Electrical Transmission and Substation Structures 2022
Fragility Analysis of Transmission Tower-Line System under Multiple Environmental Loadings
Publication: Electrical Transmission and Substation Structures 2022: Innovating for Critical Global Infrastructure
ABSTRACT
The lattice steel transmission tower-line system serves as a critical component of the electrical power grid. To meet community economic development and power demands, tall high-voltage towers connected by long spans have been built in recent years. Due to the complex structural performance of transmission tower-line systems leading to knowledge gaps in system responses and failure mechanisms, tower collapses and line breaks remain threats under extreme weather loading even when following established transmission design codes and specifications. Under various meteorological threats, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and thunder or ice storms, individual structural component failures can lead to progressive collapse and large area blackouts, producing devastating economic losses and societal consequences. Improved modeling of the wind-infrastructure dynamics and resulting structural failures and power outages is consequently necessary to better inform local decision-makers on effective storm preparation and grid hardening actions to reduce outages and recovery time. In the present study, a mechanistic model is developed using finite element analysis to evaluate tower and line performance under various climatological parameters, including wind, rain, and ice storms, for physical damage predictions. Material imperfections and environmental loading uncertainties are considered and evaluated to develop fragility surfaces. This physics-based model is integrated into a Monte Carlo model to predict cumulative tower failure probabilities using weather simulations. Copulas are used to model the joint distribution of wind and rain or ice, and the methodology is applied to a case study for the northeastern United States. The results indicate the coupling of ice accretion and strong winds has a substantial impact on the tower fragility. Over a 10-year period, an average cumulative failure probability of 0.33% is projected, indicating a generally reliable design. For demonstration, climate change scenarios were projected where rains and winds were increased 10% while ice thicknesses decreased by 10%, increased by 10%, or remained constant. Under these simulated future climate change scenarios, the failure probabilities could be projected to increase up to over 1.5%, indicating the reliability in the future could be compromised under a changing climate.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this chapter.
Acknowledgments
The first author acknowledges the financial support received under the Graduate Assistance for Areas in National Need (GAANN) Fellowship. The authors gratefully acknowledge the data and support of Eversource Energy Connecticut, the Eversource Energy Center at the University of Connecticut, and ISO-New England. This support is greatly appreciated.
References
Banik, S., H. Hong, G. A. Kopp, B. Layer, and W. Tunnel. 2008. “Assessement of Structural Capacity of an Overhead Power Transmission Line Tower Under Wind Loading.” BBAA VI International Colloquium on: Bluff Bodies Aerodynamics & Applications, Milano, Italy.
Bjarnadottir, S., Y. Li, and M. G. Stewart. 2013. “Hurricane Risk Assessment of Power Distribution Poles Considering Impacts of a Changing Climate.” Journal of Infrastructure Systems 19(1):12–24.
Broström, E., J. Ahlberg, and L. Söder. 2007. “Modelling of Ice Storms and Their Impact Applied to a Part of the Swedish Transmission Network.” 2007 IEEE PowerTech Proceedings 1593–98.
Broström, E., and L. Söder. 2007. “Ice Storm Impact on Power System Reliability.” 12th International Workshop on Atmospheric Icing of Structures.
Cai, Y., Q. Xie, S. Xue, L. Hu, and A. Kareem. 2019. “Fragility Modelling Framework for Transmission Line Towers under Winds.” Engineering Structures 191:686–97.
Cerrai, D., M. Koukoula, P. Watson, and E. N. Anagnostou. 2020. “Outage Prediction Models for Snow and Ice Storms.” Sustainable Energy, Grids and Networks 21(100294).
Creighton, G., E. Kuchera, R. Adams-selin, J. Mccormick, S. Rentschler, and B. Wickard. 2014. “AFWA Diagnostics in WRF.”
DeGaetano, A. T., B. N. Belcher, and P. L. Spier. 2008. “Short-Term Ice Accretion Forecasts for Electric Utilities Using the Weather Research and Forecasting Model and a Modified Precipitation-Type Algorithm.” Weather and Forecasting 23(5):838–53.
Fu, X., H. N. Li, and G. Li. 2016. “Fragility Analysis and Estimation of Collapse Status for Transmission Tower Subjected to Wind and Rain Loads.” Structural Safety 58:1–10.
Fu, X., H. N. Li, G. Li, and Z. Q. Dong. 2020. “Fragility Analysis of a Transmission Tower under Combined Wind and Rain Loads.” Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics 199(104098).
Fu, X., H. N. Li, G. Li, Z. Q. Dong, and M. Zhao. 2021. “Failure Analysis of a Transmission Line Considering the Joint Probability Distribution of Wind Speed and Rain Intensity.” Engineering Structures 233(111913).
Fu, X., H. N. Li, L. Tian, J. Wang, and H. Cheng. 2019. “Fragility Analysis of Transmission Line Subjected to Wind Loading.” Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities 33(4).
Fu, X., H. N. Li, and Y. B. Yang. 2015. “Calculation of Rain Load Based on Single Raindrop Impinging Experiment and Applications.” Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics 147:85–94.
Jeong, D. Il, A. J. Cannon, and X. Zhang. 2019. “Projected Changes to Extreme Freezing Precipitation and Design Ice Loads over North America Based on a Large Ensemble of Canadian Regional Climate Model Simulations.” Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences 19(4):857–72.
Jeong, D. Il, Sushama, L., M. J. F. Vieira, and K. A. Koenig. 2018. “Projected Changes to Extreme Ice Loads for Overhead Transmission Lines across Canada.” Sustainable Cities and Society 39:639–49.
