4 ms·
It's a combination of heavy and tense, but yes - Trasmission towers are typically overengineered for their load, but not so much that you can go adding addition
by GauntletWizard 3y ago
It's a combination of heavy and tense, but yes - Trasmission towers are typically overengineered for their load, but not so much that you can go adding additional conductor strands to them. Further, there's significant distance requirements between strands - otherwise you get arcing.
- eru 3y agoThey are overengineered also to have a margin of safety, and you don't want to eat into that margin of safety without good reason.
- Ekaros 3y agoSpecially when that overengineering is for things like wind load which of extremes we can expect to become more common.
- ars 3y agoThe distance doesn't matter, the additional cable would be at the same voltage as the one adjacent to it.
- GerryB 3y agoThe different lines are at the same AC voltage, but have different phases (almost always three phases), so there's an instantaneous potential difference between them. The lines need to keep the conductors seperated to prevent potential arcing chances to essentially zero even in wet weather. The higher the voltage, the more seperation is needed.
- ben_w 3y agoMy mental image for this whole thread is a UK steel pylons with 7 sets of cable — 3 groups of 4 wires on the left, same on the right, and a lone cable on the top. I assume that's 3 because 3 phase. But the point is, each is a group of 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overhead_power_line#/media/File:Pylon_ds.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overhead_power_line#/media/Fil... I think the question is: can towers holding single wires for each (phase?), support e.g. four like this?