under ex- behaviors of all the corresponding poles in a more complex entire
treme wind loads, and cannot reflect the behaviors of the entire sys- pole-wire system. As a demonstration, the number of neighboring
tem. The numerical analysis for the entire system conducted by spans that can affect the structural behaviors of a selected pole is
Yuan et al. (2018) requires sufficient datasets and high computa- assumed as three. As shown in Fig. 1, Poles #4–#8 in the entire sys-
tional costs. Inadequate datasets lead to difficulties in directly ana- tem can generate the same local system, and the structural behaviors
lyzing the entire system. of these poles in the entire system can be represented with that of
A radial type of distribution system is commonly used in the US, Pole #6 in the local system. Besides, the structural behaviors of the
which consists of a mainline and multiple lateral lines (Yuan et al. Poles #1–#3 and #9–#11 in the entire system can be represented with
2018). The power flow transmitted from a supply station to demand the structural behaviors of Poles #3–#5 and #7–#9 in the local sys-
nodes is usually unidirectional (Salman and Li 2018). To compen- tem. Then the entire system with 11 poles can be simplified as a local
sate for the shortcomings mentioned previously, a new local system system with seven poles. Computational costs can be reduced with
modeling method is proposed to investigate the resilience of a pole- the local system modeling method.
wire system under extreme wind loads in the present study. The
method considers the effects of neighboring spans on the structural
behaviors of a selected pole. During extreme hurricane events,
poles would suffer high bending stress due to the wind loads. Addi-
tional bending stresses might also be generated at the groundline
of poles due to the tension forces generated in neighboring spans.
The effects of neighboring spans reflect in the change of the struc-
Fig. 1. Configuration of an entire pole-wire system and a local pole-
tural behaviors of selected poles due to neighboring spans. The lo-
wire system.
cal system modeling method is used to calculate the structural

© ASCE 04020053-3 ASCE-ASME J. Risk Uncertainty Eng. Syst., Part A: Civ. Eng.

ASCE-ASME J. Risk Uncertainty Eng. Syst., Part A: Civ. Eng., 2021, 7(1): 04020053
 Table 1. Parameters of the distribution pole
Parameters Mean COV (%) Distribution References
Density (SP) (kg=m3 ) 500 4 Normal Doyle and Markwardt (1966)
Elastic modulus (SP) (GPa) 11.59 27 Lognormal Doyle and Markwardt (1966)
Fiber strength (SP) (MPa) 55.16 15 Lognormal Dagher (2006) and Shafieezadeh et al. (2014)
Density (FG) (kg=m3 ) 2,768 — — Eversource (2018)
Elastic modulus (FG) (GPa) 75.84 — — Eversource (2018)
Density (336 AC) (kg=m3 ) 2,768 — — Eversource (2018)
Elastic modulus (336 AC) (GPa) 68.94 — — Eversource (2018)
Density (1=0 ACSR) (kg=m3 ) 6,643 — — Eversource (2018)
Elastic modulus (1=0 ACSR) (GPa) 158.56 — — Eversource (2018)
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To employ the local system modeling method, the effects of during the production. Therefore, the material properties of FG
neighboring spans should be investigated. Several simple pole-wire are set as deterministic values in the present study. The burial depth
systems are analyzed to investigate the possible effects of neighbor- of poles is 2 m (7 ft). Based on the design code [ANSI-O5.1 (ANSI
ing spans. The effects of neighboring spans might relate to many 2002)], the burial depth of the wood pole should be over 10% of total
parameters, including the number of neighboring spans, the exist- pole length plus 0.6 m (2 ft) for a pole longer than 12 m (40 ft).
ence of lateral lines, the wind direction, and the material properties Wires on poles usually consist of conductors and communica-
of neighboring spans. The effects of neighboring spans with vari- tion cables. In the present study, only electricity conductors are in-
ous parameters are discussed. Based on the results, the structural cluded in the models. Electricity wires include phase lines and
behaviors of a complex entire pole-wire system can be represented neutral lines, which use 336 all aluminum conductor (AAC) and
with the combination of the structural behaviors derived from side 1=0 aluminum conductor steel-reinforced cable (ACSR). Diameters
poles and middle poles in local simple systems. It is not necessary of phase lines and neutral lines are 24.4 and 18.3 mm, respectively.
to simulate the entire system, which can help to reduce computa- Material properties of the wires are also treated as deterministic
tional costs. If the material properties of several poles in the system values as listed in Table 1. The length of the span is set as 61 m
cannot be confirmed, it is not necessary to conduct the probability (200 ft).
analysis for the entire system. Only the corresponding poles in the To validate the neglection of the uncertainties of FG and wires
simple local systems need to be analyzed. The entire pole-wire sys- material properties, the failure probabilities of the middle pole in a
tem might spread over a wide region, and poles in the system might seven-pole system with and without the uncertainties is calculated
encounter numerous loading scenarios. The consideration of the and compared. The parameters for the uncertainties are not found in
numerous loading scenarios for the entire system also requires high previous studies. The minimum COVof 4% for the material param-
computational costs. With the new method, only the simple local eters of SP is adopted as a demonstration for the density and elastic
pole-wire systems need to be analyzed to include these loading sce- modulus of FG and wires. The failure probabilities of the middle
narios. The failure probability of the entire distribution system can be pole are plotted in Fig. 2. It is found that the failure probabilities
represented with the combination of the failure probabilities of poles with and without considering the uncertainties is the same. The
in simple local pole-wire systems. The damage prediction of the en- maximum difference between the bending stresses of the middle
tire distribution system can be simplified with the method. pole with and without considering the uncertainties is less than
0.5%. Therefore, it is not necessary to consider the uncertainties
of the material properties for FG and wires. Besides, the maximum
Modeling of the Pole-Wire System under Wind tensile stress in wires is 43.8 MPa, which is far less than the
Loads

