Development of a Semiprescriptive Selection Procedure for Reliability-Based Fatigue Design of High-Mast Lighting Structural Supports
Publication: Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 21, Issue 3
Abstract
High mast lighting structures are being used to provide illumination for large intersections, particularly for highways located in rural areas. These structures, ranging from approximately in height, are exposed to high wind forces that in turn produce a tremendous number of loading cycles each year. A recent high mast lighting structural support failure in the high plains of Colorado near Denver International Airport provided the impetus for this study. These high-mast structures are less than one meter in diameter and are quite flexible relative to many civil engineering structures. This flexibility results in large deformations when compared to their diameter, i.e., when combined with the height of these structures. Furthermore, large forces and moments at the base are produced that result in large stresses and stress reversals during multimode excitation. This paper presents the process and results for the development of a reliability-based design procedure for high-mast lighting structural supports based on fatigue life. The resulting procedure is prescriptive in that a series of design charts result from full nonlinear finite element analysis. The loading on the slender body is characterized by Morison’s equation, essentially providing the nonlinear loading relationship for the wind on the moving structure. Then, a well-known random vibrations approach was coupled with Miner’s rule to estimate the fatigue life of the structural support. Several illustrative design examples are presented and shown to compare very well with full simulations.
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Acknowledgments
This project was funded by the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT)—Safety and Traffic Engineering Branch and is gratefully acknowledged. Dick Osmun, the project manager at CDOT, provided advice and support during the project and the writers thank him for his assistance. The first writer would also like to thank the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC)—Rocky Mountain Region, for providing a Graduate Fellowship for the latter portion of his participation in this study. Opinions expresses in this paper are, however, those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect those of CDOT or AISC.
References
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van de Lindt, J. W., and Goode, J. S. (2006). “Development of a reliability-based design procedure for high-mast lighting structural supports in Colorado.” Research Rep. to the Colorado Department of Transportation, Structural Research Rep. No. SRR-91, Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, Colo., ⟨www.engr.colostate.edu/~jwv/Reports.htm⟩.
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© 2007 ASCE.
History
Received: Mar 22, 2006
Accepted: Jul 27, 2006
Published online: Jun 1, 2007
Published in print: Jun 2007
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