How's it hanging? – The Power Line Catenary

by Ryan Deputy

Submitted : Spring 2012

Over the course of my project, I was faced with many challenging calculations for the forces acting on a catenary. Through hefty research and real world analysis, I have substantially increased my knowledge in power line system engineering. This is the first project I have done that brings out the skills I am getting from my engineering education. The steps for this project were to first identify the equation for the shape of the free-hanging power line. After further research and discovery of the equations for the forces, I analyzed a familiar section of power line. Using scales I created a Cartesian coordinate system to break the forces down, and calculate their values. The conclusion to this project is that it was a great success. I learned a substantial amount of information about the forces on power lines.

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