Comportamento estrutural de torres de transmissão em aço inoxidável.

Abstract

In recent years, the increasing use of stainless steel as a structural element is attracting great interest of clients, architects and engineers. Despite its still high initial cost, its application in construction is replacing other traditional steels. Its high corrosion resistance when compared to carbon steel, greatly increases design efficiency when cost is considered. His aesthetic, providing increasingly challenging ways, not only for its environmental appeal, generates less waste to the environment and make the planet cleaner. Transmission towers have a very important role in energy supply. These structures are responsible for the transport of the energy generated in power plants to consumers. Therefore, any system failure due to structural collapse of transmission towers will result in sanctions by the regulator as there will be interruption of power supply. Thus, it is important to maintain the structural integrity of these towers with preventive maintenance. In contrast, the towers are being built in areas with limited access, making it difficult or burdening any intervention that may be performed. Thus, this work proposes to examine the technical and economic advantages of transmission towers using stainless steel in structural elements. Combining a structure where durability is an important factor to be considered with a steel known for its high corrosion resistance appears to be a rational solution. For suitable values to investigate the advantages of stainless steel, an existing tower was used as a reference where the structural elements were sized using galvanized carbon steel angles. In addition, two more towers were selected with different heights to make the case studies. Therefore, three towers were designed for each type of steel include carbon and stainless steel. To investigate the economic advantages, cost analyzes were performed taking into account the initial investment for the construction of the towers and the costs related to preventive maintenance to be performed throughout life. When analyzing the results obtained in this study, stainless steel has proven to be an efficient solution in economic terms because of its durability resulting in a lower cost compared to the solution with carbon steel.