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Study on the Limited Values of Foundation

Deformation for a Typical UHV Transmission Tower
Fengli Yang, Jingbo Yang, Junke Han, and Zifu Zhang

AbstractThe tower foundation above the goaf of the coal mine

is easily deformed, which causes a serious threat to the safe operation of ultra-high voltage (UHV) transmission lines. In this paper,
the finite-element model of a typical 1000-kV UHV ac transmission tower was established in general software ANSYS, and the
axial forces of the members as well as their variation trends were
analyzed under different load cases, which include foundation settlement, slip, and inclination combined with normal design cases.
Limited values of the foundation deformation under different cases
for the analyzed tower were determined. It shows that the limited values of longitudinal deformation, transverse deformation,
nonuniform settlement, and horizontal slip are decreased, in turn,
with the same external loads. The limited value of the foundation
deformation under 60 wind is the minimum, which is the control load case of the foundation deformation. The limited value of
nonuniform settlement through computation is lower than that of
the current regulation, and it is dangerous to evaluate the stress
state by the regulation method. In the righting process of the tower
with foundation deformation, the axial forces of the members are
not more than than the critical bearing capacities except the horizontal slip case, and the tower is in a safe state.
Index TermsFoundation deformation, goaf of coal mine, limited values, righting, ultra-high voltage (UHV) transmission tower.

I. INTRODUCTION
CCORDING to the restriction of the terrain characteristics and the corridor conditions, transmission lines usually
pass the goaf of coal mine. There are some transmission lines
with an electrical grade not higher than 500 kV passing the goaf
of the coal mine in China. Affected by the surface settlement of
the goaf, the foundation of the transmission pole and tower will
be destroyed by settlement, inclination, or slip. Then, with the
variation of the leg opening and height difference of the tower
legs, the tower structures will bear high additional loads, and
part of the body or the entire body of the tower structure may
break down. Deformations of the foundation have introduced a
serious threat to the safe operation of the power grid.
Settlement, inclination, or slip of the foundations has occurred in the transmission lines passing the goaf of the coal
mine in China [1][4]. For example, in the No. 50 tower of the
220-kV YiGong line in Inner Mongolia, some towers of 110-kV
and 220-kV lines in ChangZhi City, Shanxi Province, as well

Manuscript received March 22, 2009; revised May 19, 2009. Current version
published September 22, 2010. This work was supported by the State Grid Corporation of China, and the financial aid number is SGKJ2007 [753]. Paper no.
TPWRD-00240-2009.
The authors are with the China Electric Power Research Institute, Beijing
100055, China (e-mail: yangfl1@epri.sgcc.com.cn; flyangbj@tom.com).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2010.2045662

as No. S tower and No. G tower of the YangHuai 500-kV line

etc. have been broken partially or entirely for the foundation
deformation.
The first 1000-kV ultra-high voltage (UHV) ac demonstration
project of the Southeast Jin-NanYang-JingMen line in China has
been completed. This is also the first commercial 1000-kV ac
transmission line in the world, and the transmission capacity of
this line is equal to that of four to six 500-kV lines [5]. Accidents of the 1000-kV UHV ac transmission line may bring
considerable disaster to the safety of the 1000-kV transmission line and the receiving terminal power grids. Safe operation
of the 1000-kV UHV ac transmission line has a close relation
to the safety of the energy structures, which brings higher requirements of the reliability of the line. The UHV transmission
line passes long goaf of the coal mine in ShanXi and HeNan
Province, and the bearing capacity of the tower with foundation
deformation and in the righting process have been focused on
more.
Limited values of the uniform foundation settlement for the
towers with different heights are specified in the design technical regulations [6], [7]. Limited values for the foundation with
nonuniform settlement, inclination, and slip are not specified.
Until now, the studies have mainly focused on the righting or
strengthen technology of the towers with foundation deformation [8][11]. The healthy state evaluation of the tower with
foundation deformation or in the righting process has not been
sufficiently researched.
The prototype test on the UHV transmission tower with
foundation deformation is very costly and difficult to realize.
It is necessary to analyze the member forces of the UHV
tower with foundation deformation of settlement, inclination,
and slip. Limited values for the foundation deformation of
settlement, inclination, or slip under working load cases should
be determined. Variation of the member forces can be obtained
with the structural analysis of the tower in the righting process,
which provides a useful reference and basis for the estimation
on the healthy state of the analyzed UHV towers with foundation deformation in the goaf of the coal mine.
II. ANALYSIS ILLUSTRATIONS
The ZBS2 tangent tower in the 1000-kV Southeast JinNanYang-JingMen transmission line is selected for the structural analysis with foundation deformation. The bearing
capacity of the tower agrees with the requirement of the
working load cases, including wind load, accreted ice load, and
installation load, etc. The large panel foundation is applied for
the 1000-kV UHV ac transmission line. The sketch of large
panel foundation is shown in Fig. 1. Four isolated base columns

