COMPARATIVE STUDY OF MECHANICAL BEHAVIOUR OF LIGHTING POLES WITH FLAT AND STAMPED FLANGES

This paper presents a comparative study of mechanical behaviour of two types of steel lighting poles. The first type has a thick flat flange plate and the second type is with thin stamped flange. For this purpose, an experimental program was performed in order to apply bending load to the poles. Applied load and deformations of the tested poles and those of the flanges were fully measured. In parallel with the experimental study a numerical modelling program has been carried out to investigate further the structural behaviour of poles under loading. The numerical models, which were developed using the nonlinear finite element package MSC NASTRAN, showed the capability to replicate the key test results and the full experimental load– deformation. Both experimental and numerical results revealed that using stamped flange reduces overall manufacturing cost of lighting pole than flat flange plate ensuring at the same time compliance with international standards.