Structural Analysis of Guyed Mast Exposed to Wind Action

Abstract

The behavior of the mast is non-linear due to its slenderness and compliant guy-support system, having a tendency to lose stability and even crush suddenly. Wind load is one of the main factors affecting the stability of the structure of the mast. Structural assessment of the different mast configurations has been investigated in the past. Furthermore, European standards EN 1993-3-1:2006 and EN 1993-1-6:2007 already provides some guidelines about the basis of structural analysis of masts and towers. This paper presents the results of numerical simulations of a guyed mast exposed to wind action using finite element method. Structural analyses were performed for three different constant wind loads, modal analysis provides the values of natural frequency and mode shapes, while the stability analysis was performed for the first three buckling load factor values. The motivation for this study is to investigate the contribution of finite element method to structural analysis of a lattice structure such as guyed mast as an alternative and/or improvement to the literature and codes.