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Fig. 1. Sketch of the large panel foundation.

can be connected as a whole body by the ring beam and the

bottom panel.
The design wind velocity is 30 m/s at 10-m reference height
and the design ice thickness is 10 mm. The height of the tower is
58.5 m and the leg opening is 12 m. The vertical and horizontal
design spans of conductors and ground wires are 560 m and 800
m, respectively. The type of the conductor and the ground wire
is LGJ-500/35 and JLB20A-170. The calculating specifications
and assumptions are demonstrated as follows.
1) The finite-element analysis (FEA) method considering
the specifications in [12] and [13] is used for the structural analysis of the towers with foundation deformation in the goaf of coal mine, and the stress state of the
towers is estimated according to the FEA results. Design bearing capacities of the members can be calculated according to the formulas in [12] and [13]. The design force is assumed as the critical value of the member
force.
2) The total number of the analysis cases is 34, and the illustration of the cases is shown in Fig. 2. The analyses
are mainly focused on the foundation deformation of settlement, inclination, or slip, which are combined with
the working load cases of 90 wind, 60 wind, 10-mm
accreted ice load as well as the installation load case.
Variations of the member forces under different load
cases are computed by the FEA analysis.
3) The relationship between the wind direction and the
foundation deformation is shown in Fig. 3. Number
A, B, C, and D refers to four nodes of the tower foots.
Deformation along A-C side is in the reverse direction
of wind, and deformation along the B-D side is in the
down direction of the wind.

III. ANALYSIS MODEL

The general FEA software ANSYS was applied for the tower
structural analysis with foundation deformation [14], [15]. The
leg members and the secondary members of the tower are simulated by the BEAM4 element and Link8 element, respectively.
BEAM4 is a uniaxial element with tension, compression, torsion, and bending capabilities. LINK8 is a 3-D uniaxial tensioncompression element with three translation degrees of freedom
at each node. The connection between the legs is rigid, and

Fig. 2. Illustration of analysis cases.

Fig. 3. Relationship of wind direction and foundation deformation.

Fig. 4. Finite-element model of the transmission tower.

the connection of the secondary members is hinged. The FEA

model of the tower is presented in Fig. 4.
In the analysis process, the load steps were set by a reasonable value, and the relationship curves between the foundation
deformation and the bearing capacities of the key members were
obtained. The limited values for different types of the foundation deformation were determined.
It is assumed that the members are in elastic state under the
external loads including wind, accreted ice, and foundation deformation. When the tower foundation is inclining, the whole
deformation of the tower is large and the additional moment is
produced. The large deformation option should be opened in
ANSYS, and the effect of the large deformation of the tower is
considered [16][20].
The foundation deformation of settlement, inclination, or slip
can be simulated by different constrained types at the tower
foots. The constraints of the tower foots for different cases are
shown in Table I. UZ and UX are the translational freedom degree of the vertical direction and the longitudinal direction, and

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TABLE I
CONSTRAINED CONDITIONS OF TOWER FOOTS

Fig. 7. Comparison of the axial forces.

A. Large Deformation Effect

Fig. 5. Illustration of foundation slip and nonuniform settlement. (a) Slip. (b)
Nonuniform settlement.

Fig. 6. Modes of foundation deformation in the longitudinal direction. (a) Settlement. (b) Inclination.