Parameters of the Pole-Wire System

For power distribution systems, wood poles have been widely used
in the United States, and the untreated southern pine (SP) is one of
the most commonly used wood species for the poles (Wolfe and
Moody 1997). Wood poles have many uncertainties for their material
properties. The material properties of SP are related to many factors
that are difficult to confirm, including the fiber direction of the wood,
the environmental temperature, and the humidity. The uncertainties
for the material properties of wood are considered in the present
study. The mean values, the coefficients of variations, and the dis-
tributions of the material properties for the wood poles are listed in
Table 1. The wood poles are selected as Class 2 as a demonstration,
and diameters of the poles are uniformly distributed between the
range of the class based on the design code (IEEE 2017b). In the
present study, the height of the poles above the ground is 12 m
(40 ft). Fiberglass (FG) crossarm is adopted, with a size of 9.2 ×
11.7 × 224 cm, and the following conclusions are obtained. Com-
pared with SP, FG is an artificial material with lower uncertainties for
Fig. 2. Failure probability of middle pole with and without FG and
the material properties. The material properties are primarily related
wires material uncertainties.
to the fiber direction of the fiberglass, which could be determined

© ASCE 04020053-4 ASCE-ASME J. Risk Uncertainty Eng. Syst., Part A: Civ. Eng.

ASCE-ASME J. Risk Uncertainty Eng. Syst., Part A: Civ. Eng., 2021, 7(1): 04020053
 Table 2. Parameters of the wind load
Parameters Mean COV (%) Distribution References
kz (pole) 1 6 Normal Dagher (2006) and IEEE (2017a)
kz (wire) 1.1 6 Normal Dagher (2006) and IEEE (2017a)
G (pole) 0.97 11 Normal IEEE (2017a) and Shafieezadeh et al. (2014)
G (wire) 0.88 11 Normal IEEE (2017a) and Shafieezadeh et al. (2014)
Cf 1 12 Normal IEEE (2017a) and Shafieezadeh et al. (2014)

minimum yield strength of wires. The minimum yield strength of Simulation of Boundary Conditions
wires is 276 MPa for 336 AAC (Eversource 2018). Therefore, the
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Power distribution wood poles are usually assumed to be ideally

