Strong ground movement induced by mining activities and its effect on power transmission structures

Surface mining activities may introduce damages to nearby infrastructure. Concerns are put forward by the power company about structural integrity of electric power transmission structures in areas where coal mining activities cause strong ground vibrations. Common practice in the power industry is to limit ground motion by specifying maximum Peak Particle Velocity. So far, there is a lack of industry-wide recognized guidelines on how ground vibration limits should be set for the transmission structures. In order to develop a defense strategy to protect power transmission lines against strong ground motions in mining areas, a systematic research work was conducted to establish strong ground vibration characteristics and to study impacts of ground excitations on transmission pole structures. Ground movements were recorded using geophones and wireless tri-axial sensing units. The process of generating ground motion response spectra via analyzing actual ground motion measurements is described in the paper. These spectra developed based on peak particle velocities were used as a basis for spectral analysis performed using validated Finite Element models to obtain structural displacements, reactions and stress states of the transmission pole structures in the mining sites. A quantitative ground motion limit was established by comparing structural responses with the corresponding design requirements.