ROTY is the rotational freedom degree around the longitudinal

direction of the transmission line.
When the foundation is deformed in transverse or longitudinal direction, one side of the tower foots is fixed and the other
side is settled or inclined.
The cases of foundation slip and nonuniform settlement are
illustrated in Fig. 5. When the foundation has slipped, one side
of the tower foots is fixed and the other side has slipped along
the horizontal direction. For the nonuniform settlement of foundation, one of the four towers foots is fixed, and the other three
feet are settled by the scales of 2:5:10. The settlement value
refers to the maximum vertical displacement of the four tower
feet.
IV. ANALYSIS OF BEARING CAPACITY
Thirty-four load cases are considered in this analysis, and
only the results of the tower structural analysis under 60 wind,
combined with foundation deformation in the longitudinal direction along the transmission line, are presented in detail. There
are two modes of the foundation deformation in the longitudinal
direction along the transmission line, which include the foundation settlement with the failure of the large panel foundation in
Fig. 6(a) and the foundation inclination when the large panel
foundation is not ruptured in Fig. 6(b).

According to the operating experience of the transmission

lines, for different types of foundation deformation, the limited
value of foundation settlement is relatively low. When the settlement value is in the range of 0 to 100 mm, the axial forces of the
transverse separator member are approximately closed with and
without considering a large deformation effect. As for the foundation settlement, deformation of the tower body is relatively
small, and the additional moment induced by the deformation
of the tower body can be ignored. The large deformation effect
has little influence on the member forces of the tower with foundation settlement.
For the case of foundation inclination, the additional moment
induced by the deformation of the tower body is significant and
cannot be ignored. When the inclination value is in the range
of 0 to 2.0 m, the axial forces of separator member with and
without the large deformation effect are shown in Fig. 7. If the
large deformation effect is not considered, the tower body is rotating as a rigid body. The member force varies little with the
increase of foundation inclination. With the consideration of a
large deformation effect, the additional moment by the deformation of the tower body can be considered. The member force
increases nonlinearly with the increasing inclination value.
B. Foundation Settlement
According to the analysis results with increasing settlement
values, the members with large variation of axial forces are the
legs, the diagonal members, and the transverse separator members at the bottom of the tower, while axial forces of the members at the top of the tower vary little. The distribution of the
members at the bottom of the tower is shown in Fig. 8.
1) When the direction of the foundation settlement is the
same with the wind direction, the variation of the axial
forces in the transverse separator member is presented
in Fig. 9. The member forces of absolute values increase
linearly with increasing settlement values. The member
force reaches the critical value when the settlement value
is up to about 34 mm. Critical value means that the axial
force of a member reaches the design bearing capacity,
which can be calculated by the yield stress of the steel
considering stability and the section area of a member.
Variation of the forces of the diagonal member below
the transverse separator panel is shown in Fig. 10. The

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Fig. 8. Distribution of members at the bottom of the tower.

Fig. 10. Axial force of the bottom diagonal member with foundation settlement.

Fig. 9. Axial force of the transverse separator member with foundation settlement.

member force reaches the critical value when the settlement value is up to about 60 mm.
With the increasing foundation settlement, the transverse separator members at the bottom of the tower are
first broken, and then the diagonal members below the
separator members will fail in turn. Considering the
margin of the bearing capacity in the tower design, it
is assumed that the members should be in failure when
the axial forces reach more than 120% of the critical
values. The failure members should be deleted in the
FEA model as shown in Fig. 11.
According to the analysis results, axial forces of the diagonal members above the transverse separator panel
vary more greatly, and the variation of the axial forces
for different values of settlement is presented in Table II.
As the settlement value increases to about 134 mm, the
axial force of the diagonal member above the separator
panel reaches 120% of the critical value and the tower is
in a failure state.
2) When the direction of the foundation settlement is
against the wind direction, the variation of the member
forces is in accordance with that of the down wind
direction. The transverse separator members and the
diagonal members below the separator panel are broken
first when the settlement value is up to about 10 mm.
As the settlement value increases to 80 mm, the axial
force of the diagonal member above the separator panel
reaches 120% of the critical value and the tower is in a
failure state.
C. Foundation Inclination
The tower can be rotated by a large amount with the rotation
of the large panel foundation. For this case, the large deformation option should be selected by NLGEOM/ON, which is a typ-

Fig. 11. Finite-element model without broken members.