failure mode of wire breakages is neglect in the study.
fixed on the ground in the literature (Ryan et al. 2016; Yuan
et al. 2018). However, the pole-wire system in a large area of re-
Modeling of Wind Loads gions could have different soil conditions. For poles driven into soft
soil, the failure might not be associated with the fiber strength, but
During a hurricane event, extreme wind loads applied on the sys- the lack of sufficient soil support leading to the toppling of the pole.
tems can induce severe damages. To identify the possible damages For poles driven into hard soil, bending stresses at the ground line
caused by hurricane events, wind loads are applied on the systems might exceed the fiber strength, which further induces the breakage
in the present study. Wind loads are calculated based on the extreme of poles. In the present study, fixed boundary conditions of poles
wind load case in the design code (IEEE 2017a) are replaced with carefully defined soil springs. To simulate the soil
foundation, the stiffness of each soil layer is calculated based on the
F ¼ 0.613 · V 2 kz GCf ð3Þ Vesic equation (Vesic 1961)
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
4
where F = wind pressure applied on the systems (N=m2 ); V ¼ 3 s 0.65Es 12 Es B
k¼ ð5Þ
gust wind speed (m=s); kz = velocity pressure coefficient; G = gust Bð1 − ν 2 Þ Ef I
response factor; and Cf = force coefficient. The mean, COV values,
as well as the distribution types of these coefficients are listed in
where Es = elasticity modulus of the soil; B = width of the pole; v =
Table 2. A hurricane is a severe tropical cyclone with extremely
Poisson’s ratio of the soil; Ef = elasticity modulus of the pole; and
high wind speeds that exceed 33 m=s (Salman and Li 2016). To
I = moment of inertia of the pole. The elastic modulus of the clay
investigate the behaviors of pole-wire systems during hurricane
ranges from 1 to 200 MPa based on the literature (USACE 1990).
events, relatively high wind speeds should be considered in the
To discuss the effects of soil stiffness on the failure of the pole-wire
study. Besides, pole fractures in several hurricane events happened
system, a simple two-span pole-wire system is selected. Maximum
under wind loads with speeds ranging from 31 to 54 m=s based on
bending stresses of the poles at the wind speed of 90 m=s at the
Han et al. (2014). Higher wind speeds were not included. Accord-
ground line with different soil conditions are shown in Fig. 3. Maxi-
ing to Bjarnadottir et al. (2013), the fragility curve for poles reached
mum bending stresses are found at the middle pole. A sudden
100% at the wind speed of 83 m=s. In the present study, wind
change of the bending stresses can be found in the scenario when
speeds are selected from 30 to 90 m=s with an interval of
the elastic modulus of the soil is 1 MPa. After the elastic modulus
2 m=s to include the relatively high wind speeds. Wind directions
of the soil reaches 20 MPa, the maximum bending stresses remain
are determined as the angles between wind loads and power dis-
tribution lines. The limit function used in the study can be ex-
pressed as

gðxÞ ¼ R − L ð4Þ

where gðÞ is a function to indicate failure if g < 0; R = capacity of

the system; and L = loading effects. Pole-wire systems might en-
counter different failure modes during a hurricane event, including
the broken poles, fallen poles, and wire breakage. Based on the
observations of the utility companies (Eversource 2018), lots of
failures are associated with fracture failure of poles under extreme
high wind loads. The failure of wires is not considered in the paper
because our earlier study indicates that the probability of failure for
the wires is extremely small compared with those for the failure of
the poles. As a demonstration, the failure mode of the broken poles
is considered in the present study only. In the limit state function,
the loading effects are defined as the maximum bending stress of
the pole at the ground line. The capacity terms are defined as the
fiber strength of the pole. To consider uncertainties, the Latin hy-
percube sampling (LHS) method (Iman et al. 1981) is selected to
calculate the failure probability of the systems. Based on a sensi-
Fig. 3. Bending stress of the middle pole at the ground line as a
tivity analysis, the number of the intervals for LHS is set as 10, with
function of soil modulus of elasticity and wind angle.
simulations repeated 50 times to account for uncertainties.

© ASCE 04020053-5 ASCE-ASME J. Risk Uncertainty Eng. Syst., Part A: Civ. Eng.

ASCE-ASME J. Risk Uncertainty Eng. Syst., Part A: Civ. Eng., 2021, 7(1): 04020053
 Fig. 5. Configurations of different pole-wire systems.
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Effects of the Neighboring Spans

