Cables between pylons always dip but surely a lot of money could be saved if they were pulled taut.
In: Engineering
They’re pulled as taut as they can be.
There’s a couple reasons for the slack.
1. any cable, no matter how tight you pull it, will have SOME slack, that’s just physics.
2. Imagine they were in fact pulled as tight as physically possible without breaking, like guitar strings from pole to pole. This would cause constant stress on the pylons, or telephone poles, or whatever they’re strung between, which could lead to bending, breaking, or other structural damage over time (imagine an old guitar neck that’s been warped cause it was left strung for years in
storage). It’s much easier to re string cable, than it would be to repair/replace the pylons themselves.
3. Also, having no slack means there’s no wiggle room for unforeseen circumstances. High stormy winds, seismic activity, heavy snowfall, vehicle collisions; any number of things could cause strain on the stretched cables. Without any slack the % of times the cables would snap and detach from the pylons would skyrocket, and you’d have downed live power lines, which are super unsafe.
Imagine if every time a car struck a telephone pole, the power lines hanging above snapped and came tumbling down with the collision. If that could be avoided most of the time by introducing a little extra cable between them, seems like a pretty easy choice to make.
Latest Answers