Experimental study of wind loads on tubular and tubular-angle steel cross-arms of transmission towers

The main structure of the transmission tower consists of the tower body and the cross arm, which serve as vertical support and transverse extension, respectively. Compared with the tower body, due to the difference between the transverse and longitudinal projected areas of the cross-arm, the wind load distribution of the cross-arm is more complicated and requires more in-depth research. In this paper, wind tunnel force tests under skew wind were carried out on the 1:20 scaled rigid models of the tubular and the tubular-angle combined cross-arms. The tests consider four solidity ratios (0.2, 0.3, 0.4, and 0.5) under three wind speeds and 19 yaw angles. The aerodynamic force coefficients Ci, the skewed wind load factor Kθ, the transversal and longitudinal wind load distribution factor nX and nY, and the angle α between the transversal aerodynamic force coefficient (CX) and the resultant wind force coefficient (CR) were obtained and analyzed. It was found that the wind load coefficients decrease with increasing solidity ratio. The tested drag coefficient of the tubular cross-arm is larger than the combined cross-arm under the same solidity ratio. The nX of the tubular and combined cross-arm reaches the maximum range of 0.33–0.47 and 0.22–0.23 at 30° <θ < 45° and 30° < θ < 35°, respectively. The nY curves were ordered from large to small as follows: EN 50341-1, the tested tubular cross-arm, the tested combined cross-arm, and JEC-127-1979. At 55° < θ < 65°, the difference of α and θ for the tested tubular and combined cross-arm reaches the maximum of 10°–18° and 29°–32°, respectively, indicating that the lift force cannot be ignored and the assumption α = θ is not applicable. Reasonable nonlinear fitting functions are proposed to accurately calculate the wind load of the two types of cross-arms.