The pole-wire systems that contain a different number of poles are
simulated, the configurations of these systems are plotted in Fig. 5.
The model of a system with five poles is plotted in Fig. 6 as a dem-
onstration. The wind direction is set as the angle between the wind
load and the x-direction, the clockwise angle is negative and the
counterclockwise angle is positive. The bending stresses of poles
Fig. 4. Fragility curves of the system as a function of different at the ground line under wind loads at the speed of 90 m=s with
elasticity modulus of soil and wind speed. different directions are calculated and plotted in Fig. 7. It is found
that the bending stresses of the inner poles have a slighter difference
with that of the middle pole compared with the stresses of the outer
poles. As shown in Fig. 7, Poles 4#–8# in the pole-wire system with
unchanged. With lower stiffness of the soil springs, the flexure mo- 11 poles, Poles 5#–7# in the system with nine poles, as well as the
ments of the pole at the ground level are smaller. Therefore, the 6# pole in the system with seven poles have similar bending
bending stresses of the poles at the wind angles of 90° and 60° stresses at all wind directions. The differences of the bending
in the scenarios with 1 MPa of elasticity modulus of the soil are stresses for these poles are less than 0.5% at the wind direction
lower than others. However, for the wind angle of 30°, bending of 90°, less than 2% at the wind direction of 60°, and less than 4%
stresses are smaller when the elastic modulus of the soil changes at the wind direction of 30°. All of these poles have at least three
from 1 to 20 MPa. Bending stresses are caused by wind loads ap- upstream neighboring spans and three downstream neighboring
plied on the middle pole as well as tension forces from adjacent spans. Comparing the bending stresses of these poles, it is found
poles. At a wind angle of 30°, the tension forces from the adjacent that the existence of the fourth or further upstream and downstream
poles at the windward direction would reduce the bending stress of neighboring spans have slight effects on the bending stresses of the
the middle pole. With the increasing elasticity modulus of the soil, selected poles. However, the existence of the first to third neighbor-
the tension forces from the adjacent poles increase, and the bending ing spans affects the bending stresses. The neighboring spans can
stress of the middle pole decreases. affect the bending stresses at the selected poles due to the possible
Fragility curves for the middle pole under the wind speeds tension in wires. The further neighboring spans have fewer effects
from 30 to 90 m=s at three directions with the soil elasticity on the bending stresses of the selected poles. For the side poles, it is
modulus of 1 and 2 MPa are plotted in Fig. 4. At the wind angles also found that the bending stresses of the side poles in the pole-
of 90° and 60°, the failure probability of poles driven in the soil wire systems are similar. The bending stresses of Poles 1#–3# in the
condition with an elasticity modulus of 1 MPa is 15% lower than
those with an elasticity modulus of 2 MPa. This conclusion might
not be reliable when pole-wire systems encounter hurricane
events. Soft soil cannot provide sufficient support during hurri-
canes, which might incur the failure mode of fallen poles. How-
ever, only the failure mode of broken poles is considered in the
present study, which might cause the underestimation of failure
probability for poles driven into soft soil. Another complementary
criterion should be proposed to determine the failure of the pole-
wire system, such as the leaning angle of the distribution poles
during the hurricane.

Fragility Analysis
To employ the local system modeling method, it is significant to
investigate how the local pole-wire system should be simulated.
The structural behaviors of the poles in an entire pole-wire system
might be affected by several neighboring spans and the possible
existence of lateral lines. To build a local pole-wire system to re-
present the entire system, the number of neighboring spans that
might affect the structural behaviors of the selected poles and the
Fig. 6. FEM of a simple pole-wire system with five poles.
effects of lateral lines should be studied.

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Fig. 7. Bending stress of poles in different pole-wire systems under different wind loads: (a) bending stress of poles at wind direction of 90°;
(b) bending stress of poles at wind direction of 60°; and (c) bending stress of poles at wind direction of 30°.

