IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 10, No.

I, January 1995

445

EFFECT OF TORNADO LOADS ON TRANSMISSION LINES

Mag& F. Ishac, Member, E E E

Ontario Hydro
393 University Avenue Toronto, Ontario Canada MSG2I.6

H. Brian White, Fellow, EEE Consultant PO Box 939 Hudson, Quebec Canada JOP 1HO
2.0

Abstract Of all the populated areas in Canada, southwestern Ontario has experienced the highest tornado incidence and faces the greatest tornado damage. About 1 or 2 tornadoes per 10,000 km2 can be expected there annually. The probability of a tornado strike at a given point is very small but the probability of a transmission line being crossed by a tornado is significant. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature related to tornadoes in Ontario and to investigate the effect of tornado loads on transmission lines. Based on this investigation a design basis tornado loading for transmission towers is proposed.
1.0
INTRODUCTION

TORNADOES

Tornadoes may be classified by their intensity. The Fujita F-scale for classification of tornadoes is based on tornado wind speed, path length and path width. On the Fujita scale of 0 to 5, FO i the category for the weakest s tornadoes and F5 is the category for the strongest. Only 8% of all Canadian tornadoes are rated as F3 or stronger and no F5 tornadoes are known (Newark 1983). The first Canadian attempt to formulate a design basis tornado was made by Collingwood (1977) to meet the needs of nuclear power plants located in Southern Ontario. By using a larger and more recent set of U.S. and Canadian data, Newark (1991) proposed a Canadian design basis tornado appropriate to each Fujita-scale category. There are still many problems in gathering and interpreting tornado data but this data can still form the basis for better informed judgement in structural design.
A number of attempts have been made to characterize the physical dimensions of tornado damage. In Canada, Newark (1983) calculated mean, median and mode values of damage length, width and area. In the United States, the work of Schaefer et a1 (1986) is considered to be the best indicator of the magnitude of tornado damage parameters for North America. Their median values of damage length, width and area, are shown in Table 1. These values are smaller than those reported by Newark (1981).

Tornadoes are short-lived, randomly occurring, severe storms that cover small areas. These narrow front winds, which seldom register at meteorological stations, are the most common cause of weather related transmission tower failures in Ontario Hydro. The probability of a tornado strike at a given point is very small but the probability of a transmission line being crossed by a tornado is significant. However, the fact that the width of a tornado path is very narrow, gives the possibility for improving transmission line resistance to tornadoes at reasonable cost. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature related to tornadoes in Ontario and to investigate the effect of tornado loads on transmission Lines. Based on this investigation a design basis tornado loading for transmission towers is proposed.

This paper was presented at the 1994 IEEE PES Transmission and Distribution Conference and Exposition held in Chicago, Illinois, April 10-15, 1994.

Given that there is no reason to suspect that Canadian tornadoes should have larger damage dimensions than those in the US., the larger U.S. sample size and the fact that not all parameters are available for all tornadoes in the Canadian set, Newark (1991) has used Table 1 data as the basis for recommending several parameters of a Canadian design basis tornado. Table 2 gives the design parameters for a tornado in each F-scale category recommended by Newark (1991).

0885-8977/95/$04.00 0 1994 IEEE

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3.0

TORNADO FREQUENCY IN ONTARIO

In Ontario, the average starting date of the tornado season is mid May and the average end date is the end of August. Peak tornado activity occurs during the late afternoon or early evening (Newark 1981). In Ontario, the majority (76%) of tornadoes travel from the southwest and west. Table 3 shows the return periods of the more severe tornadoes in Ontario. During the 1950 to 1979 period a strong tornado, F3 or F4, was experienced somewhere in Ontario within a return period as short as 3 years (Newark 1984). 4.0
TORNADO LOADING TRANSMISSION LINES EFFECT ON

towers, the tornado loading will increase the bending moments in the masts of the V-guyed towers and change the shear distribution in the mast of the Y-guyed and the Delta-guyed towers. The structural changes, if needed, will be limited to increased capacity of small secondary members which may increase the tower weight by less than 3%. It should be noted that some tower designs have such capacity built in when these towers are designed for relatively shorter span lines which produce total conductor wind loads of the same order of magnitude as structure wind loads.

