14.1.3 Conductor Slack The difference between the conductor length, L, and the span length, S, i called slack. The parabolic ‘equations for slack may be found by combining the preceding parabolic equations for conductor length, Land sag, D: (any While slack has units of length, itis often expressed as the percentage of slack relative to the span length, Note that slack is related to the cube of span length for a given H/wrratio and to the square of sag for a given span. Fora series of spans having the same H1/w ratio, the total slack is largely determined by the longest spans. Its for this reason that the ruling span is nearly equal tothe longest span rather than the average span in a series of suspension spans Equation (14.7) can be inverted to obtain a more interesting relationship showing the dependence of sag, D, upon slack, L-S: Asa=5) E (148) As can be seen from the preceding equation, small changes in slack typically yield large changes in conductor sg 14.1.4 Inelined Spans Inclined spans may be analyzed sing essentially the same equations that were used for level spans. The catenary equation for the conductor height above the low point in the span is the same, However the span i considered to consist of two separate sections, one to the right ofthe low point andthe other to the lft as shown in Fig. 14.2 (Winkelmann, 1939). The shape ofthe catenary relative to the low point is ‘unaffected by the difference in suspension point elevation (span inclination) In each direction from the low point, the conductor elevation, (x), relative to the low points given by: (a 2H (49) FIGURE 142 Inclined catenary span