Problems related to telecommunication tower foundation

Abstract

Telecommunication towers are very much essential due to rapid growth of the Telecommunication Technology. Towers consist of steel super structure & reinforced foundation. Normally, the tower foundation constitutes about 20 to 40 percent of the total cost of tower. Cost of the foundation can be reduced by reducing their sizes. But when reducing size its stability also reduced. So, the design of economical & reliable foundation is a difficult task. Several design criteria should be checked when designing of foundation. One criterion is, design against uplifting failure. This study identified that Uplifting force is the most dominant force which the tower foundation is subjected. So, there is a more chance to fail the tower by uplifting rather than failed by bearing, sliding etc. As a solution for increasing the Uplifting capacity undercut phenomenon is provided in this study. Undercut type foundation has lesser dimension than without undercut foundation. Because it has higher uplifting resistance compare with without undercut foundation. This concept was proved by conducting model testing. For model testing individual pad foundation were used. According to the test results Failure Load is 200 – 300% higher than the Design Load. In this way the effectiveness of the undercut phenomenon can be shown to overcome the problem in tower foundation design.