5.0

PROPOSED TORNADO ONTARIO HYDRO

LOADING

FOR

It is impossible to design a transmission line to withstand all tornadoes. However, the fact that 92% of categorized tornadoes in Ontario are rated as F2 or less shows the possibilities of economical designs that might resist most tornadoes. Many of the tornadoes of F2 or less are characterized by intense winds acting over a very small path width, sufficient to create large loads acting on the structure with relatively much lower conductor loads acting on the full line span. Field investigations of structures damaged by tornadoes support the concept of shear failures within the tower body of a 4-leg tower or from transverse/longitudinal mast bending and possible shear failures at the ends of the masts, causing failures of guyed towers. Ontario Hydro loading criteria derive both wind on conductor loads and wind on structure loads from the same basic wind speed. For medium to long span lines, this usually produces total wind on conductor loads much greater than the wind on structure loads and the resultant location of the total transverse loading is closer to the level of the conductor loads. The result of this loading philosophy is a larger overturning moment and a larger foundation reaction which contribute to a conservative design of the tower legs. The tornado loading is a very severe wind load to be applied to the tower from any direction in combination with a very small or even zero horizontal conductor loading. The shift in emphasis to wind on structure loading will change the shear distribution within the body of the latticed 4-leg towers with a possible reduction in the overturning moment and the foundation uplift reaction. With respect to guyed

The proposed tornado loading for Ontario Hydro is shown in Table 4. Also shown is a comparison between the actual extreme wind loading used in our tower design versus the proposed tornado loading. The proposed tornado loading is a wind load corresponding to moderate tornadoes F1 or F2 for Northern or Southern Ontario applied only on the towers. The load on the conductors and ground wires is neglected because of the narrow tornado path widths. The maximum tornado wind speed proposed is 240 km/hr which corresponds to a Southern Ontario F2 tornado to be used on the lines that are being designed to withstand an extreme wind of 160 km/hr. 6.0
TOWER DESIGN LOAD EVALUATION

The tornado loading effect on transmission towers described in section 4.0 has been evaluated on two types of Ontario Hydro tower designs, (a) 4-leg towers and (b) V-guyed towers. For each tower design, three different families were evaluated by applying a tornado load on such towers. For the 4-leg towers, the 1-cct 500 kV Z6S, Z l l S and Z15S were used, and for the V-guyed towers, the 1-cct 500 kV Z2S, Z5S and Z7S were used in this investigation. The tower outline sketches are shown in Figure 1. The iummary of the 4-leg basic tower design evaluation is tabulated in Table 5.a and the summary of the 4-leg tallest tower design evaluation is shown in Table 5.b. The evaluation is carried out by comparing the effect of high wind loading to the tornado loading in each case and how these different types of loadings are affecting the tower design, i.e.. Transverse Design Load, Overturning Moment and Foundation Reactions for the 4-leg towers. Similar analysis was carried out on the guyed towers by comparing the Transverse Design Load, the Guy/Mast

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Design Load and the Mast Bending Moment for both high wind loading and tornado loading. The summary of the V-guyed basic tower design and the V-guyed tallest tower design evaluations are shown in Tables 6.a and 6.b, respectively. 7.0

