A smartphone vibration-based technique for measuring and monitoring tension forces within guy wires supporting steel towers of electricity transmission lines

Steel towers are among the critical components required to manage power flows through safe, efficient and reliable electrical transmission networks. Many steel towers are guyed self-supporting towers, the structural performance and safe behaviour of which depend on the tension force of guy cables. This paper will describe the development and experimental validation of a new fast and reliable technique to assess the tension within the cables supporting guyed towers for transmission lines. The developed technique is based on cable accelerations measured using smartphones, then FFT-transformed into the frequency domain to obtain the natural frequencies of the guy wires. The algorithms programmed into the Smartphone will be discussed and compared in terms of efficiency and accuracy. An equation is used next to determine the tension within guy wires based on the obtained vibration frequencies. Various equations are tested and verified against finite element analysis results of guy wires with various configurations and properties. Comparison of the results to those from simplified methods is also presented. The proposed technique was validated experimentally in the laboratory and under in-situ conditions of actual guyed towers of existing transmission lines. Several results will be presented and discussed to illustrate the performance of the technique proposed in terms of efficiency and accuracy.