TABLE II
AXIAL FORCES OF THE DIAGONAL MEMBERS

ical option for the large deformation analysis in ANSYS. The

effect of the geometry nonlinearity can be considered in structural analysis. The inclination of the tower can be indexed by
the vertical displacement at the tower foot when the large panel
foundation is inclining.
With increasing inclination, axial forces of the legs, the diagonal members, and the transverse separator members at the
bottom of the tower vary greatly. The stress of the members at
the tower head is relatively low under the working load cases.
The main members of the tower head are not broken in the inclination of the foundation. The axial forces variations of the legs,
the diagonal members, and the transverse separator members at
the bottom of the tower are mainly studied.
1) When the foundation inclination is in the down wind direction, the transverse separator member mainly bears
tension force. A variation of the forces of the transverse
separator member is presented in Fig. 12. Axial forces of
the members increase nonlinearly with increasing inclination values. The fitting curve of the axial forces is approximately a second-degree parabola. The axial force
reaches the critical value when the inclination value is
up to 1805 mm.

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Fig. 12. Axial force of the separator member with foundation inclination in the
down wind direction.

Fig. 13. Axial force of the leg member with foundation inclination.

Variation of the axial forces of the leg below the

transverse separator panel is shown in Fig. 13. The
axial forces of absolute values increase approximately
linearly with increasing inclination values. The axial
member force reaches the critical value when the inclination value is up to 1274 mm. The leg is broken earlier
than the transverse separator member.
Deflection of the tower varies greatly with the inclination of the large panel foundation. Distribution of the
tower deflection for the inclination of 1274 mm is presented in Fig. 14. The maximum value of the deflection
is 6405 mm at the cross arm of the tower head.
For the case of foundation inclination, stresses of the
tower head members change a little and are lower than
the design strength, and the tower head is in a safe state.
The deflection of the tower head is large. It is considered
that when the axial force of the leg or the transverse
separator reaches the critical value, the tower is broken.
So when the inclination value is up to 1274 mm, the
tower is in failure.
2) As for the direction of the foundation inclination being
against the wind, with the increasing inclination value,
the maximum axial force of the four legs below the
transverse separator panel decreases approximately
linearly. The transverse separator members and the
diagonal members below the separator panel are broken
when the inclination value is up to 1811 mm, and the
tower is in failure. A variation of the axial forces of the
transverse separator member is shown in Fig. 15.

Fig. 14. Deflection distribution of the transmission tower with foundation inclination (in millimeters).

Fig. 15. Axial force of the separator member with the foundation inclination
against the wind.

V. LIMITED VALUES OF FOUNDATION DEFORMATION

The analysis process for other load cases is the same with that
presented in Section IV. Limited values of the foundation deformation in the transverse direction and the longitudinal direction
of the transmission line are given in Table III. Limited values of
the nonuniform settlement and slip are given in Table IV.
The large panel foundation is not broken when the foundation
inclines, and the tower and the foundation deform as a whole
system. Based on the results in Table III, the limited values of
foundation inclination are relatively high and all exceed 1000
mm.
In combination with the working load cases, the limited
values of the settlement, inclination, and slip under 60 wind
load are the minimum. The 60 wind load case is the control
case of foundation deformation. According to the specifications
in [6], the limited value of the foundation deformation for the
analyzed tower is 60 mm. The calculated limited values of the
foundation deformation along the transverse and longitudinal
direction of the transmission line are 65 mm and 80 mm,
respectively, which is higher than the limited value in [6]. The
limited value of the nonuniform settlement is 44 mm which is
lower than the limited value in [6], and estimation of the stress
state for the tower according to [6] should be dangerous.
The leg opening varies with the slip of foundation, and the
limited value under this case is the minimum. As shown in
Fig. 16, under the same external loads, the limited values are
arrayed, descending as deformation along the longitudinal direction, deformation along the transverse direction, nonuniform
settlement, and horizontal slip.

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TABLE III
LIMITED VALUES FOR TRANSVERSE AND LONGITUDINAL
FOUNDATION DEFORMATION.