Jones, K. F. 1998. “A Simple Model for Freezing Rain Ice Loads.” Atmospheric Research 46:87–97.
Kudzys, A. 2006. “Safety of Power Transmission Line Structures under Wind and Ice Storms.” Engineering Structures 28(5):682–89.
Li, H., Y. Chen, G. Zhang, J. Li, N. Zhang, B. Du, H. Liu, and N. Xiong. 2019. “Transmission Line Ice Coating Prediction Model Based on EEMD Feature Extraction.” IEEE Access 7:40695–706.
Li, X., and W. Zhang. 2020. “Long-Term Assessment of a Floating Offshore Wind Turbine under Environmental Conditions with Multivariate Dependence Structures.” Renewable Energy 147:764–75.
Li, X., Zhang, W. H. Niu, and Z. Yi. 2018. “Probabilistic Capacity Assessment of Single Circuit Transmission Tower-Line System Subjected to Strong Winds.” Engineering Structures 175:517–30.
Liu, H., R. A. Davidson, and T. V Apanasovich. 2008. “Spatial Generalized Linear Mixed Models of Electric Power Outages Due to Hurricanes and Ice Storms.” Reliability Engineering and System Safety 93:875–90.
Lu, Q., W. Zhang, and A. Bagtzoglou. 2022. “Physics-Based Reliability Assessment of Community-Based Power Distribution System Using Synthetic Hurricanes.” ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems, Part A: Civil Engineering 8(1).
Ma, Y., Q. Dai, and W. Pang. 2020. “Reliability Assessment of Electrical Grids Subjected to Wind Hazards and Ice Accretion with Concurrent Wind.” Journal of Structural Engineering 146(7).
McComber, P., J. Druez, and J. Laflamme. 1995. “A Comparison of Selected Models for Estimating Cable Icing.” Atmospheric Research 36(3–4):207–20.
Niu, H., X. Li, and W. Zhang. 2018. “Capacity Assessment of Existing Corroded Overhead Power Line Structures Subjected to Synoptic Winds.” Wind and Structures 27(5):325–36.
Panteli, M., and P. Mancarella. 2015. “Modeling and Evaluating the Resilience of Critical Electrical Power Infrastructure to Extreme Weather Events.” IEEE Systems Journal 11(3):1733–42.
Panteli, M., Mancarella, P. Wilkinson, S. R. Dawson, and C. Pickering. 2015. “Assessment of the Resilience of Transmission Networks to Extreme Wind Events.” 2015 IEEE Eindhoven PowerTech.
Quilligan, A., A. O’Connor, and V. Pakrashi. 2012. “Fragility Analysis of Steel and Concrete Wind Turbine Towers.” Engineering Structures 36:270–82.
Rao, N. P., G. M. S. Knight, N. Lakshmanan, and N. R. Iyer. 2010. “Investigation of Transmission Line Tower Failures.” Engineering Failure Analysis 17(5):1127–41.
Rezaei, S. N., L. Chouinard, F. Legeron, and S. Langlois. 2015. “Vulnerability Analysis of Transmission Towers Subjected to Unbalanced Ice Loads.” 12th International Conference on Applications of Statistics and Probability in Civil Engineering, ICASP 2015 1–8.
Ryan, P. C., M. G. Stewart, and N. Spencer. 2015. “Cost-Effective Design and Maintenance of Timber Power Distribution Poles in a Changing Climate.” 12th International Conference on Applications of Statistics and Probability in Civil Engineering, ICASP 2015 1–8.
Sanders, K. J., and B. L. Barjenbruch. 2016. “Analysis of Ice-to-Liquid Ratios during Freezing Rain and the Development of an Ice Accumulation Model.” Weather and Forecasting 31(4):1041–60.
Skamarock, W. C., J. B. Klemp, J. Dudhi, D. O. Gill, D. M. Barker, M. G. Duda, X.-Y. Huang, W. Wang, and J. G. Powers. 2008. “A Description of the Advanced Research WRF Version 3.” National Center for Atmospheric Research Technical Report 113.
Szilder, K., E. P. Lozowski, and G. Reuter. 2002. “A Study of Ice Accretion Shape on Cables under Freezing Rain Conditions.” Journal of Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering 124(3):162–68.
Wanik, D. W., E. N. Anagnostou, M. Astitha, B. M. Hartman, G. M. Lackmann, J. Yang, D. Cerrai, J. He, and M. E. B. Frediani. 2018. “A Case Study on Power Outage Impacts from Future Hurricane Sandy Scenarios.” Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology 57(1):51–79.
Xie, Q., and L. Sun. 2012. “Failure Mechanism and Retrofitting Strategy of Transmission Tower Structures under Ice Load.” Journal of Constructional Steel Research 74:26–36.
Yang, H., Chung, C. Y. J. Zhao, and Z. Dong. 2013. “A Probability Model of Ice Storm Damages to Transmission Facilities.” IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery 28(2):557–65.
Zhang, W., Zhu, J. H. Liu, and H. Niu. 2015. “Probabilistic Capacity Assessment of Lattice Transmission Towers under Strong Wind.” Frontiers in Built Environments 1:1–12.
Zhu, J., and W. Zhang. 2018. “Probabilistic Fatigue Damage Assessment of Coastal Slender Bridges under Coupled Dynamic Loads.” Engineering Structures 166:274–85.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Electrical Transmission and Substation Structures 2022: Innovating for Critical Global Infrastructure
Pages: 207 - 222
Editor: Tim Cashman
ISBN (Online): 978-0-7844-8446-3
Copyright
© 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Published online: Sep 20, 2022
Published in print: Sep 20, 2022
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.