system with 11 poles, Poles 2#–4# in the system with nine poles, the proposed local system modeling method in the resilience as-
and Poles 3#–5# in the system with seven poles have a slight differ- sessments of a complicated pole-wire system.
ence, respectively. The maximum difference between the bending
stress of these poles under the wind loads at all directions is 2%.
Therefore, it is feasible to use the structural behaviors of poles in Effects of the Lateral Lines
the local systems with fewer spans to represent the behaviors of A pole-wire system includes not only mainlines but also lateral
poles in the entire systems with more poles. lines. The existence of lateral lines might also have effects on the
The failure probabilities of the inner poles under different wind structural behaviors of the poles on mainlines connected with the
loads at different directions are calculated and plotted in Fig. 8. The lateral lines and the neighboring poles. To investigate the effects of
failure probabilities of these poles at the wind direction of 90° are lateral lines, the bending stresses of three pole-wire systems with
the same. And the difference of the failure probabilities for these 11 poles on a mainline are calculated, including a system without a
poles increases with the decreasing wind direction. The effects of lateral line, a system with one lateral line and a system with two
neighboring spans will increase if the wind direction is along the lateral lines. The configurations of three pole-wire systems are pre-
path of neighboring spans because the tension forces are along the sented in Fig. 10. The bending stresses of these systems under the
path. At the wind direction of 30°, the maximum difference between wind loads at the wind speed of 90 m=s with three wind directions
the failure probabilities of the middle #6 poles in all systems and are calculated and presented in Fig. 11. The existence of lateral
other inner poles is less than 5%. It is possible to employ the failure lines would significantly affect the bending stresses of the poles on
probabilities of the middle pole in a local pole system with fewer the mainline connected with the lateral lines because the lateral lines
poles to represent the failure probabilities of the inner poles in a more would directly drag these poles. Besides the poles on the mainline
complex entire system. The failure probabilities of the side poles directly connected with the lateral lines, the bending stresses of the
under different wind loads at different directions are also presented first neighboring poles would also be affected by the lateral lines.
in Fig. 9. The results demonstrate that the failure probabilities of the However, the effects on the neighboring poles are much less than
corresponding side poles at the upstream and downstream of the pole- that on the directly connected poles. The difference of the bending
wire systems are similar. The maximum difference of the failure prob- stresses in the #4 poles in the pole wire systems with one lateral line
abilities is less than 3%, which indicates the possible applicability of and with two lateral lines is less than 3%. The further neighboring

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Fig. 8. Failure probability of inner poles in different pole-wire systems under different wind loads: (a) failure probability of inner poles at wind
direction of 90°; (b) failure probability of inner poles at wind direction of 60°; and (c) failure probability of inner poles at wind direction of 30°.

poles in the systems would be less affected by the lateral lines. The lateral lines if the lateral lines are not directly connected with the
bending stresses of the poles on the mainlines directly connected studied poles.
with the lateral lines are similar, including the #5–#6 poles in the
system with two lateral lines and the #6 pole in the system with one
lateral line. Besides, the bending stresses of the poles on the lateral Validation of the Local System Modeling Method
lines in these systems are similar. In the present study, the effects of To validate the applicability of the local system modeling method, a
the lateral lines are mainly considered for the poles on the mainlines hypothetical entire system that contains 42 poles on a mainline and
that are directly connected with the lateral lines. seven poles on lateral lines is simulated. The configuration of the
The failure probabilities of the poles on the mainline directly system is presented in Fig. 13. The failure probability of the entire
connected with the lateral lines and the poles on the lateral lines system is calculated by using the typical numerical method with the
in these pole wire systems are calculated and plotted in Fig. 12. model of the entire system and the local system modeling method.
Compared with the pole-wire systems without lateral lines dis- Based on the previous results, the failure probability of a selected
cussed previously, it can be found that the failure probabilities pole would be affected by three neighboring spans. The poles on
of the inner poles in the mainline directly connected with the lateral the mainline would only be affected by the lateral lines that are
lines are affected by the lateral lines. The failure probabilities of the directly connected with the selected poles. The poles on the lateral
inner poles decrease if the wind loads and the lateral lines are along lines would not be affected by the neighboring lateral lines. There-
the opposite direction because the poles on the lateral lines would fore, the entire system can be simplified as two local systems, as
drag the inner poles on the mainline, which helps to reduce the shown in Fig. 13.
bending stresses at the ground line. If the wind loads and lateral In the present study, to apply the proposed method, the structural
lines are along the same direction, an opposite effect would be behaviors of the poles in the entire system are represented with
found on the failure probabilities of the inner poles in the mainline. that of the poles in the simple systems studied previously. The
Comparing the failure probabilities of Pole #6 in the systems with structural behaviors of Poles 1#–3# in the entire system are
one lateral line and with two lateral lines, it is indicated that the represented with that of Poles 1#–3# in Local System 1. The struc-
existence of the lateral lines would slightly affect the failure prob- tural behaviors of Poles 40#–42# in the entire system are repre-
abilities of the poles that are adjacent to the poles connected with sented with that of Poles 5#–7# in Local System 2. The structural
the lateral lines. It is not necessary to consider the effects of the behaviors of Poles 4#–16#, 18#–20#, 22#–26#, 28#–31#, and

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Fig. 9. Failure probability of side poles in different pole-wire systems under different wind loads: (a) failure probability of upstream side poles at
wind direction of 90°; (b) failure probability of downstream side poles at wind direction of 90°; (c) failure probability of upstream side poles at wind
direction of 60°; (d) failure probability of downstream side poles at wind direction of 60°; (e) failure probability of upstream side poles at wind
direction of 30°; and (f) failure probability of downstream side poles at wind direction of 30°.