Fig. 17. Axial force of the diagonal member with righting rate.

VI. ANALYSIS OF TOWER RIGHTING

TABLE IV
LIMITED VALUES FOR NONUNIFORM SETTLEMENT
AND HORIZONTAL SLIP OF FOUNDATION

The tower is considered to be righted under installation load

cases. The structural analysis was carried out for the tower in
the righting process. The initial state is the stress state when the
foundation deformation reaches the limited values. The tower
foots are righting proportionally. If the settlement values or the
inclination values are not higher than the limited values, the
axial forces of the legs, the diagonal members, and the transverse separator members at the bottom of the tower increase
with increasing righting rate. The member forces are not higher
than the critical values, and the tower is in a safe state except
under the slip case.
According to the calculated results in Table IV, when the slip
value is up to 290 mm, the righting process of the tower begins.
Forces of the diagonal members above the transverse separator
panel vary greatly, and force variation of the diagonal member
is shown in Fig. 17. With an increasing righting rate, the force
state of the diagonal member is from tension to compressive.
While the righting rate is up to 59%, the diagonal member is
broken when the axial force reaches the critical value.
VII. CONCLUSION

Fig. 16. Limited values for foundation deformation (in millimeters).

1) For the working load cases of 90 wind, 60 wind,

10-mm accreted ice load, as well as the installation load
cases, the limited values of foundation settlement, inclination, and slip under 60 wind load are the minimum.
The 60 wind load case is the control case of foundation
deformation.
2) If the large panel foundation is not broken when the
foundation inclines, the tower and the foundation deform as a whole system. It is effective to ensure the
safety of the UHV tower in the goaf of the coal mine.
3) For the case of foundation inclination, the failure sequence is the transverse separator member at the bottom
of the tower, the diagonal member below the separator,
and the diagonal member above the separator. These
members should be strengthened for the structural design of the UHV towers in the goaf of the coal mine.
4) The leg opening varies with the slip of tower foundation, and the limited value under this load case is the
minimum. Under the same external loads, the limited
values are arrayed, descending as deformation along the
longitudinal direction, along with deformation along the
transverse direction, nonuniform settlement, and slip.

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5) When the settlement value or the inclination values are

not higher than the limited values, the member forces are
not higher than the critical values in the righting process,
and the tower is in a safe state except for the slip case.
For the case of slip, with the increasing righting rate,
the force state of the diagonal member is from tension
to compressive. Since the righting rate is up to 59%, the
diagonal member is broken when the force reaches the
critical value. The diagonal member should be strengthened before righting.
6) The FEA results are one of the useful secondary means
for the effective study of foundation deformation on the
analyzed tower in this paper. In further study, the FEA
analysis for the other types of towers and the prototype
or model test should be carried out.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the sponsor of the State Grid
Corporation of China.

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Fengli Yang was born in Hebei Province, China, on May 15, 1980. He received
the Ph.D. degree from the School of Civil Engineering of Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing, China.
In 2007, he joined the Engineering Mechanics Department, China Electric
Power Research Institute, Beijing. His research work has focused on the mechanical analysis and vibration control of the transmission tower-line system as
well as the application of new materials in transmission towers.

Jingbo Yang was born in Shanxi Province in China, on March 2, 1973. He

received the Ph.D. degree from the School of Mechanical Engineering of Beijing
University, Beijing, China.
In 2004, he joined the Engineering Mechanics Department, China Electric
Power Research Institute, Beijing. His research work has focused on the windinduced vibration analysis and vibration control of the transmission tower.

Junke Han was born in Shandong Province, China, on July 28, 1979. He received the M.Sc. degree from the School of Civil Engineering of Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, China.
In 2006, he joined the Engineering Mechanics Department, China Electric
Power Research Institute, Beijing. His research work has focused on the transmission-line design and vibration control of the transmission tower as well as
the application of new materials in transmission towers.

Zifu Zhang was born in Hebei Province, China, on January 7, 1978. He received
the M.Sc. degree from the School of Civil Engineering of Northeast Dianli University, Jilin, China.
In 2004, he joined the Engineering Mechanics Department, China Electric
Power Research Institute, Beijing. His research work has focused on transmission-line design and structural analysis.