Introduction
Utility poles must be designed and constructed with specific safety features in mind. The National Electrical Safety Code (NESC) reports the requirements for the secure installation and maintenance of aerial and buried power and telecommunication plants.
Historically, poor knowledge of poles’ structural integrity in an outside plant network hindered new infrastructure deployments. All participants associated with wireless and wireline infrastructure deployment must know the basics of pole loading analysis. It involves the importance, what constituents have the most significant impact, and what solutions can ensure convenient customer access to new services.
The shortage of access to physical infrastructure, especially utility poles, is usually a vital drawback to deploying communication services. Hence, there is a requirement to build a more comprehensive framework to oversee the accessibility of timelines, charges, terms, and conditions for pole attachments.
A useful analysis of pole loading constituents shall assist the effective delivery of electric utilities and help estimate and decrease the risk factors linked with each overhead line.
The following are the best practices for pole loading analysis:
Structural Analysis
Skilled engineering technicians use the data collected during field inspection to efficiently and precisely model and examine poles, producing comprehensive analysis reports. If a pole fails to satisfy the code conditions, the technician determines proper actions like
- Guying changes
- Pole strengthening
- Pole replacement design
Clearance Analysis
Once the structure is correctly modeled according to the current requirements, a clearance analysis is performed. Clearance analysis choices vary from reviewing existing conditions against the code demands to implementing all necessary temperature and loading conditions to define the worst-case clearances. Here the engineering technicians recommend modi