34#–37# in the entire system are represented with that of Pole 4# distributing power to customers, a reliability index is used (Salman
in Local System 1. The structural behaviors of Poles 17#, 21#, et al. 2015)
27#, 32#, 33#, 38#, and 39# in the entire system are represented
X
n
Ci
with Pole 4# in Local System 2. The structural behaviors of Poles Rs ¼ 1 − PL i ð6Þ
43# through 49# in the entire system are represented with Pole 8# i¼1
C
in Local System 2.
Failure probability of the power delivery to customers depends where PLi = probability that power fails to distribute to the custom-
on the failure probability of the mainline as well as the correspond- ers in the ith path; and Ci =C is used to weigh the significance of the
ing lateral lines. To evaluate the reliability of the pole-wire system ith path in the system. The significance of the path is determined

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 by the typical numerical method and the proposed local system
modeling method is plotted in Fig. 14. The maximum difference
between the reliability index calculated using the typical method
and the proposed method is 5%. The results demonstrate that the
proposed method can generate an accurate prediction for the
pole-wire system under extreme wind loads. Besides, the total
computational time for the typical method is 167 h, while the total
computational time for the proposed method is only 40 h. The
proposed method can provide accurate results with lower compu-
tational costs compared with the typical method.
Fig. 10. Configurations of the pole-wire systems.
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Effects of Pole Degradation

During the service life of the pole-wire system, the material proper-
ties of poles might change. The degradation of poles would affect
according to the number of customers powered by the path. The the failure probabilities of the degraded poles because the fiber
significance of the path would not affect the structural behaviors of strength of these poles would decrease due to fungi decay. How-
poles in the entire system. Therefore, the failure probabilities of ever, it is unclear if the degradation of neighboring poles can affect
poles in the entire system would not be affected by the significance. the structural behaviors of the studied poles. If the effects are slight,
The applicability of the local system modeling method would be the results of the studied poles indicate it is not necessary for poles
validated if the combination of failure probabilities of the corre- to be updated. In the present study, the effects are studied based on
sponding poles calculated by the typical numerical method is sim- the changing stiffness of neighboring poles. A simple system with
ilar to that calculated by the local system modeling method. As a seven poles is used to investigate the effects (as shown in Fig. 15).
demonstration, only one pole is selected in one lateral line, and the The middle 6# pole is taken as the studied object, and two adjacent
significance of each pole is assumed as the same for the method poles (5# and 7#) are taken as the degraded poles. The ages of the
demonstration. The reliability index of the entire system calculated adjacent poles are set as 30, 60, and 90 years. Based on Darestani

Fig. 11. Bending stress of poles in different pole-wire systems under different wind loads: (a) bending stress of poles at wind direction of 90°;
(b) bending stress of poles at wind direction of 60°; and (c) bending stress of poles at wind direction of 30°.

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Fig. 12. Failure probability of selected poles in different pole-wire systems under different wind loads: (a) failure probability of poles on mainline at
positive wind direction; (b) failure probability of poles on mainline at negative wind direction; (c) failure probability of poles on lateral line at positive
wind direction; and (d) failure probability of poles on lateral line at negative wind direction.