REFERENCES

ANALYSIS OF RESULTS

The 4-leg towers were chosen to cover a spectrum of different spans and tower heights and the analysis was carried out for the basic structure and for the tallest structure of each tower family. For the basic tower the tornado load effect was within the design values of the high wind load, i.e. the basic tower can resist the tornado load without modification. For the tallest structures, the transverse load 'due to tornadoes is exceeding the transverse load due to high winds, which results in extra shear reinforcement for the tower. The overturning moments due to tornado loads aie within the design values. To reinforce the tower to withstand the extra transverse load, due to tornadoes compared to the high wind load, additional tower weight is limited to 2.5%. These comparisons are shown in Tables 5.a and 5.b. The V-guyed towers were chosen also to cover a range of spans between 350 m to 500 m and the analysis was carried out for the basic structure and for the tallest structures. The effect of the tornado load is basically on the design of the mast to resist the local mast bending moment and shear. To reinforce the mast to withstand the extra mast bending moment and shear due to a tornado load, compared to the high wind load, additional tower weight is limited to the range of 0.7% - 2% of the basic towers and 2.1% - 2.5% of the tallest towers. These comparisons are shown in Tables 6.a and 6.b.
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T.T. Fujita, "Proposed Characterization of Tornadoes and Hurricanes by Area and Intensity", SMRP Research Paper No. 105, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 1971. T.T. Fujita and A.D Pearson, "Results of FF'P Classification of 1971 and 1972 Tornadoes", Preprints, Eighth Conference on Severe Local Storms, American Meteorological Society, Boston, Mass., 1973, pp 142-145. GA. McKay, "Some Weather Hazards Affecting Transmission Line Design", Environment Canada, Atmospheric Environment Services, Downsview, Ontario, 1973. B.R. Collingwood, "Design Basis Tornado", Atomic Energy Control Board Ottawa, Ontario, Report No. 77271, 1977. M J . Newark, "Canadian Tornadoes, 1950-1979, Atmosphere - Ocean, Vol. 22 No. 3, 1984, pp 343353. J.T. Schaefer, D.L. Kelly and R.F. Abbey Jr., "A Minimum Assumption Tornado Hazard Model", Joumal of Climate and Applied Meteorology, 25: 1934-1945, 1986. ASCE "Guidelines for Electrical Transmission Line Structural Loading", ASCE Manual 74, New York, NY, 1991. M.J. Newark, "A Design Basis Tornado", Canadian Joumal of Civil Engineering, Vol. 18, 1991, pp 521524. Dr. Magdi Zshac, IEEE(M), ASCE(M), has 15 years Experience in the areas of nuclear power generation and transmission lines design. He is currently a design engineer specialist in the Lines Projects Division of the Grid System of Ontario Hydro. He has a broad range of euperience in analysis, design, constructability and maintainability of transmission lines. Dr. Ishac has completed his M.Eng. (Structures) in 1976 and his Ph.D. (Structural Dynamics & Earthquake Engineering) in 1979from McMaster University, Canada.

CONCLUSION

In addition to the extreme wind loads used in the existing design philosophy of transmission lines, the towers may be subjected to wind loads associated with tornadoes. The tornado load in Ontario has been evaluated based on a literature review and the effect of tornado loading on transmission lines has been investigated. Based on this study, a design basis tornado loading for transmission towers is proposed. The structural changes on the existing tower designs, if needed, will be limited to an increase in tower weight by less than 3%.

H. Brian White, ASCE(M), IEEE (Fellow), Consulting Line Engineer, Hudson, Quebec, Canada, has over 41 years experience in the design arid constniction of overhead transmission lines operating in 15 countries, at voltages from 69 kV to 1200 kl/. In addition to the more conventional designs, he is responsible for the design of the Guyed V Structure now used widely throughout the world. He also designed the Cross Rope Suspension Tower installed on 3 ofthe 735 kVJames Bay lines for Hydro Quebec.

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v)

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Table 1 MEDIAN VALUES OF TORNADO DAMAGE PARAMETERS BY F-SCALE

F-SCALE

(after Schaefer et a1 1986)

Table 2

(after Newark 1991) Note:Median damage area is not equal to median damage width times median damage length

Table 3

1950- 1959 1960-1969 1970-1979 1950-1979

3.3 1.3

(after Newark 1984)

Table 4

PROPOSED TORNADO LOADING VERSUS EXTREME WIND LOADING I EXTREME WIND SPEED (km/hr) I 80 I 96 I 128 I 144 I
WIND LOAD ON COND/TOWER &pa) TORNADO WIND SPEED @"r) TORNADO LOAD ON COND/TOWER (koa)

I
160 1.15 13.1

0.29 10.8 120 0 1 1.7

0.39 1 1 . 1

I
I

F1

144 0 12.4

0.77 I 2.1 F1 I F 2 192 0 14.8

0.96 1 2 . 6 224 0 16.0

1
I

F2 240 0 16.5

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