ENGINEERING SERVICES

Not just a product supplier – Civilmart Poles in-house engineering team, with a combined 60+ years of concrete pole design experience, provides a range of services to support our products.

 

ENGINEERING SUPPORT

Civilmart Power Poles have been employed by Australian utilities across their transmission and distribution networks for decades, with countless concrete poles in service today with next-to-zero ongoing maintenance costs. Supporting our products is our in-house engineering team, providing a list of services including:

  • One-on-one, direct communication with project designers to support the correct pole selection.
  • PLS-Pole libraries (also available directly from the Powerline Systems website under Concrete Poles) & technical data packs.
  • Communication Pole Foundation design and pole certification.
  • Customisation of standard pole designs, allowing variations to length, strength and amount of pole sections to meet site constraints.
  • Communication Pole strengthening options.
  • On-site inspection, structural analysis and reporting of damaged in-service poles, and rectification options to avoid replacement.

PLS-POLE libraries, and technical data packs, are available for our Power Pole ranges.

Contact Civilmart Poles to request more information.

IMPACT REPAIR

In service since 1998, a 20m length, 24kNu pole at a Bengalla Mine site suffered impact damage from heavy machinery operating in close proximity. Recognizing the critical nature of the poles’ operation, and that an outage to replace the pole was out of the question, the Mine contacted Civilmart.

After a thorough evaluation by the Pole engineering team, it was determined that the reinforcement had largely survived the impact, and the pole still retained more than 90% of its original design strength.

The team provided several repair solutions, each prioritizing the necessity of sustaining the operation of the pole, whilst being easily to implement and cost effective.

The client repaired the pole as per one of the repair options provided, and the pole remained in-service throughout the repair.

COMMS POLE UPGRADE

At Bert Saunders Park in Blacktown, Western Sydney, one of Civilmart’s key customers needed to find a way to increase the strength of an existing Civilmart pole (to accommodate new, larger and heavier antenna equipment) with a minimal outage time.

Attaching strengthening apparatus directly to the existing pole was out of the question, due to the existing cabling running up the external pole face having to be removed for this to be completed.

Civilmart Poles engineering team thought ‘outside the box’, developing the ‘Strong-back’ system, using a new secondary pole, installed close nearby to remain within the tight footprint confines of the site, and connected to the existing pole at height, creating an ‘A-Frame’ type structure that works together to vastly increase overall strength.

Free-standing single (SSB) or double (DSB) StrongBack systems have been developed, and depending on the pole size, the Strongback system suits overloaded pole for up to 200% of its existing capacity.

 SITE INSPECTIONS

The Civilmart engineering team was engaged by Cadia Mines in Orange, NSW, to complete a site inspection and provide a structural report on a 30m 32kN RC pole, installed in August 2000, where two pole stay wires broke during a high wind event.

The clients initial reaction was that the pole must have received permanent damage when overloaded and contacted Civilmart to request a replacement pole, however, the existing poles’ ability to deflect under high loads allowed the conductor tensions to reduce to lower, tolerable values.

The engineering team determined in its report that the pole did not require replacement and was still expected to have a service life between 80-100 years based on the exposure classifications on site.

After the stay wires were restored, the autogenous healing process of concrete saw the sealing of any remaining minor flexural cracking.

Click HERE to learn more about our product ranges and manufacturing capabilities.