Structural optimisation of shallow foundations for overhead power line
The present work is aimed at studying the design of shallow foundations for overhead power line the towers under complex engineering and geological conditions. The study investigates existing designs and reveals their main shortcomings. In order to increase structural stability in complex soil conditions, the experience of constructing overhead power line towers using a shallow foundation is considered. The proposed shallow foundation option demonstrates increased strength and structural reliability. The shallow foundation design was carried out using the SCAD design software analysing the finite element model of static and dynamic loaded computation schemes, monitoring the structures for stability, checking metal systems for reliability and selecting disadvantageous combinations of forcing. The finite element method on which the software is based uses the movements and rotations of the structural nodes in the computation scheme as the main unknown variables. Two shallow foundation options are considered under equally complex soil conditions with the same loads, but a different arrangement of collar beams. Under complex engineering and geological conditions and the action of maximum loads, the calculation showed the greatest difference in the foundation settlement between the two options to increase by 2 times. The significance of the difficulties involved in increasing security of supply established by the development strategies of the electric power industry in Russia is presented. A design models for towers having shallow foundations, operated as beams of complex geometry, was selected. Experimental and analytical studies demonstrated the practical effectiveness of using the identified shallow foundation approach.