Design of Single-Level Guyed Towers Considering Interrelationship between Bracing Strength and Rigidity Requirements

Abstract

Elastic buckling and second-order analyses are conducted to establish a more rigorous design procedure for single-level guyed towers, in which the interrelationship between the strength and rigidity requirements of the guys are considered to provide adequate lateral bracing. First, the guyed tower is simplified to a laterally braced column using an equivalent spring model for the guy action. Then, elastic buckling analysis is conducted to investigate the buckling axial force and the bracing rigidity requirement of an ideal laterally braced column. Using the exact stability stiffness matrix, the eigenproblem is formulated and solved. The influences of base fixity factor and lateral bracing rigidity on the buckling axial force are discussed. Second-order analysis is conducted to examine the inverse relationship between the strength and rigidity requirements in the lateral bracing design of a real column with initial imperfections and lateral loads. The differential equation of equilibrium for the laterally braced column considering geometric nonlinearity is established and solved. The lateral bracing strength limit is determined for guyed towers and the bracing rigidity requirement is formulated based on this strength limit. Finally, the design procedure and a design example are presented in three parts: tower stability design, guy rigidity design, and tower detailing and strength examination. Design implications for multilevel guyed towers are further noted.