OasisLMS

Unlike the commercial building and transportation sectors, the electric transmission industry does not have a unified code that explicitly covers design and construction of the various foundation types currently utilized to support electrical structures; there is no overarching professional group that leads this effort. Existing guide documents developed by various utility and non-utility organizations describe general design methodology for foundation types used in the electric power industry, but their application, relevance and approach vary significantly from utility to utility. For this reason, DFI established the Electric Power Systems Foundations Working Group in 2013 and upgraded the Group to Committee status in 2018 after significant growth in membership and activity.

This document summarizes the state of practice for the design and construction of electric system transmission lines for the purpose of aiding with future development of guidelines for the industry. This document is founded around recent industry state of the practice surveys performed by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) (DiGioia 2010) and by this committee (Kandaris and Davidow 2015). Discussions provided are extended narratives of the various design and construction topics from the surveys and are based on the engineering judgment and knowledge of the committee members, along with many industry professionals who drafted sections and provided input via review to the document.

Keywords: foundations, transmission line, structure, electric, design

Deep Foundations Institute Electric Power System Foundations Committee

Guidance Document