Fig. 13. Configuration of the hypothetical system.

et al. (2016), the elastic modulus of poles has a linear relationship poles decreases, less bending moments due to wind loads would be
with the pole strength. The age-degradation model proposed by undertaken by these two poles, and more bending moments would
Shafieezadeh et al. (2014) for the pole strength is used as a dem- be transferred to the middle pole. The maximum difference of the
onstration to calculate the stiffness of the adjacent poles with differ- bending stresses for the middle pole due to the degradation of ad-
ent ages. The age-degradation ratios for the stiffness of poles at the jacent poles is 10%. The failure probabilities of the middle pole
ages of 30, 60, and 90 years are 0.9774, 0.8111, and 0.4734. with adjacent poles that have different ages are also calculated
The bending stresses of the poles in the system with different and plotted in Fig. 17. The failure probabilities of the middle pole
pole degradation for the selected poles under wind loads at the wind also increase with the age of adjacent poles. The maximum incre-
speed of 90 m=s are plotted in Fig. 16. It can be found that the ment of the failure probability is 13% if the age of adjacent poles is
bending stress of the middle Pole 6# increases with the age of 90 years. However, the maximum increment would be less than 5%
the adjacent Poles 5# and 7#. Because the stiffness of the adjacent if the age of adjacent poles is 60 years. Therefore, the results of the

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Fig. 14. Reliability of the system under different wind loads: (a) reliability of system at positive wind direction; and (b) reliability of system at
negative wind direction.

failure probabilities for the inner poles in the pole-wire systems are
not necessary to be updated if the age of adjacent poles is equal to
or less than 60 years. The effects of the adjacent pole degradation
Fig. 15. Configuration of a simple pole-wire system.
should be considered if the age of adjacent poles achieves 90 years.

Fig. 16. Bending stress of poles with different degradation under different wind loads: (a) bending stress of poles at wind direction of 90°; (b) bending
stress of poles at wind direction of 60°; and (c) bending stress of poles at wind direction of 30°.

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Fig. 17. Failure probability of middle pole with different degradation under different wind loads: (a) failure probability of middle pole at wind
direction of 90°; (b) failure probability of middle pole at wind direction of 60°; and (c) failure probability of middle pole at wind direction
of 30°.

Fig. 18. Bending stress of all the poles in the system at different wind
directions. Fig. 19. Failure probability of middle pole at different wind directions.

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 Effects of Wind Direction seven poles. The structural behaviors of the first and last three
side poles in a complicated entire system can be represented
The effects of neighboring spans on the structural behaviors of the
with that of the corresponding poles in a simple local system.
selected poles are determined by the tension forces in wires. The
• The existence of lateral lines only affects the structural behav-
wind direction can significantly affect the tension forces in wires
iors of the poles on the mainline that are directly connected with
and further affect the effects of neighboring spans. The effects of
the lateral lines.
the wind direction are investigated with a seven-pole system. At the
• Failure probability of the entire system calculated by the typical
wind speed of 90 m=s, the bending stresses of all the poles in the
numerical method is close to that calculated by the local system
system at different wind directions are calculated and plotted in
modeling method, which demonstrates the applicability of the
Fig. 18. It is found that the bending stresses of the middle pole de-
proposed method.
crease with the decreasing wind directions. When the wind direction
• The degradation of the adjacent spans affects the failure prob-
is along the path, the tension forces in upstream spans and down-
abilities of the studied poles if the age of the adjacent poles
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stream spans applied on the middle pole are along with the opposite
achieves 90 years. Otherwise, the results of the studied poles
directions and neutralize each other. The failure probabilities of the
are not necessary to be updated.
middle pole at different wind directions are also calculated and plot-
Several limitations exist in the current study. First, several param-
ted in Fig. 19. The similar tendency is also found for the failure prob-
eters for the systems are selected as deterministic values, such as the
abilities of the middle pole. The failure probabilities of the middle
height of the poles and span length. The number of poles in the lat-
pole decrease with the decreasing wind directions.
eral line is also assumed as one. In the future, we plan to investigate
the effects of the wind angle at first. Second, more failure modes,
such as the lean of poles and the breakage of wires will be considered
Conclusions
to predict the resilience of pole-wire systems more accurately. Third,
Generally, pole-wire systems might encounter severe damages dur- the uncertainties of the parameters that are selected as deterministic
ing hurricane events. The resilience of pole-wire systems under values will be considered.
extremely high wind loads can help guide methodologies to reduce
economic losses. However, current studies using the regression
analysis or typical numerical analysis have shortcomings. Regres- Data Availability Statement
sion analysis requires enough datasets of the hurricane-induced
damage for pole-wire systems, which might not be available. Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this
Besides, the models generated in the regression analysis in a se- study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable
lected region with data derived from a selected hurricane might not request.
apply to other regions under other hurricanes. The typical numeri-
cal analysis in current studies simulated pole-wire systems as single
poles or directly simulated the entire pole system. Treating pole- References
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